Observing December 7th each year is an honorable thing to do in terms of national pride. The caveat, though, is rather large: Imperial Japan was in every way the aggressor. Fast forward nearly forty years. September 11th should be categorized as the event which humbled the U.S.’s unapologetic hubris. The problem is, on this eve of the tenth anniversary of that tragedy, our hubris is not only intact but it is lost in a sea of identity confusion.
September 11th continues to be the singular event in U.S. history wherein tragedy is celebrated on the same par as victory, ie V-E Day. And that is the real pinnacle of melancholy, unlike the destruction of the World Trade Center. September 11th didn’t happen because terrorists hate us for our freedom as Bush 43 and his ilk wished us to believe [sadly many of us still buy into that pile of malarkey]. Instead, our interventionism abroad finally ran into a theocratic system which repudiates everything we do to it. Rather than observing September 11th as a Day of Sorrow, we instead continue to look toward the future via the past – twentieth century foreign policy in the form of the destructive power of our bombs and the “heroism” of our troops.
Thus it is readily apparent that we still believe in Cold War tactics. Dulles’ CIA and its use of operative soft power - Special Ops Forces and other directives which either prop up brutal dictatorships or depose them. LeMay’s Strategic Air Command – battleship groups, military bases and Central Commands set up in geographic locations throughout the world. This is done to emanate our potential ability to obliterate from the face of the earth any nation which threatens our “interests”.
It is no wonder how hubris is no longer found in the more benign form of seeing ourselves as a city upon a hill. It has found a new home in militarism and hawkish neo-con policy, evidenced in modernity in an illumined brilliance by George Tenet, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld. To criticize our troops, to find fault with our adventurism, to question the military-industrial complex is to have true patriotism ridiculed. Whatever semblance of freedom we still clung to on September 1oth is gone. We are dithering in north Africa and Middle and Central Asia while our southern border has collapsed and we live in a morally and economically bankrupt society.
September 11th was a tragedy of epic proportions. Federalism is all but bled out. Come this year’s anniversary I will again refuse to observe it. I have too much pride.
Update
The New York Times’ Paul Krugman weighs in.
I thought one celebrates their victories, not their defeats. It’s “T-Ball” estrogen laden liberalism that has reduced us to a nation of Pollyanna’s. Ten years after 9/11 we are bankrupt, mired in recession and celebrating a a five acre hole in the ground.
Someone who has been to Afghanistan told me what it will take to win that war, “20 years, 20 trillion dollars and 200,000 lives.” We have neither the will, nor the resources. We send out a million dollar missile to kill two peasants. The Taliban hires a peasant for five dollars, gives him a hundred year old rifle and twenty dollars worth of ammo and he keeps a whole company of marines pinned down for a day and possible kills one.
The U.S. is like the cape buffalo surrounded by hyenas. It’s death by a thousand small bites. We don’t feel the bites because we are busy celebrating a “hole in the ground.”
Goob, do you use the word “celebrate” in its definition? Because I don’t know that Americans celebrate 9/11–commemorate yes. Also, could the “hype” be because it’s only 10 years ago? Just some thoughts…
The United States’ liberal press has exacerbated this “celebration” to the point where its a mute point. “Who the ____ cares?” has become a quiet chant in hearts of many. The US needs to fully re-examine its foreign policy and revamp it, especially now that the “wise ones” elected to government have spent us into the poor house. Uncontrolled inflation is just a year or two away.
Yes, I do use celebrate in its definition.
I think you missed my point. Yes it was only ten years ago, but that is why I referenced Pearl Harbor. That event was, in every sense, a true tragedy, and not of our own making. September 11th is an anomaly we did to ourselves.
Ergo it does not make any sense to celebrate the day each year by way of what happened on December 7th. 9/11 should provoke us to change our ways, not to commiserate by “never forget(ting).” The fact is, the U.S. uses the day to feel sorry for itself, thereby tacitly justifying its militarism.