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 Sept. 11 and ‘A New Birth of Freedom’Posted on Sep 7, 2011
After we honor the 10th anniversary of the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, we need to leave the day behind. As a nation we have looked back for too long. We learned lessons from the attacks, but so many of them were wrong. The last decade was a detour that left our nation weaker, more divided and less certain of itself. Reflections on the meaning of the horror and the years that followed are inevitably inflected by our own political or philosophical leanings. It’s a critique that no doubt applies to my thoughts as well. We see what we choose to see and use the event as we want to use it. This does nothing to honor those who died and those who sacrificed to prevent even more suffering. In the future, the anniversary will best be reserved as a simple day of remembrance in which all of us humbly offer our respect for the anguish and the heroism of those individuals and their families. But if we continue to place 9/11 at the center of our national consciousness, we will keep making the same mistakes. Our nation’s future depended on far more than the outcome of a vaguely defined “war on terrorism,” and still does. Al-Qaida is a dangerous enemy. But our country and the world were never threatened by the caliphate of its mad fantasies. We asked for great sacrifice over the last decade from the very small portion of our population who wear the country’s uniform, particularly the men and women of the Army and the Marine Corps. We should honor them, too. And, yes, we should pay tribute to those in the intelligence services, the FBI and our police forces who have done such painstaking work to thwart another attack. Advertisement Forgive me, but I find it hard to forget former President George W. Bush’s 2004 response to Sen. John Kerry’s comment that “the war on terror is less of a military operation, and far more of an intelligence-gathering and law-enforcement operation.” Bush retorted: “I disagree—strongly disagree. ... After the chaos and carnage of September the 11th, it is not enough to serve our enemies with legal papers. With those attacks, the terrorists and their supporters declared war on the United States of America, and war is what they got.” What The Washington Post called “an era of endless war” is what we got, too. Bush, of course, understood the importance of “intelligence gathering” and “law enforcement.” His administration presided over a great deal of both, and his supporters spoke, with justice, of his success in staving off further acts of terror. Yet he could not resist the temptation to turn on Kerry’s statement of the obvious. Thus was an event that initially united the nation used, over and over, to aggravate our political disharmony. This is also why we must put it behind us. In the flood of anniversary commentary, notice how often the term “the lost decade” has been invoked. We know now, as we should have known all along, that American strength always depends first on our strength at home—on a vibrant, innovative and sensibly regulated economy, on levelheaded fiscal policies, on the ability of our citizens to find useful work, on the justice of our social arrangements. This is not “isolationism.” It is a common sense that was pushed aside by the talk of “glory” and “honor,” by utopian schemes to transform the world by abruptly reordering the Middle East—and by our fears. While we worried that we would be destroyed by terrorists, we ignored the larger danger of weakening ourselves by forgetting what made us great. We have no alternative from now on but to look forward and not back. This does not dishonor the fallen heroes, and Lincoln explained why at Gettysburg. “We can not dedicate—we can not consecrate—we can not hallow—this ground,” he said. “The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract.” The best we could do, Lincoln declared, was to commit ourselves to “a new birth of freedom.” This is still our calling.
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By EmileZ, September 9, 2011 at 10:02 am Link to this comment
That super corny photo goes so well with the super corny words. I feel all warm and tingly.
Report thisBy PennP, September 9, 2011 at 7:34 am Link to this comment
“Honoring the anniversary” of 9/11 is as absurd—and offensive—as expecting a rape victim to “honor the anniversary” of being violated. I’m sick and tired of seeing wanton bloodshed sentimentalized and the flag used as a gag and a blindfold. If you refuse to tell the truth about what actually happened, have the decency to leave the topic alone.
Report thisBy wbradleyjr1, September 8, 2011 at 8:15 pm Link to this comment
I was under the impression that “truthdig” possessed journalistic integrity… I’m sad to see that I was wrong.
