IX/XI@X

It didn’t come out of a clear blue sky.

Oh, I know what the weather was like on that Tuesday in New York (or at least I know what the video footage showed—I’ve never been to New York, except for a couple of layovers at JFK).  But every time I hear that line used as a metaphor for the unpredictable nature of the attacks of September 11, 2001, I am reminded of how the ignorance of the American public is conflated with innocence by a self-congratulating, blindly patriotic mainstream media.

I don’t mean that I or anyone else specifically predicted the exact nature and timing of the attacks (although the evidence suggests that our intelligence-gathering organizations could have done so ... or perhaps did, and kept it a secret from most of us).  But on the day of, as I watched the endlessly repeated footage on the giant television in the foyer at the movie theater in Eugene, Oregon, where I then worked, I remember thinking (and probably saying aloud) that I had been expecting something just like this for years.  I also thought that anyone who didn’t expect this simply wasn’t paying attention—or worse, believed that America was an innocent victim.

That’s not to say that the victims of 9/11 deserved to die, or that the policemen and firemen of New York, and the passengers of United 93, weren’t courageous heroes, or that the attacks weren’t horrendous crimes.  I do mean to say that a symbol of global capitalism, though not the human beings working there, was an understandable if not legitimate target.  Also, judged by the standards of war, both the Pentagon and the people working there were a legitimate target.  (In any case, however, the weapons used—passenger jets filled with innocent passengers—were not legitimate means.)  In short, the United States, considered in the abstract, had it coming.  If that is harsh, well, the record shows that America’s foreign policy over the years since World War II has been harsh.  We’ve made a lot of enemies, and while some of that may have been justified, most of it wasn’t.  I don’t think America’s been involved in a “necessary” war since World War II, which is the only time our country—and the world—has faced an existential threat.  But our jut-jawed gunslinging strut has enraged those people whom it hasn’t cowed or seduced.  It has also emboldened the really dangerous regimes—North Korea comes to mind—to engage in shoving matches with us, which threatens the whole world.  9/11 could have been a wakeup call to reexamine our foreign policy.  Under George W. Bush, however, that was never going to happen—in fact, the attacks were used as an excuse to retrench our old attitudes.  That much of the future, I did successfully predict as I watched the towers fall again and again on that giant tv set—and I know I said that out loud.

Barack Obama inherited Bush’s mess, and if he hasn’t exactly redefined our foreign policy in the way I’d like—and in some ways has made it worse—he has modified the attitude a little and introduced some changes in strategy that are certainly welcome after Bush’s go-it-alone approach proved so disastrous.  But still, the mess remains a mess, and the appalling authoritarian government it created (or perhaps only enhanced) continues to erode our civil liberties and make the world an inviting place for terrorists and extremists of all creeds.  The present political system isn’t going to clean up the mess—it’s too useful to the Republicans, and the Democrats are too beholden to the status quo to challenge it.

9/11 had an impact on everyone, even if the common wisdom that it “changed everything” is hyperbole.  It changed my life in that I met my wife-to-be and mother-of-our-daughter-to-be at an anti-war rally on the first anniversary of 9/11.  It also reinforced my atheism, not only because of the fundamentalist Islamists who perpetrated the act, but because of the response of the likes of Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell, who blamed America’s godlessness for the attacks.  On the day of the attacks I did not cry; the impact of it had me angry and pessimistic and afraid—not of more terrorism, but of our country’s response to it, a fear that was more than justified, as it turned out.  It wasn’t until almost two years had passed before I saw video footage of the first plane striking the WTC; I hadn’t even known such footage existed, and I wasn’t expecting it—the sight of it literally brought me to my feet in shock.  That same day, on the same program, I saw, for my first time, the footage of people jumping from the towers.  That brought tears to my eyes; it brought home the horror of that day, making what had been an abstraction a vivid reality.

