Seven years ago, the world seemed to rip down its central seam and fall apart into unfamiliar puzzle pieces. We prayed for peace but knew war would come; our leaders still live in their limbic systems, and don’t seem to have much hope, faith, or charity. I watched those buildings fall and thought of how many buildings have fallen in Baghdad, Hanoi, Sarejevo…but I knew most of us would think ourselves special, innocent victims, in a war we’d help create but usually were inclined to ignore. What did we learn? What should we learn? Here’s my top ten list:
1. Let me state the obvious: crashing planes into buildings full of people is immoral. Of course, so is dropping bombs from planes onto such buildings. If you oppose and abhor and decry war as an institution, if you advocate nonviolence, then you’ve got some moral ground to stand on when you grieve and abhor the events of 9-11-01. But if you have rallied for bombings and invasions of other people, then your tears don’t move me much. How can we cheer – and hold parades! – for the destruction of another country, and then display such histrionic grief when it happens to us?
2. Large buildings full of financial and government offices are apparently considered by the United States to be legitimate military targets. Certainty is not available in print; such matters are classified. However, based on our behavior in Baghdad and the legal interpretations of Geneva protocols (such as “Legitimate targets of attack: considerations when targeting in a coalition,” Center for Law and Military Operations (CLAMO) report, 12-01-04, by Catherine Wallis) published by branches of the U.S Military, our government considers structures similar to the World Trade Center in purpose and function to be fair game for aerial bombardment – and any civilians are simply and blandly called “collateral damage,” for which we neither apologize, offer restitution, nor pause our attacks. We bomb ministries of finance, large banks, intelligence offices. We cannot, then, make a moral outcry when our ministries and offices are similarly attacked. Such is the nature of morals: they transcend.
3. History did not begin on 9-11. A nation that involves itself in military ventures on nearly every continent for more than a century cannot expect to escape the blood and dust of war on its own turf. The United States was not a helpless or neutral victim here; we are the most geopolitically engaged country in history and the luck, geography, or divine providence that once protected us from the direct experience of war could not last forever. One hopes being on the receiving end might make Americans a bit more sensitive to what war really means. But so far – no. So, I repeat: When you engage in empire building, you will be attacked. When you bomb other people’s cities, they will bomb yours. Is it right? Is it good? No, but it’s reality, and I’d think the nationalists and right-wing hawks would know this best of all. Yet their moral indignation is the loudest. Hey right-wing – what are you crying about? Haven’t you always told us that war is a necessary evil – and an honorable trade? Aren’t you the bombastic advocates of using force to defend one’s interests? Why, then, so shocked when people (yes, Arabs are people) take your advice? Don’t answer; it’s a rhetorical question.
4. 9-11 was, compared with the toll of war in other nations – Iraq, for example, or Vietnam – a minor catastrophe. Hundreds of thousands of people – including vast numbers of civilians – died in those countries at the hands (or levers) of the United States military. All those people had stories and families and unrealized dreams, too; I don’t recall seeing their faces and biographies in the New York Times, though. One hopes that we mourn with as much enthusiasm for our “enemies” as we do for our countrymen; perhaps, though, I am naïve to ask for such a Christian attitude from my angry, confused nation.
5. The real story of 9-11 has not been told. Phillip Zelikow, a personal friend of President Bush, chaired the 9-11 commission and that’s a blatant conflict of interest. Polls consistently show that a strong majority of Americans doubt the official story, and that a good third believe that members of U.S. Government were involved in planning the attacks or purposefully allowing them to occur. And with good reason: the official story asks us to believe, although no steel frame skyscraper has ever collapsed from fire in all history (several have burned for days at much hotter tempteratures than the WTC buildings did) that on 9-11-01 three buildings – the Twin Towers and WTC 7 – all collapsed within hours from fire, and did so at free fall speed and into their own footprints – the kind of collapse seen only in controlled demolitions. Lew Silverstien, owner of the Towers, disclosed on live television that WTC 7 had been “pulled” – industry lingo for a controlled demolition. He later “clarified” his remarks with tongue-twisting so clever and disingenuous that Bill Clinton might have blushed – or been jealous. The official story also asks us to believe that, while the nation and the Pentagon were ostensibly under attack, the best thing Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld could think to do was to clean up debris on the Pentagon lawn (and be photographed doing so). Excuse me, but isn’t there a war room you should be in, sir? I think it’s the same war room to which President Bush should have been bodily carried as soon as the second plane hit; instead, he sat in a classroom for eight minutes, where his location was publicly known and his presence was a danger to life and limb – his own, and the lives of all the kids in that school. No explanation has ever been offered for this bizarre and unpresidential behavior. The official story tells us that all 18 hijackers were identified on September 12 by the crime-busting genius of the FBI, and that they’re all dead. Yet, perhaps most damning of all the cracks in the official story, none other than the BBC reported in September 2001 that several of the identified “hijackers” were, in fact, alive. This has never been addressed in government documents or in the press. In a new administration and a new political climate (one hopes) there need to be at least two new investigations into the events of 9-11-01; one should be carried out by the Congress, and one by a federal grand jury, and bogus “national security” secrecy must not interfere with the ability of those bodies to fully investigate every element of the crime and the American response to it.