Report thisBy berniem, September 8, 2011 at 12:37 pm Link to this comment
Excuse me, E.J., but until bush, cheney, et.al. are brought to justice, BRADLEY MANNING is FREE, and the current administration admits its complicity in the perpetuation of crimes against the constitution and endless war, how can we even think of “looking forward, not back”?
Report thisBy blogdog, September 8, 2011 at 11:41 am Link to this comment
rom the Fifth Edition of 9/11 Synthetic Terror: The 46 Exercises and Drills of 9/11
stream from here - http://tarpley.net/
Webster G. Tarpley on Guns & Butter - download here -
http://tarpley.net/audio/getfile.php?f=20110907-WGT_on_GB.mp3
September 07, 2011
Report thisBy prisnersdilema, September 8, 2011 at 11:12 am Link to this comment
Yes we have learned a lot, most of it unnerving.
We have learned of the explosions in the basement of the WTC prior to any planes hitting. We have learned of unexplained traces of thermite, and theories that nano explosives were applied with paint. We have also learned of top secret security inspections just prior to The Event.
Further, we have been given unsatisfactory explanations of the collapse of building 7.
And we have learned that a Bush family member held the security contract for the WTC.
To some, Bush’s classroom reading on that day, was a carefully staged alibi.
The aftermath, would have created a police state, if the money men hadn’t blown it by collapsing the economy with imaginary money.
And like the Kennedy Events, there will remain, many explanations that don’t fit the facts, and a long list of un answered questions and unexplained deaths.
Report thisBy tony_opmoc, September 8, 2011 at 8:32 am Link to this comment
Reply to C.Curtis.Dillon,
Re Norway
If you use Google to translate this
http://www.aftenposten.no/nyheter/iriks/article4208952.ece
You will see that even in Norway, there was a mock terror drill at the same place and at the same time as the real Terrorist Attack.
This is also true of the London Bombings and 9/11
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=821
Sure, I know co-incidences happen all the time, but there is usually a more plausible explanation…such as this…
http://www.bollyn.com/the-terror-drills-that-became-real
“The easiest way to carry out a false flag attack is by setting up a military exercise that simulates the very attack you want to carry out,” Captain Eric H. May, a former military intelligence officer from the U.S. Army wrote in an article entitled “False Flag Prospects, 2008 - Top Three U.S. Target Cities.”
“This is exactly how government perpetrators in the US and UK handled the 9/11 and 7/7 ‘terror’ attacks,” May writes, “which were in reality government attacks blamed on ‘terrorists’.”
It will be interesting to see if the Norwegians get to the bottom of it, as most of the victims were the Children of the Left Wing Norwegian Political Class. Norwegians tend to take a cold rational approach to investigating serious crime, and are unlikely to suppress the truth regardless of how terrorised and threatened they are.
Tony
Report thisBy C.Curtis.Dillon, September 8, 2011 at 2:12 am Link to this comment
How different the responses between America on 9/11 and Norway after their tragedy earlier this summer. If you look at the numbers, their tragedy was much worse. They are a nation of just over 4.8 million and 93 died on that tragic day. We are a nation of 310 million and 2976 died on September 11th. Do the rations (to get a percentage of the population that died). For Norway, it was just over 19 dead per 1 million population vs. 9.6 dead per 1 million in America. Thus, statistically this was twice the tragedy for them as we experienced. Any yet, at a time when the government would have been completely justified in declaring war on the right wing extremists who fed this maniac, the prime minister went on TV and declared that Norway would be even more open, more inclusive and would not react with vengeance against this madman and his enablers. How different would our world be today if our president, the Texas cowboy, had done something similar? What a shock to our enemies had we extended an olive branch to our enemies. How our friends and enemies would have been left with their jaws hanging down in awe. But, of course, that was never the intention, was it? The neocons wanted their New American Century which is predicated our our being the biggest, meanest pit bull on the planet. Now we have multiple wars and a military that is coming apart at the seams and endless death and destruction and bankruptcy and greed and ... I leave the rest to your imaginations. Who was the bravest I’m wondering?
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