Seven Years Gone By

I wasn't going to write on 9/11 this year. I didn't want to fall into the trap of the misuse and abuse of what happened for some political argument. I didn't want to join the voices that have turned 9/11 into jingo-ism, nationalism, and militarism. In my opinion, if 9/11 is to have any meaning for the long haul it will need to become a symbol of the change of the world around us.

Unfortunately 9/11 has often been used as an excuse for things that are totally unconnected- or at least ineffective--

I think of the Iraq war where there was no connection between Saddam Hussein and bin Laden. But a group of people in power with a world view from the 60s, at the latest, didn't care. It fit their understanding of what needed to be done and the facts be damned.

I think of the torture that has been carried out in our American name against people who have been arrested. Some of these were terrorists for sure. But some were caught up in a time and place they didn't understand. But torture never works. John McCain has understood that. Interrogators often want specific information- and they don't care if it's true or not. Torture allows them to get that. And that is never helpful since it is often lies.

I think of the attack on civil rights and the constitution in the name of national security. National security has been the biggest enemy to freedom in many a country. We so easily give in and allow freedom to be whittled away to be able to say we are free. Our national safety and security is important. But to live in a nation that proclaims freedom and then takes it away, slowly and bit by bit, is a difficult freedom.

None of this is to say that there are not dangers and uncertainties. Of course there are. We have lived with that since the beginning of the Cold War when we knew that there were missiles pointed at us just as surely as ours were pointing at them. We lived in that uncertainty for decades. Now the dangers are different- 9/11 showed us that. If nothing else it may have shown that isolation is not possible in this world. International cooperation and positive actions are essential.

And yes, we need to have a security. Of course we do. But we cannot let fear guide that. We cannot let terrorism rob us of what we hold dear by giving it away. The terrorists win with no more destruction needed. We honor and memorialize those lost in 9/11 by maintaining the life that has made the USA what it is- stand against the ways that would lose that- and helping us strengthen the areas where we still need to grow.