"Truth is the enemy of power, now and always." - Edward Abbey
Terrorism Today
One year ago today, nearly 4,000 people died when terrorists hijacked 4 planes and used them to attack the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. We and the rest of the world looked on in shock as 19 suicidal maniacs shook the foundations of our society. Everyone felt that afterwards, everything would be different, that Americans, baptised by fire and brimestone, were a changed people, more focused the world around them, on the things that truly mattered. September 11th was to be a watershed event.
And it was. On that day, we saw firsthand the depth of hatred for the United States. What did we do about it? Well, we continued to prop up repressive, corrupt and dictatorial regimes while spouting rhetoric about democracy and freedom, even while at home, we began to undermine the rule of law. We continued to act on international issues with an arrogant disregard for the views of other nations, and an almost imbecile belief that we were powerful enough to make rules which no one else can question.
We have begun the slippery slope downward. Abroad, we continue to ignore the root causes of terrorism, even while we stir up resentment in new areas, and foolishly squander the goodwill gained after 9/11. At home, we begin to set the stage for a police state. We allow arbitray arrests and detentions, secret evidence, all those things we used to scold other nations for. True the numbers are small, and for those without ties to the Arab or Muslim world, they may seem a small price to pay. But remember, the precedent has been established. Who knows whose door they may knock on next? Yet nobody, it seems, notices, or cares enough to speak up. The right wing, so vocal when gun rights were threatened, seems to care little for the rights of the individual. The left, faced with continual questioning of it patriotism, keeps largely silent. And the masses of the American people? They go about their daily lives, exactly as our President urged them to do, worried occasionally, angry just as occasionally, but for the most part content, leaving those in power with a green light to do as they please.
Fundamentally, before 9/11/01, we were still, generally, a nation of laws, not of men. Today that simply isn't so. We do not follow international laws. We do not follow local laws. Our laws come from the mouths of George Bush, Dick Cheney, John Ashcroft and Don Rumsfeld, not from the Constitution of the United States, may it rest in peace. The biggest tragedy of 9/11 is not that 4,000 people died, but that they died, and no good will come of it. The nation did not pull together, it began to pull apart. It didn't wise up, it continued the same policies which encouraged and allowed the terrorists to attack. Rather than upholding its ideals and laws, the nation has begun to mortgage them for a perception security. Make no mistake about it: we are not safer today than we were before 9/11/01. Indeed: the terrorists are well on their way to succeeding in destroying us, having caused us to abandon many of our nation's basic principles and goals. Perhaps we shall stamp them out. Perhaps not. But how we are to stamp out the fascism that has taken root here, I cannot see.
Condolences to the families and friends of those who died on 9/11/01. God bless.
