In memoriam

Seeing as how it's a couple of days from the fifth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks...

On September 11th, at 8:46:30 a.m., Eastern Daylight Time, a Boeing 767 loaded with 24,000 gallons of jet fuel smashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center, setting in motion a series of events which would kill 3,000 people.

"Why would someone do this?"

The country was in chaos, we wandered in a daze. We were afraid, we were confused. We wanted revenge. Everyone knew it was Muslims. Americans and even Canadians went out and attacked Muslims, burned mosques ... and even a Hindu temple. If they had a turban, they were the enemy.

President Bush promised us on the same day of the attacks: "The search is under way for those who have perpetrated these evil acts ... we will make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these attacks and those who sheltered them."

He was of course referring to Afghanistan. Were there any Afghanis involved in the attacks? No. Did it really matter? No. The Taliban had sheltered bin Laden, therefore they were a good target. America could not afford to be seen as weak. We were no Ozymandius.

The war machine started up. Media began immediately to demonize the Taliban. We read articles about religious oppression, saw documentaries on forced veiling. All true. But what was the media propaganda really telling us? Let's not feel bad for Afghanistan. We're going to liberate them (not that we cared about liberating them before September 11th). Two years later the war machine ramps up to invade Iraq, and for the same reason. Liberation.

Talibani Afghanistan and Baathist Iraq were truly two of the most oppressive nations in the world, carrying out human rights violations and atrocities on a genocidal scale. It is sorrowful that people have to live under that kind of fear. But it's been four years since we entered Afghanistan, three years since we entered Iraq. Are these people better off? Is the world any safer? Are terrorists giving up?

The question we asked the day of the attacks is the right one: "Why would someone do this?" Why do people from these obscure nations feel it necessary to travel all the way around the world and kill their selves and kill us? We are good people. We don't want to be involved in their problems. Let them be Muslim. Let us buy our Gucci bags and go to the movies and see fireworks on the 4th of July. We're not hurting anyone.

But you look at a European country like Norway, with its high standard of living and healthy lifestyle. They buy their Gucci bags and go to the movies and watch fireworks on June 7th. Why is no one attacking them?

Because Norway isn't supporting tyrannical governments in the Middle East. Norway doesn't try its hand at nation building and forced democracy. Norway doesn't hamstring UN efforts to make peace in Palestine or in Africa. Norway isn't the world's largest supplier of arms to thugs and dictators. Norway doesn't give a billion dollars a year to Israel and Egypt. And Norway doesn't condemn a population to starvation and depravity just because they don't like its president.

I love America, but I don't love what we do. We do not always wear a white hat or ride a white horse, though we think we do. Our intentions are most often self-centered and our actions are typically bullying. So the question we have to ask ourselves, five years from the attacks, is this: "If we're acting exactly the same way we did from 1944 until now, can we expect the results to change?"

The Greeks had a sanity test where a man was given a bucket and led to a stream that was filling up a pool. He was asked to drain the pool using the bucket. If the man tried to scoop out the water, he was considered insane. If he tried to dam the stream first, he was sane. I think we're bailing water here with all of our efforts at security and policy. It's only a matter of time before someone strikes us again.