I am not a 9/11 “Truther.”  I sympathize with the Truthers’ suspicions and with some of their theories, but too many of their speculations are extremely far-fetched.  I definitely think a more thorough investigation is in order, but have no hopes that such will ever come.  And I have no sympathy with those who flat-out deny the mere possibility that certain elements in our government knew the attacks were coming, welcomed them, and were ready to exploit them.  It seems to me that this is exactly what happened.  My only “evidence” for this is the unseemly haste with which the so-called Patriot Act was composed and approved:  obviously this was ready and waiting in the wings for its opportunity.  Did Dubya himself know?  I doubt it—“plausible deniability” applies, and after all every report suggests he was not interested in terrorism before 9/11, and afterward was interested only in linking it to his obsession with Saddam Hussein.  But the Neocons were definitely eager for their “new Pearl Harbor.”  It’s hard for me to believe that there wasn’t some sort of American complicity and involvement at some level—and not one that required a vast conspiracy, either.  Those who deny the possibility of this are just kidding themselves about the ruthlessness of the powerful, kidding themselves that Americans are somehow immune to that kind of evil.

So no, I don’t agree with the Truthers, at least not with their more outrageous claims.  And I have nothing but sympathy for the families and friends of the victims of 9/11.  But as a nation, considered as one in the global scheme (which is the only honest way to consider America—I’ll have no truck with those who believe in American exceptionalism), we really have to admit that we got what was coming to us.  The perpetrators were criminals; but American behavior abroad has also often been criminal.  As in a gang war between murderous thugs, this drive-by-shooting killed innocent bystanders.  Those who say that it is morally worse to target civilians have a point, but nothing excuses careless collateral damage—and I am not convinced that the innocent victims of American violence were not frequently targeted.  States are terrorists, too.  In some ways, they’re worse—it was reprehensible but not cowardly for those Muslim men to kill themselves, but it is both reprehensible and cowardly for a man to operate a predator drone from the safety of great distance.  The saying that a terrorist is a man who has a bomb but not an air force holds true, I’m afraid.  Death is death, wherever it comes from.  Al Qaeda deserves to be hunted down, and although I didn’t celebrate Osama bin Laden’s death, I didn’t shed a tear for the son of a bitch, either.  Neither did I celebrate the Seals who assassinated him, or shed a tear for them when some of them died in combat later.  I cannot ever consider professional murderers to be “the best of the best.”  Not on my planet, they’re not, no matter what “side” they’re on, or what motives they have, or how nice a family they go home to after they’ve washed the blood from their hands.

Ten years ... it’s hard to believe it.  One fourth of my lifetime ago, this happened.  And since then?  The Patriot Act.  Mindless jingoism.  Salt in the wound.  Afghanistan, still going on.  Iraq, still going on.  Torture (and it damned well better be called that—no fucking Orwellian doublespeak like “enhanced interrogation” will be allowed in a humane world).  Unwarranted wiretapping, unconscionable sting operations, greater crackdowns on dissent.  Not to mention deregulation, economic destruction, and the promise of more to come from our Tea Party friends.  The end is not in sight.  And why should it be?  The regressives have got what they wanted all along—perpetual wars for perpetual power.  They are on top, no matter who’s in the White House.  And they will be for the foreseeable future.

Why?  Thom Yorke of Radiohead said it best, in the best political song of the last decade, 2+2=5 from the album HAIL TO THE THIEF:

It’s the Devil’s way now

There is no way out

You can scream you can shout

It is too late now

Because

YOU HAVE NOT BEEN PAYING ATTENTION

Whenever I hear those lines, I begin to weep, for I think of my daughter and the future, or lack of one, that she faces.  She’s autistic.  She may never be able to pay attention.  In her case, this may prove to be a blessing.  But the vast majority of those who are capable of paying attention yet deliberately hit the Ignore button when America’s dark side rears up before them—they are not blessed.  And because of them, none of us are.  In the end, it didn’t matter that some of us were and are paying attention.  It wasn’t enough to prevent the illusion of an unprovoked attack coming out of a clear blue sky.

Today, I am not going to remember 9/11 (at least not any more than I have to).  I’m going to imagine the next one, and hope that when it comes, a few more of us will understand the reasons why, and do something about them.

--Joshua Hendrickson