by Berry Friesen (September 11, 2015)
It has been fourteen years since terrorism in New York City, in
Washington D.C. and in the skies above Pennsylvania took nearly 3,000 lives.
That was our final test as Americans, our last opportunity to
assert ourselves and insist on integrity and accountability from the people and
structures in which we place our trust.
We failed miserably.
Our leaders led the way, of course. Ted Grimsrud, author of The Good War That Wasn’t—And Why It Matters, identifies the summer
of 1990 as their point of decisive failure.
It was a time, Grimsrud says, when “the Soviet withdrawal from the
Cold War helped move the world closer to peace than it had been any time since
Hitler gained power” in the 1930s. The
Soviet Union released its hold on the nations of Eastern Europe and even
allowed its constituent republics to declare their independence. Both the Soviet Union and the USA reduced
their nuclear arsenals. The “doomsday
clock” was turned back to seventeen minutes before midnight, its earliest point
ever. There was much talk of cutting military spending and the upcoming “peace
dividend.”
That August, the Iraqi army under the command of Saddam Hussein
invaded Kuwait. He had worked closely
with US officials over a decade on an agenda that included the invasion of Iran
and the use of chemical weapons to gas the Shia, the Kurds and the Iranians. The U.S. ambassador to Iraq had led Hussein
to believe that the USA no more objected to Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait than to
prior Iraqi atrocities. But this time, U.S.
President George H.W. Bush described Hussein as Hitler incarnate; the Gulf War
began five months later.
The USA has been at war in the Middle East ever since—a quarter
century through a dozen Congresses led by each of our major political parties,
ten years under a Republican president, nearly fifteen under a Democrat. Needless to say, there has been no peace
dividend.
Grimsrud notes that throughout the seventy years since the end of
World War II, whenever peace seemed close at hand, something always came up to make
Americans feel afraid and thus save the military-industrial complex from being
cut. The Iraqi invasion of Kuwait perfectly
fit this pattern.
Still, 9/11 was different. It
was such a visible event, right here in our country, and such a complete debacle
from one end of the government to the other:
visa control, border security, the CIA, the FBI, the NSA, airport
security, air defense, Pentagon defense, White House communications, public
safety.
And then, after this avalanche of so-called errors, the entire matter
was “solved” by the identification of all the guilty parties within a few hours
of the attacks.
The official investigation compounded the calamity. The steel from the destroyed buildings was
shipped off to China before it could be adequately inspected. Witness reports
of explosions and molten metal were ignored and discounted. Routine forensic tests for explosives were
not conducted. Pentagon officials
repeatedly lied to the 9/11 Commission about the failure of air defenses. The President and the Vice-President refused
to testify publicly or under oath. Critical
witnesses were not called and critical material evidence was ignored. The Commission’s final report offered no
comment whatsoever on how or why all of the massive steel supports of the Twin
Towers failed so quickly, completely and simultaneously, nor did it even mention the third
skyscraper that fell into a heap of rubble that day, allegedly due to office
fires.
Many New York City first responders gave their lives that day in
attempts to save others; many who survived have since died of diseases acquired
that day as they breathed air declared “safe” by public officials.
Yet not a single individual in the various chains of command was ever
disciplined for failure to carry out required duties and many were inexplicably
promoted.
Obviously, there was (and is) a lot to question about 9/11. But we, the American people, have meekly allowed
the questions to be shoved aside, even joining the media’s ridicule of anyone
who objected.
Now it seems too late to demand answers; the American people have shown
they don’t care if their leaders mislead them, even about matters of life and
death. Let the wars go on, let the
military-industrial complex bleed us dry, let our leaders tell us lies that cause
a million deaths, it doesn’t matter.
How could it not matter?
Because we Americans no longer perceive the difference between what historian
Andrew Bacevich describes as “our country” and “the
state.” In other words, we can’t imagine
an “us” that isn’t defined by the conceit that the USA is the world’s indispensable nation. Within such a worldview, embracing
lies is a small price to pay.
The Bible describes that state of mind as a kind of bleak and
barren captivity. For those who desire
liberation, it describes a costly but authentic new life. As we reflect with shame on all that 9/11 has
shown us about ourselves, do we also dare to ask whether at long last, we desire new life?
