It is close to 10 years since the horrible terrorist attacks on the United States. At the 10 year anniversary, many politicians and mass media will try to drum up patriotism and unity by forcing our nation to remember the reality of these brutal attacks. All of this will make me quite sad, because in my view, we have not learned the right lessons from this tragic event. Here are my views.
Box Cutters
As we all know 19 men boarded 4 different planes in Boston, MA, and then successfully hijacked all 4 planes with nothing more than box cutters. Basically way back in 2001, it was possible for 4 guys to hijack a plane with box cutters. The worst part was the plane that made it all the way to the Pentagon, which is somewhere around a 2 hour flight. The 4 hijackers were able to subdue the entire crew and all the passengers on the plane for more than 2 hours with the threat of paper cuts. The only bright spot (if you can call it that) was the plane that crashed somewhere in the Pennsylvania country side. The passengers were able to over take the plane so that it was not able to carry out the last part of its mission. Little attention or tribute is paid to the flight that crashed in Pennsylvania, but in my view, these are the true heroes of 9/11. They stood up to the box cutters.
The only true hope was for the crew of the planes to unite with the passengers, and overwhelm through sheer force the hijackers. I honestly believe that the Pentagon disaster could have been averted if everyone united. After all, we are the United States.
TSA
But instead of learning the true lesson, which is that we will unite against terrorism, our government under George W Bush decided an entirely different tact. They decided that Americans were not following enough rules. If all Americans follow enough rules then somehow we will be safer. If we take off our shoes at the airport, we are safer. If we throw away a 12 oz bottle of saline solution, we are safer. And if we turn off our iPod, we are safer. This is the wrong message to send to Americans. When faced with a threat such as the 9/11 terrorists, we as Americans need to unite and use our survival instincts and we will survive.
It gets worse, since unemployment in 2001 was rather low. So Bush had to quickly cobble together this new TSA rule-enforcing monster behemoth. I think it is safe to say that the TSA recruits at the time, were not representive of the American work force as a whole. They were the ones that could be hired quickly. That is the people that were unemployed during an economic boom. Or worse yet, working at TSA was a step up on their career ladder.
The reality is that TSA is a symbol of many things wrong in America and our government. TSA is probably the #1 way that we interface with our federal government, and many Americans feel that we can do much better. I call TSA a placebo. By that I mean, that in reality, TSA does nothing to improve our security, but in some weird way, it makes us feel better. Well in aggregate. Speaking for myself, TSA does not make me feel good about our security one bit.
Iraq
Worse yet, somehow Bush’s brain had a major malfunction, and he decided that somehow if we attacked Iraq, we Americans would be safer. Somehow he got all of Congress to go along with this absurd idea. Thousands of American lives and trillions of dollars later, we all know that Iraq had nothing to do with our safety. We can speculate about Bush’s motives, but we all can agree is that he sold the war based on America’s fear. Big government works best when the people are fearful. But this is not the America that I love. We are the greatest nation on earth. We are the leaders of the free world. We have nothing to be afraid of other than ourselves. As our fear consumed us, the Iraq war became our horrible reality.
Hole in the Ground
Perhaps the largest embarrassment of 9/11 is the monster hole at Ground Zero. It took less than a year for the Pentagon to be rebuilt, but after 10 years, Ground Zero is still a hole in the ground. We are talking 10 years! A full decade, and we have not made any progress whatsoever. From what I understand, there are disputing interests on how to proceed with rebuilding Ground Zero. We are unable to put aside our individual interests for the good of the nation.
Racism
Because it took so long for us to nail Osama bin Laden, America has had ample time to foment a new type of hatred toward Muslims. Some of our most popular news hosts claim that Muslims attacked America on 9/11. There is no doubt in my mind, or any one else’s, that there is a new racism in America towards Muslims. It came to a boiling point related to an innocuous Mosque being build near Ground Zero. The country went into a media induced hysteria fanning the flames of racism. It was horrible to watch, and it is certainly not the America we all can be proud of.
I often think of Pearl Harbor where America was brutally attacked by Japan. Far more lives were lost and the attacks were more brutal. Yet today, we harbor no ill will toward Japan. In fact it is the opposite. Japan is one of our largest trading partners, and there are many Japanese that live near the Pearl Harbor Memorial site. Somehow we averted the racism bullet in Pearl Harbor, but with 9/11, we bit the bullet big time.
If you ask any Muslim whether America’s attitude toward Muslims has changed, it is more than obvious. I would like to think that America is better than this, but maybe we are not.
Obama
I am sure that Obama will honor the thousands of victims of 9/11 and all of their loved ones that survive them. I am sure that Obama will remind us that he is an American too and he will try to unite us because of the common pain we feel. But there is much more to do. America has lost its way since 9/11. We are not the same America and many of the more base elements are prevailing. We are capable of much much more and my expectations are very low that Obama will try to plot a new and better direction for the country.
That is impressive! I’m not sure I even realized he was taking photos of me, either.