We Will Never Forget
Do you remember those words? Do you remember the flags and the ceremonies? Do you remember a nation joined in tragedy?
Living in Arizona, it was still early when the radio announced that a commuter plane had struck one of the towers of the World Trade Center. Since I had originally come from New York, I immediately turned the television on just in time to see the second plane hit. It may have taken the news commentators by surprise, and they did need a few minutes to recover, but in that instant I knew there was only one possible answer. We were under attack by terrorists. Shortly after that, the Pentagon was hit and another plane had crashed in the fields of Pennsylvania as a group of heroic passengers sacrificed themselves in an effort to save the next intended target.
Over the next few days we watched the efforts to find anyone alive in that tangled smoking mess. We saw the tears of family members desperately searching for their loved ones. We saw the City of New York mourn for the firefighters and police that perished in their attempt to rescue those that were trapped in the still burning towers. Within hours, we knew there would be no more survivors beyond the few that were miraculously protected in the cocoon of a reinforced stairwell. A nation wept as the memorial services were held across the United States and we watched that too.
I saw the signs that said “We will never forget” and made a prediction that sadly came true before a year had even passed. I had hoped against hope that this time, the people really wouldn't forget and while some still remember, there are even more that have chosen to let other priorities overshadow the memory of that day. I knew they eventually would because patriotism is an inconvenience that modern man has little time for.
Hundreds of thousands of our finest soldiers bravely left the shores of this nation to bring retribution to the people that attacked the United States on September 11th. As usual, we brought the fight to them so that our people could be spared the hardships and horrors of war. Our families were safe and the stories of the lighting speed at which our military exacted the revenge of an angry America was unheard of in the annals of history. We cheered and waved our flags and then left for work. While our soldiers slept in ditches and fought in the foul stench of war we sipped our coffee and watched it all on television like some surreal reality show.
Day after day we went to work, walked our dogs, and played with our kids; slowly the country slipped back into the daily routines and that made us believe we were comfortable and safe again. I’m not sure when it began, but slowly the extra security at the airports became a cause to grumble. We didn’t like the inconvenience of new restrictions on mailing packages or for carry on luggage. The news agencies dropped their flags once more and began to run their usual liberal speak about the unfair profiling used during security checks and the mounting death toll incurred in the two wars we were then engaged in. Not one thought was given to the families that lost loved ones on September 11, 2001 as their stories in as much as said those losses were not worth the “atrocities” being committed by this nation for our revenge.
I suppose the most disconcerting thing is that I am talking about the main stream media and their following of "socially conscious" celebrities. I would expect this from the cadre of conspiracy clowns that believed that 9/11 was perpetrated by the Bush administration to give him the moral authority to start a war in the Middle East; ok, I actually expected it from Hollywood too. Then again, nothing that comes from tinsel town surprises me, but CNN? CBS? NBC? ABC?
I do want to set the record straight. I do not believe that we should have allowed President Bush to tear loopholes in the Constitution in the form of the Patriot Act. We already had the legal processes in place to put people under surveillance if there was sufficient proof to bring before a judge. In fact, if the CIA had only shared what they already knew with the FBI instead of engaging in a petty fight over jurisdiction, 9/11 may well have been prevented.
While I believe that Bush had the best interest of the country at heart, I think the Patriot act set a dangerous precedent that will allow future Presidents (or our current President) the ability to spy on the citizens of this country at will and that is probably why Janet Napolitano has come up with a very interesting profile of what domestic terrorists look like. Hmmm….I guess it’s ok to profile at least some Americans now.
I do not think the United States has any business engaging in “Nation Building”. If we are threatened with attack then we should by all means neutralize that threat and then leave. If the United States had the reputation of dealing swift and brutal reprisals that were not accompanied by billions of dollars to rebuild what we just spent billions of dollars to destroy, who would dare test us? How often would they try? But no, we place our military in danger by taking away their most effective weapons and turn them into policemen; a job they were never trained to perform while palates of cash are flown in to restore foreign infrastructure while ours at home is sadly crumbling.
Our nation was attacked in 2001 by foreign terrorists residing in the United States. Why then, are we still discussing illegal immigration in 2009? While the Patriot Act allowed the Federal government unprecedented freedom to gather intelligence on the citizens of this country, our borders remained curiously open and the rudimentary steps to identify potential terrorists were never taken.
Step one? Anyone here on a Visa should have been required to report to the State Department immediately for verification of their identity and whereabouts. Those that failed to report should have automatically been considered suspect and sought out.
Step two? Our borders and other points of international entry should have been closely guarded. Here in Arizona, we are constantly finding the remnants of tunnels excavated by mere drug traffickers, the complexity of which defy logic. How can this happen in a post-9/11 America? Where is the vigilance? Where are the Federal authorities that are pledged to defend this nation?
Step three? When you are dealing with foreign extremists that are pledged to kill as many Americans as humanly possible, there is no such thing as profiling. The idea that an eighty-year old woman had to be frightened out of her wits as she was hand searched before boarding an airplane is ludicrous. To my knowledge, there were no eighty year old women that participated in the hijackings of September 11th. Yet, I saw this lunacy myself as I was passing through security at Sky Harbor Airport in November of 2001. The only reason airport security had even questioned this woman was to prevent ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN and the like, from airing more stories that airport authorities were racially profiling passengers if and when they searched someone of middle-eastern heritage.
Today is September 11, 2009, the eighth anniversary of the attacks and across the nation, people will take their flags out of mothballs and the news networks will surrender three minutes of air time to cover the memorial services so we can all say “I remember”. Then the sun will set and the sun will rise and people will wake up, sip their coffee and walk their dogs again while our soldiers are still sleeping in ditches in a hostile land. The real difference is that today we have a President that would dare to politicize this solemn day by once again, infusing his agenda into the memorial ceremonies by calling for a "National Day of Service and Remembrance." Only a narcissist would place their own message of service before the remembrance of the more than three-thousand Americans that died this day or the countless soldiers that have died since to avenge them.
It is a damned shame but the sad fact is that most Americans do forgot for 364 days a year. Oh New Yorker's remember. Everytime a plane flies too low or a truck backfires they remember all too well. Maybe if we fought the war here on our own soil some other people would remember too. Many then we would begin to appreciate the freedom we enjoy now if our comfortable little lives were threatened now and then. If we weren't so foolishly sure that the sun will rise for us tomorrow like it always does.
You know, that is what made the people of the World War Two generation so extraordinary. Victory in that war was never certain and all Americans had a real fear that we might actually lose that war. As a result, the people here did their best to support our soldiers by personal sacrifices and in their daily actions so that liberty could eventually prevail. No one dared to breathe a sigh of relieve until the very day of surrender, no one questioned our commitment to win, and certainly, not one person of that generation ever, ever forgot the sacrifices that were made for them.
In spite of all our faults and mistakes, may God Bless America
Paul
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