Remembering 9/11: Crying and Cringing

Yesterday marked the 10th anniversary of the September 11th terrorist attacks. Three thousand people lost their lives that day, and over eight thousand civilians and service members have died overseas in the wars that followed. My hat is off to the brave men and women that serve our country in some of the most dangerous places in the world, especially knowing that they are defending the very liberty that allows me to write so freely about such an important issue.

However, my hat is NOT off to our political leaders a decade ago. When we finally found Osama bin Laden this year, the Pakistani government took flak for, at best, having been negligent enough in their security duties to let bin Laden set up camp in their own back yard, or, at worst, having an active role in keeping him hidden. Similarly, I accuse the Bush administration for being, at best, ignorant enough of the intelligence provided to let such a tragedy occur or, at worst, turning a blind eye to the point of complicity in the events that took place. I'm leaning towards that latter based on the previous stated goals of the architects of the Iraq war.

In 1998, members of the Project for a New American Century, a neoconservative think tank, which included the future Bush administration secretary of defense, deputy secretary of defense, ambassador to the United Nations,  and deputy secretary of state, wrote a letter to President Clinton urging him to remove Saddam Hussein from power using a "full complement of diplomatic, political, and military efforts." On pages 50-51 of a study that was released by the same group exactly a year before the attacks on September 11th emphasizes that "creating tomorrow's dominant force" is a transformation that will be a slow process "absent some catalyzing and catastrophic event - like a new Pearl Harbor." Given that the stated aims of the group, whose membership also includes former vice-presidents Dick Cheney and Dan Quayle and former governor Jeb Bush, are to "increase defense spending significantly" and "challenge regimes hostile to our interests and values", it comes as no surprise that after the most significant homeland attack against the U.S. since Pearl Harbor, defense spending soared and the administration made a case to invade Iraq.

This all could be a coincidence, but logically, it's hard for me to believe that a hawkish conservative group whose members occupied seats in the Pentagon, the White House, the United Nations, and the Bush family dinner table would let an opportunity to accomplish so many of their violent goals slip by just because some innocent American lives may be lost. I find it despicable not just because of the aggressive methods that allows this end to justify the means, but also because the curtailing of civil liberties and the consolidation of the media that took place after 9/11 have pushed any voices of dissent so far outside the mainstream that they are often mistaken as unpatriotic.

PS - I love you America. I won't give up on you if you won't give up on me.