zarth

I didn't write anything for 9/11. It's a hard day.

At the time, I have to confess, I was a pretty smug liberal about it. My first reaction really was, "We brought this on ourselves - our foreign policy has finally come home to us."

I didn't believe anything the administration said about al-Qaeda. I figured that they basically knew fuck all, and were just looking for someone alive (unlike the hijackers themselves) to pin the blame on. I opposed the war in Afghanistan, partly because I was unimpressed with the admninisration's "proof" of al-Qaeda's involvement, partly because I didn't think diplomacy had been given a reasonable chance to succeed, and partly because I didn't think it would do any good and I didn't think we could win.

History has proven me right about some of those things, though I can't say as I feel happy about it. Anyway, back to the story.

Later, I read some interviews with bin Laden, and I read some of the works of Sayyed Qutb. I was stunned.

I realized that we hadn't actually brought it upon ourselves, that these men were motivated by a seething anti-Semitism, and anti-modernism. Bin Laden, in particular, came across as a ravening fount of hate-filled conspiracy theories, while Qutb himself seemed less offended by Western imperialism than he was by Western miniskirts.

So I reassessed my original impression. Yes, there was certainly a dimension of blowback at work. But, on the other hand, I had to acknowledge that our self-declared enemies had agendas and agency of their own, and that their motivations were less about an honorable opposition to imperialism than they were simply and profoundly alien and genuinely inimical to liberalism.

These really are men who want to destroy everything I value in human civilization - pluralism, tolerance, liberty, and permissiveness.

And in time, the proportion of the tragedy finally sunk in. It pains me now to think of what happened that day. Almost unbearably.

But what I really wanted to write about today was September 12th.

The president was in hiding. I've never liked him before or since, but even so, I've never forgiven him for that.

Because that defined our response as a nation.

We were hit, and over three thousand of us died. This is a terrible thing, and honestly I am brought close to tears in contemplation of it.

But the fear we have had since is out of all proportion to the threat. It has unmanned us, even dehumanized us. It has led us to support and endorse disastrous and inhumane follies which have rightly turned both friend and foe against us, and which have perhaps fatally affected our power to do good in the world.

Terrorism is certainly real. But it's always been real, and always will be. It will not be answered by imperial wars or torture chambers, nor will it ever - ever - destroy our civilization.

But we can, through our fear.