Today is the 11th September 11th associated with the horrific attacks on our country.
A few days ago, as I’ve done a few times before, I watched the live broadcast of NBC’s Today Show from the morning of 9/11/2001, from the moment they learned about the first plane crash at the World Trade Center through the collapse of the second building. As time passes, watching the events of that day unfold in real-time and remembering what it was like to experience the agonizing progression of the unimaginable, is a stark reminder of just how utterly mad things were that morning, and have been ever since.
My first thoughts go to the victims and the heroes of the day.
I think about people on airplanes who experienced a hijacking; had and saw throats slit; were passengers on unthinkable flights that behaved like no airplane we’ve ever been on; and then fought back, to varying degrees, to have their lives ended in what could only have been near-instant evaporation.
I think about people in the World Trade Center. I imagine all sorts of horror there but don’t need to expound on it. The thought that haunts me most is that of the office workers who stayed behind to be with someone who was injured or otherwise incapable of escaping on their own.
I think about the firefighters, ambulance workers, cops, other professionals, and ordinary people who ran toward their deaths to help others.
I think about the people at the Pentagon who died in an assault on their military fortress.
I think about all of the good that was brought forth in so many people that day and in the days, months, and years that followed.
It’s a shame President Bush was not their equal.
I don’t know what was in his heart in the days, months, and years that followed 9/11. I’m just guessing, but I don’t believe he was uncaring or unpatriotic.
I do believe that George W. Bush did far more harm to our country than the terrorists that perpetrated 9/11 were capable of doing, and the poisonous consequences of his failed leadership have put us into a tailspin from which we may never recover.
It’s worth remembering that 9/11 came not even a year after the gut-wrenching “election” of 2000, in which Bush lost the popular vote and quite possibly the electoral vote, and took office after an extremely controversial, undeniably political Supreme Court ruling. I personally believe he didn’t legitimately belong in the White House, but so be it: he was the president, and we’d moved on.
After 9/11, the country united behind him, as did the world. I did too. It didn’t have to be that way, but he was granted an extraordinary opportunity to claim his legitimacy by leading in the spirit of a competent, if not grandiose, figure.
Instead, we got:
<> A war in Afghanistan that, while started uncontroversially, failed to meet any notable objectives during his administration and suffered from a lack of attention due to the idiotic war in Iraq. I supported going into Afghanistan and we should have stayed there and penetrated Pakistan until Bin Laden was found.
<> A war in Iraq that was, as I said, idiotic. I remember clearly in the months leading up to the invasion the incredulous feeling that most people had lost their minds in supporting the inevitable war. It didn’t take a genius to tell that the way the administration was talking about Iraq, conflating it with 9/11, encouraging public confusion and fear… there was clearly no true and just cause to invade that country at that time, particularly considering the unfinished business in Afghanistan. Damn Bush for steering us in such the wrong direction.
<> The issue of Iraq tore the country apart and bifurcated us from the world. So be it, if it was a necessary war to be handled competently. But damn him for doing so to the contrary, and for destroying so much and so many in the process.
<> America was attacked on 9/11 and was ready to report for duty immediately after. Bush asked for nothing from anyone other than the volunteer soldiers who were sent overseas to do battle. The least he could have done was to have paid for those wars instead of bankrupting the nation as a consequence.*
<> * It wasn’t just the wars that bankrupt the nation. His unprincipled, amoral stewardship of the domestic economy during his tenure was the worst possible path to take after the surplus years of the Clinton administration. He lead a decade of bullshit economic success in which everyone except the highest class suffered financially, and he left a depression that very well may eclipse the Great one on his successor’s doorstep in the process.
So in conclusion, 9/11 is a difficult day for me, because it brings into such clear contrast the victimization and heroism of that day with the self-destruction of our nation under the hand of our worst president, George W. Bush.
Ultimately, though, this day is not about him, and it shouldn’t be about anger. I mourn the loss of everyone who died that day and on all of the days since then, and I still feel profoundly lucky to be living in a nation made up of so many heroes, both sung and unsung, who lead us forward through the darkness.
God bless America.