Twenty Devastating Years Later

We are about to encounter the twentieth anniversary of 9-11. I use the word, “encounter” for a specific reason.  Many will say, “celebrate” or something like that. Such verbs are completely mistaken. Remembered, yes. Celebrated, no. 

First of all, and most obvious, the horrors of that day are certainly no occasion for anything approaching a “celebration.” I can understand celebrating a birthday, or a World Series win, or Tucker Carlson losing his ability to speak. But 9-11? I don’t think so. The families of those who perished will hardly be in a celebratory mood.

I don’t want to see flag-waving this September 11. I suggest that we use that day this year to focus on the lessons learned from how we have reacted to it up until now.

The other countries around the planet have been attacked and re-attacked and re-attacked again over their history. Our good fortune (and geographic location) has allowed us to escape that history.  September 11 was the exception. It is understandable, then, why that event should have had such a traumatic effect on our national consciousness and provided a trigger for national pride.  But the other countries know better. They don’t “celebrate” the times when they were invaded.  Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey don’t get all hopped up about the time the Mongols came to town.

And what has our devotion to 9-11 achieved? It gave us the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.  If there is any time in the last twenty years when we should finally realize that our reaction to 9-11 has brought us catastrophe, this is the time.  As we watch the withdrawal/retreat/surrender from Afghanistan, it is abundantly clear that we have wasted our time; wasted trillions of dollars; and, worse yet, wasted more lives there than tragically died on the day that caused the conflicts in the first place. The Taliban was in control when we went there, and they are in control now.  The people of Iraq were suffering under a terrible government and saddled with ethnic warfare.  There are similarly suffering and saddled now. 

Yes, it was important that we went after Al Queda and its leader, Bin Laden. We couldn’t let ourselves be attacked and then fail to respond.  But that attack happened twenty years ago, and Bin Laden has been dead for over a decade. So, what good comes of our continuing to remember that terrible day in September of 2001 at this point? Because it was terrible? No. What the remembrance creates is a furtherance of the bellicosity that led us into our twenty years of disaster and can potentially lead us into more.

So, won’t it be better if this 9-11 we set aside our celebratory nationalistic inclinations and use the day to ponder how mistaken our reaction to it was. Only then will we more meaningfully feel sympathy for the lives lost – lost not only here, but in Iraq and Afghanistan as well. By doing that, we will be more likely to avoid losing more.