9/11 is nothing to be nostalgic about. Politicos like Hillary Clinton and President Obama look back and wistfully intone that we were all united on that day. But united for what? 9/11 was the beginning of the worst years of our lives.
After the tragedy of 9/11, the public went somnambulant; the media rolled over and played dead; and the Congress, the elected representatives of the people, became a rubber stamp for ill-advised and expensive military adventurism, not to mention a dangerous curtailment of civil liberties in our own country and human rights abroad. Hell, after 9/11, a sitting President advocated torture.
But what are we assailed with on this tenth anniversary but mawkish sentiment. All I remember after 9/11 is a kind of forced and maudlin patriotism, where it became de rigueur even before a performance of The Nutcracker to play the national anthem.
And today, we see that same lump in your throat “news” being replayed over and over. It is a product, I suppose, of our lazy mainstream media that refuses to analyze in any meaningful way what led up to 9/11 and what happened afterward.
After 9/11, our nation engaged in two ill-advised wars that will end up costing us more than 4 trillion dollars. After 9/11, our nation threw nobody-knows-how many tons of cash at black ops programs that are mismanaged, inefficient, and ineffective. After 9/11, our nation engaged in crony capitalism where contractors (mercenaries/Hessians) fought side-by-side American soldiers and Marines who were being paid a fraction of what they were being paid. After 9/11, our nation detained people without trial, tortured prisoners, and engaged in serious human rights abuses here and abroad.
If you want to know the measure of a man or woman, see what they do in an emergency. Do they keep their heads or not? We did not. In the aftermath of 9/11 our government acted in ways that can only be described as shameful and short-sighted.
The real question we should be asking ourselves on this tenth anniversary is do we want to continue to be the stupid country steeped in nostalgia and blind to the full impact of our country's policies?
