9/11 – What Have We Learned?
I have never posted anything on 9/11. There really is nothing I have to say. We honor countless innocent people who were murdered on this date. Any life taken violently at the hands of another person is a senseless crime against humanity.
It has been ten years since that tragic attack. How has the world changed? What have we learned about ourselves and the world around us? If we don’t have an intent to learn about ourselves and the world around us, we can never create a better world. Is our continued response to the heinous act of 9/11 appropriate? Are we making the world safer for innocent people not only here about around the world? And does the end justify the means? The answer to that last question is clearly no. And that is why we are a nation of laws. To protect us from history replete with behavior of men who believed the end did justify the means. These were not men of laws but men willing to do anything and everything their mind rationalized as necessary.
We should not only honor those who died today but we should consider what have we learned since. How has the world changed? And is it change within the framework of the rule of law and democracy? Does that change add meaning our our lives? To the existence of humanity? Is it necessary change? Appropriate change?
Does the enormous security apparatus and untold security and military spending since 9/11 make us safer? Or did a small band of terrorists win by forcing our society to respond in fear by taking away our liberties, spending ourselves into bankruptcy and killing or maiming untold hundreds of thousands of innocent people around the world. Is it possible that the greater we respond with force, often involving pain and suffering of innocent people around the world, the less safe we actually are? The more enemies we create? Newton’s Third Law tells us for every action there is an equal but opposite reaction. Taken literally, this could portend a very ominous future. Let’s hope not.
What have we learned? Timely commentary for you to consider.
Jeremy Scahill - Blowback in Somalia; how the CIA assists in the creation of terrorists (superior journalism)
The Real News - 9/11 was not an intelligence failure so how does spending trillions to create new massive bureaucracies and war make us more intelligent? (superior journalism - video)
Ralph Nader - Painful Lessons From 9/11. The Empire Is Eating Itself. (CounterPunch’s web site was down, probably for maintenance, at the time I posted this. This link will work when the web site comes back up.)
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