Great Op-Ed by Anna Quindlen: "American Forgetting"

[kysrsoze]

This pretty much says it all...

Sept. 17, 2007 issue - At the construction project that has replaced the site of one of America's greatest national traumas, there is a sign with the telephone number of the Port Authority police "in case of an emergency." This would be ironic were it not so sad. Everything about the enormous urban square where the World Trade Center once stood, once burned, once fell, is terribly sad because it has been so sanitized. THIS IS A SPECIAL PLACE, says one small sign on the construction fence, but there's no sign that that's true. Everything has been done to make it seem ordinary. Girders, cranes, gravel, hard hats—it looks no different from the places nearby where luxury condos rise. THINK BACK. MOVE FORWARD. IT'S TIME reads a billboard that has the unmistakable odor of ad agency. Americans like history as long as it's over fast enough.

Six years ago there was a moment. How long did it last? Long enough to seem indelible and authentic. After the greatest terrorist attacks on U.S. soil and the deaths of nearly 3,000 people in New York, Washington and a field in Pennsylvania, there was a moment when it seemed that the sheer scale of the event would evoke a response of answering enormity, in thought, in action and in behavior.

That is not what happened.

Instead we launched a war, a cheap bait-and-switch by an administration that figured it could simply replace one Middle Eastern bad guy with another in the public mind, trade an Osama bin Laden card for a Saddam Hussein. Our so-called leaders knew that the most terrifying thing about a War on Terror was that it was a war without borders, nationality or country. They decided to pretend otherwise by invading Iraq. Today it may be that things are better in one part of that country, not so good in others, but the bottom line is that there remains no compelling reason why the United States should ever have invaded in the first place, and certainly none that can be linked to the events of September 11.

More: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20657183/site/newsweek/page/0/

[Jade Fox]

1. That's good....

I've been having similar thoughts all day. I, too, thought we would respond to 9/11 with what is best about us as Americans. Sadly, we mostly got what is worst about us, mostly because that's what those in power wanted.

[AZBlue]

2. I really liked this piece and was going to post it too until I saw your thread!

I liked these parts too especially:

"Instead of trying to understand and therefore counter the mind-set of those who hate us, and to rally our allies in their communities, American jingoism has produced an ugly strain of anti-Muslim thought and chatter. That has hampered intelligence gathering, since Arab-Americans are loath to cooperate with government agents who solicit them as sources but treat them as suspect."

and

"There was a moment when it seemed that what had happened to this nation would result in an unparalleled display of those things that make America great: audacity, community, a sense of the future as a broad plain upon which this country could make its mark for good. Instead, at almost every turn, our government and, yes, many of our citizens took the narrowest road."

and especially this:

"Remember how we said we would never forget them? We forgot them. If the spirit of the day had prevailed, the sense that this was a moment like no other and demanded a gesture in kind, someone would have had the guts to leave this national graveyard solemn, empty and still. Instead there is a sign there that says that the job now is "to recover the 10 million-sq. feet of commercial space lost in the attacks." How American. It's all about the real estate."

[Richard Steele]

3. 5th rec- off to the "geatest" page. nm

[alarimer]

4. But moving on is the way things go.It

It's the way things should be. For how many years do we have to see the exact footage replayed over and over again? For me 6 years is plenty. I have moved on. I guess it is really a cynical ploy for ratings instead of connecting the dots between the Bush Administration's mishandling of the signs and evidence that an attack was about to occur. They ignored that evidence, either on purpose or out of shear incompetence. And politicians are milking it for political gain as if to remind us how afraid we should be instead of reminding us of how the Bush Administration LET US DOWN. And then used it as an excuse for an illegal war on a country that had nothing to do with it.

Now I see all the memorial services as sort of "fetishizing grief". Unless you are a victim or know a victim, you are not really grieving.

[LeahD]

5. Excellent. The tide is turning. K & R