6. 9-11 changed nothing significant about American foreign policy or the groups and institutions that control policy. Our nation has been building and defending its empire at least since William McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt adopted Alfred Mahan’s naval power philosophy more than a century ago. American foreign policy continues to be driven by the quest to secure natural resources and trade routes, as well as, of course, the military bases to protect those economic interests. It’s not human rights, it’s not revenge, it’s not the war on terror – it’s oil, copper, timber, and deep water channels that drive our ventures. 9-11 did not change that, but it did give the propagandists in Washington one more tool to scare and rile up Americans, who would cry and scream for justice if we really understood what we have been supporting with our money and our lives.
7. Notice New York City – my hometown. That’s where Ground Zero is. They vote blue. They live side by side, every nation, color and creed. A million people marched there against the invasion of Iraq. They support the UN, and want to keep it on Manhattan Island. Are they stupid, or suicidal? No – they’re liberal, educated, hopeful, tolerant, and wise. When you raise a fist for war in the name of New York, do us a favor, and don’t. Did I mention New York votes blue?
8. Long Beach, adjacent to one of the world’s biggest ports, is an obvious target for an act of nuclear terror. Perish the thought, right? Well, no – don’t perish it; mull it over. What will keep us safe? Can we ever kill every last terrorist? Can we ever be sure that no nuclear material falls into the hands of an “enemy”? I doubt it. But can we convince the Muslim world we are not its enemy? Maybe – but only if we really aren’t its enemy. Right now, we are. We must support moderate Islam – the dominant kind, by the way – until radical Islam falls by the wayside. We must help republicans in the Middle East, and we must help – yes!- democratic socialists. We must temper out support for Israel until it completely ends its illegal occupations and offers Palestinians a contiguous, sovereign state – not a bunch of unconnected Bantustans patrolled by the IDF and riddled with Israeli roads. Want to keep Long Beach safe? Vote for intelligence over machismo, diplomacy over muscle-flexing, speaking softly over the big stick. Otherwise, better stock up on potassium iodide.
9. Islamofascism arose in the Middle East largely because the United States blocked every other avenue to liberation from Western-backed fascism. Case in point: The coup against Iran’s President in 1954, followed by two decades of tyranny under the Shah and CIA black-ops to squash any hopes of real democracy, whose advocates usually partnered with socialist elements in Iran and Iraq. That is, in an effort to prevent any resources redistribution in the Middle East, and any trace of Marxism, the United States killed every democratic movement there was and left only one viable alternative to Persian Czarism: the Ayatollah. The technical term for this is “shooting your self in the ass.” Good job, Kissinger.
10. Peace is our only real hope. Perpetual war is a lizard-brain delusion of grandeur and security. It will not end well. Pray not for victory, which is always temporary, but pray for that which is the teaching of every religion and every spiritual master. Brotherhood is our mission; fear the only real enemy. Since 9-11 was only the most dramatic and intimate episode in the millennial war of all against all, let it not be one more call to arms, but a final opportunity for revolution – the revolution of values spoken of by Martin Luther King, whose strident Christian humanism we miss so much:
“A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies. A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just.
“A true revolution of values will lay hands on the world order and say of war, “This way of settling differences is not just.” This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation’s homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into the veins of peoples normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice, and love.
“A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death. America, the richest and most powerful nation in the world, can well lead the way in this revolution of values. There is nothing except a tragic death wish to prevent us from reordering our priorities, so that the pursuit of peace will take precedence over the pursuit of war.“