Remembering 9/11 - Part 2
Our moment of silence was over. Before people left, though, a 30-ish male student looked at her and said, "I want you to know that I got us some payback in Afghanistan."
He went on to describe his work in surface-to-air missles, and could personally assert that people died as a result of the ingenuity and craft applied to our missles.
She reacted with polite enthusiasm. I was suprised at how small my personal satisfaction was.
Our military are incredibly dedicated, committed, hardworking people. I'm grateful for their sacrifices. I also believe that they do what they're ordered to do with enthusiasm and professionalism.
This context offered little gratitude, however, and it was strange. The notion of Afghani people dying in payback for 9/11 left me without any satisfaction.
The military mission there was to make our world safer, and a case can be made for that without much question. That is satisfying; although we still have considerable hostilities there, few doubt that terrorists used that forlorn place as a base. Our actions there have reduced a terrorist capability, at least for now. I'm grateful for that.
Revenge is, though, a cold dish. (Klingon proverb? No, actually I think Nietschze said it first.) I like a hot meal. Comforting a 9/11 victim with reports of more deaths was well-intentioned but inadequate. Well, then, what brings comfort or release?
Final quandary: does this mean that 3,000 Americans died meaninglessly three years ago? On one level, the answer is indisputably yes. A small group of people with remarkably little money pulled off a spectacularly successful raid on us. Terrorists win. We lose. You can have all the 9/11 commissions you want; that won't change.
On another level we are always supposed to learn from bad experiences. We learned
1. That we are vulnerable to attack.
2. That people in the world hate us bad enough to do this.
3. That the world is a dangerous place.
Right after 9/11/2001 a local Tennessee man who'd served in the Middle East diplomatic corps placed that last point in context. In our world, plenty of people hate plenty of other people. Nations ostensibly at peace are committing atrocities against their own citizens. Ethnic rivalries stretch back for centuries with no respite.
What will change this fundamental state of conflict? More importantly, what can the United States, being the most powerful single nation on earth, do?
We can keep knocking over rogue regimes in the approximate order of their strategic importance to our resource pool and relative military vulnerability.*
Or we can resign ourselves to a constant wheeling and dealing diplomatically.
Either strategy must be driven by securing and keeping the moral high ground. On 9/11/2001 the United States was a victim - a role we hate, and that's good. In our victimhood, however, the world's "heart" poured out for us.
It was easy to love us then. As victims, we were pure of heart and spirit. And we bore our suffering well, with dignity, compassion and a sense of moral center.
That's worth something all by itself - feels like a hot meal to me.
-----
*Not intended as a characterization of current foreign policy, but if da shoe fits...
He went on to describe his work in surface-to-air missles, and could personally assert that people died as a result of the ingenuity and craft applied to our missles.
She reacted with polite enthusiasm. I was suprised at how small my personal satisfaction was.
Our military are incredibly dedicated, committed, hardworking people. I'm grateful for their sacrifices. I also believe that they do what they're ordered to do with enthusiasm and professionalism.
This context offered little gratitude, however, and it was strange. The notion of Afghani people dying in payback for 9/11 left me without any satisfaction.
The military mission there was to make our world safer, and a case can be made for that without much question. That is satisfying; although we still have considerable hostilities there, few doubt that terrorists used that forlorn place as a base. Our actions there have reduced a terrorist capability, at least for now. I'm grateful for that.
Revenge is, though, a cold dish. (Klingon proverb? No, actually I think Nietschze said it first.) I like a hot meal. Comforting a 9/11 victim with reports of more deaths was well-intentioned but inadequate. Well, then, what brings comfort or release?
Final quandary: does this mean that 3,000 Americans died meaninglessly three years ago? On one level, the answer is indisputably yes. A small group of people with remarkably little money pulled off a spectacularly successful raid on us. Terrorists win. We lose. You can have all the 9/11 commissions you want; that won't change.
On another level we are always supposed to learn from bad experiences. We learned
1. That we are vulnerable to attack.
2. That people in the world hate us bad enough to do this.
3. That the world is a dangerous place.
Right after 9/11/2001 a local Tennessee man who'd served in the Middle East diplomatic corps placed that last point in context. In our world, plenty of people hate plenty of other people. Nations ostensibly at peace are committing atrocities against their own citizens. Ethnic rivalries stretch back for centuries with no respite.
What will change this fundamental state of conflict? More importantly, what can the United States, being the most powerful single nation on earth, do?
We can keep knocking over rogue regimes in the approximate order of their strategic importance to our resource pool and relative military vulnerability.*
Or we can resign ourselves to a constant wheeling and dealing diplomatically.
Either strategy must be driven by securing and keeping the moral high ground. On 9/11/2001 the United States was a victim - a role we hate, and that's good. In our victimhood, however, the world's "heart" poured out for us.
It was easy to love us then. As victims, we were pure of heart and spirit. And we bore our suffering well, with dignity, compassion and a sense of moral center.
That's worth something all by itself - feels like a hot meal to me.
-----
*Not intended as a characterization of current foreign policy, but if da shoe fits...
posted by John Bernat @ 1:57 PM
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