Remembering 9-11 22 years later

 On 9-11-2001, Americans were stunned and highly offended when, after decades of meddling in other countries and destabilizing them with impunity for our own gain, someone had finally succeeded in attacking and destabilizing ours.

September 11th was a day of horror and heroism, when the few Americans suddenly thrust into the jaws of history met certain death with a sense of duty and service to their fellow citizens, while the rest of us had to watch helplessly. The passengers on Flight 93 and the first responders in New York engaged directly. No doubt the military and intelligence services were busy, but without concrete action they could take. The wider audience could only devour what news we could get, and wonder what would be next.

The recollection of great national unity is a myth. On September 12th I walked into my favorite coffee shop to find people shouting at each other over what country to bomb first. Anyone vaguely resembling a Muslim had a target on them. The culture of xenophobia got a surge of nutrients on which it still feeds.

In many ways, 9-11-01 brought us 11-8-2016. Predictably, we had our chance to be thoughtful and measured in our response, and ran off shooting instead. The architects of the attack knew this about us. While just under 3,000 people died in the attacks themselves, the death toll resulting worldwide is in the millions. Someone needed to die for what “they” had done to us, and it almost didn’t matter who.

Suicide bombers are not noble and heroic. They represent a sickness in the human psyche that comes out not just in spectacular events like 9-11, but in every sad and maddening murder suicide, whether it’s in a small apartment and barely makes the evening news, or a school or shopping mall or house of worship that triggers thoughts and prayers from sanctimonious politicians who intend to do nothing more.

It was never too soon to look inward and reflect on what the 9-11 attacks could tell us about our position and influence in the world, and it’s not too late, although it is too late for the casualties of our long wars since then. We learn to fit ourselves together in the finite space of this planet or we destroy it all in the battle for dominance.