9/11 Meh

I remember that terrible day. The morning news bulletins started out reporting a tragedy, and right before our eyes, cane the proof that we were under attack. Time moved at a different pace that day. Fear was tangible everywhere. People at work were glued to TVs or their computers, or even radios trying to get the latest facts.

I remember turning on my shortwave radio and hearing reports from the BBC and CBC about what was happening. Sadly, I heard one lunatic from Florida (where else?) who was screaming that the whole thing was an inside job involving everyone he didn’t like, and that was a long list. It was a terrible day. Nothing more can be said.

We must move on from that awful event. From what I witnessed, focusing on what happened at the expense of everything else gained us nothing but a twenty-year war that was totally unnecessary. The rationale for that war seemed ludicrous at the time, and the intervening years haven’t changed my opinion.

Look at how our society became militarized, especially the police and law enforcement agencies. They acquired tools of war to turn on the American people, and that is wrong. It is also wrong to believe that every problem demanded a military solution.

Our military is the finest in the world, but it was never intended as a tool for nation-building, especially in a country where we were the invaders. Providing schools and hospitals is a noble thing, but in the eyes of those people, we were the occupying force that wanted to change their way of life overnight. Saddam Hussein was a monster, but a country that was ruled by a madman like that cannot just wake up one day and decide they want western democracy. These changes take time.

I suggest that we dedicate 9/11 as a day to make everything better instead of focusing on the past. While I’m not suggesting that we forget what happened, we can turn that energy into something positive. We need to discover the next threat and deal with it in a different way. Talking and keeping lines of communication open is a key. If a nation is in danger of falling to terrorist groups, our choice must be to engage with them before they can start planning against us.

We have a massive credibility problem in that part of the world because we have always favored one regional power over everyone else. We need to spread our influence wider in those areas. Our foreign policy must be about us, and not another country. Our approach should be even-handed to all sides. A concept that America can’t seem to wrap its head around is that not everyone likes us, but we still need to interact with those countries as much as possible to avert conflict in the future.