Time to Get Back to Being Americans

Today is the thirteenth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on America. Thirteen years and one day ago we were a totally different nation. We did not live in fear of attacks from Islamic radicals. We had been attacked once in the 90s on our own soil. Not so coincidently, it was the World Trade Center that had been bombed that time. Of course we had experienced attacks by fellow citizens who looked like us (well the white ones of us). Timothy McVeigh was the face of the bombing of a federal building in Oklahoma City which occurred in the 90s as well. While both of these attacks grabbed the attention of the American public, they were small beans compared to the 9/11 attacks. Of course everyone knows that two commercial jets were flown into both World Trade Center towers, one flown into the side of the Pentagon and one was downed in a Pennsylvania field after the passengers showed courage like no others and took the plane back from the hijackers. 

I was not in a spot to watch the coverage that day but I have watched much of it in the last thirteen years. One thing that always sticks out in my mind (besides the fact that CNN reporters were curious if two planes could accidentally slam into the side of two buildings that sat next to one another) was Tom Brokaw saying that we were about to have to give up some rights for security. As I think more and more about that statement as the years pass, the more I am sadden at that statement. It was a statement that was half true. We have given up rights but are we safer? The other thing that has sadden me is that we gave into fear. Since those attacks, we have gone on a war spree. We have lost our values and have lost what made us exceptional. The terrorists did score a victory that day and it seems that they continue to reap the benefits even today.   

Shortly after the attacks, Congress passed the Patriot Act and other laws that would vastly expand the power of the federal government and concentrate that power in the executive branch. We now have a government that intrudes into our lives like never before via technology. Congress gave the president the power to go after whoever he saw fit with very little or if any restraints. We began imprison people indefinitely and kill others to include citizens without due process. We began to accept torture as acceptable. We would invade countries based on the decisions of one person. Not that that the practice of presidential wars were new but now they seemed to be on steroids. If the president thought a nation was a threat to our secruity then our miltary would invade without any declaration of war from Congress. We would invade two sovereign nations in the name of national security. One would be in response to the 9/11 attacks. The next would be to prevent the next 9/11. We also would spread democracy through military action. These wars may or may not have been needed. That is not the point. Out of fear, we allowed them and without any kind of accountability from the ones who made the decision to start them. The other problem with presidential wars is that we go in and get out based on one person's whims and those of their successors. We are starting to see this causes us to seem bipolar in our foreign policy. We lose credibility with the world and gives the bad guys some great PR to use for recruiting. 

There is a popular talking head out there that always wants us to go back to 9/12/01. He thinks we were more kind and caring on that day. I would agree that in some ways we were more kind and caring to some people on that day. To other people, we demonized them and pre-judged them based on race and religion. Heck, sometimes they weren't even the race or religion that we thought they were. We lived in fear and were willing to bow to the government and give them all of our rights. We were ready to go around the world and make countries pay even if they had nothing to do with the attacks. I do not want to go back to 9/12/01. I want us to take a stand and no longer live in fear. We do not give away our rights. We love our neighbors and treat them as Americans even if they look like or have a similar name to someone who attacked us. They attacked our neighbors also. We need to hold Congress accountable and not let them pass off their responsibility of declaring wars to the president. What we really need to do is to get back to American values. We need to love peace, our neighbor and the individual.