Tuesday, September 11, 2007
The greater tragedy
The worst thing about 9/11, as it has turned out, is that George W. Bush was President when it happened.
In the aftermath of the attack, our greatest fear here in the New York area was that it would be only the first of many terrorist acts. I expected those acts, if they occurred, to be smaller; individual suicide bombers blowing themselves up on subways & buses, sabotaging refineries & pipelines & chemical storage tanks. It's the kind of terror campaign that could have wrecked our economy, causing businesses & hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of people to flee New York City & its surrounding cities & suburbs for safer regions. We never believed 9/11 itself would wreck New York. New York City had, over the previous 25 years, struggled back from a very bad place. Most of America probably doesn't realize how large a city New York is or how much of it has been renewed & revitalized over the past two decades. As long as we -New Yorkers & those of us living nearby- felt reasonably safe, New York would continue to go forward & prosper. Instead, it was New Orleans & a hurricane that showed what happens almost overnight to a great American city when it is left defenseless - four years after 9/11!
George W. Bush is the greater tragedy that befell America after 9/11, because the Iraq War is a more tragic thing, & he brought it upon us, with the never-ending death & destruction & waste of lives & resources, & the terrible suffering of the Iraqi people. The war was justified on the basis of lies & it is sustained by lies, & because of it all of the good will extended to us when the planes crashed & the towers fell has disappeared. The opportunity, the possibilities of that ugly, transforming day, gone.
All of the lives lost & the damage wrought on 9/11 can be blamed on Al Qaeda & Bin Laden, regardless of what our government did or did not do to prevent it. But all of the American lives lost & ruined in Iraq, who is responsible for those?
Osama Bin Laden still mocks us. The Taliban are resurgent. We remain in debt to the House of Saud. What have we learned?
In the aftermath of the attack, our greatest fear here in the New York area was that it would be only the first of many terrorist acts. I expected those acts, if they occurred, to be smaller; individual suicide bombers blowing themselves up on subways & buses, sabotaging refineries & pipelines & chemical storage tanks. It's the kind of terror campaign that could have wrecked our economy, causing businesses & hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of people to flee New York City & its surrounding cities & suburbs for safer regions. We never believed 9/11 itself would wreck New York. New York City had, over the previous 25 years, struggled back from a very bad place. Most of America probably doesn't realize how large a city New York is or how much of it has been renewed & revitalized over the past two decades. As long as we -New Yorkers & those of us living nearby- felt reasonably safe, New York would continue to go forward & prosper. Instead, it was New Orleans & a hurricane that showed what happens almost overnight to a great American city when it is left defenseless - four years after 9/11!
George W. Bush is the greater tragedy that befell America after 9/11, because the Iraq War is a more tragic thing, & he brought it upon us, with the never-ending death & destruction & waste of lives & resources, & the terrible suffering of the Iraqi people. The war was justified on the basis of lies & it is sustained by lies, & because of it all of the good will extended to us when the planes crashed & the towers fell has disappeared. The opportunity, the possibilities of that ugly, transforming day, gone.
All of the lives lost & the damage wrought on 9/11 can be blamed on Al Qaeda & Bin Laden, regardless of what our government did or did not do to prevent it. But all of the American lives lost & ruined in Iraq, who is responsible for those?
Osama Bin Laden still mocks us. The Taliban are resurgent. We remain in debt to the House of Saud. What have we learned?
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"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." Thomas Jefferson
Wiseass right-wing comments about stereotypical New York liberals aside, Manhattan has plenty more financial giants who donate generously to both political parties than piss-poor N.O., who has Fats Domino.
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