Last updated on September 18, 2024
I had pulled an all-nighter on 9/11. My clock radio tried to wake me up but I was a lump relishing in my productivity the night before and vaguely aware of the announcement that a plane had crashed into one of the towers. It seemed like a dream until the phone rang. It was a coworker and she was crying. As I tried to calm her down, I walked into the living room and turned on the TV just as Flight 175 crashed into the south tower. I lied to my friend and told her that we were not going to war. I hung up and tried to get something done but ended up watching TV for the rest of the day and losing the buffer that I had built up the night before. On the twentieth anniversary of 9/11, it still feels surreal.
Why did it happen?
Everybody around me seemed confused by the attack. They didn’t understand why the World Trade Center and Pentagon were targeted. I seemed to be the only person in my friend group that was aware of the terrorist attacks that had taken place after the US didn’t leave Saudi Arabia following the first Gulf War. They kept asking me, “you read the news and know what’s going on, why did this happen?” It wasn’t because we were prosperous and free.
All of the things that the United States government had been doing in the Middle East since the end of World War II provoked the 9/11 attack. The American people were not responsible for the actions of nineteen psychopaths with boxcutters. But Americans suffered the consequences of losing control of their government. They voted for a government that went overseas and involved itself in the affairs of others using violent means. Instead of constraining these activities, Americans focused on domestic issues such as welfare programs and culture wars. By making these federal issues, interventionist foreign policy became a side issue in national politics and the eventual blowback came as a surprise.
The country was never supposed to be governed this way. One of the reasons that the Constitution enumerates powers for the federal government is to make its activity clear and the subject of debate when elections are held. When the domestic issues that are the purview of the states become national issues, they dominate the attention of voters and other issues fall by the wayside. As a result, foreign policy drifts from the political sphere into the realm of permanent government bureaucrats. The citizens lose control of whether the country goes to war or not. Devolving power to state, county, city, and local governments is a big step in controlling the federal government. If we have a government by the people, the people need to be able to know what the government is doing.
History before and since
On the twentieth anniversary of 9/11, most Americans still don’t have a good understanding of why the event happened and what it caused. The media has created a fractured view of the terror war. Sure, just about every story was covered, but most of them were nowhere near the front page. Scott Horton has a created a set of short videos that connects the dots between major events. None of this is secret information, it all made the papers or the nightly news although usually without context.
What should we do in the next twenty years?
Twenty years after 9/11, it seems that the US is still on a path toward creating more enemies. It doesn’t have to be like this. Better decisions were available at every turn and they still exist. The best advice that I can think of going forward is the same advice given by Harry Browne on 9/12/2001.
| When Will We Learn? by Harry Browne September 12, 2001 The terrorist attacks against America comprise a horrible tragedy. But they shouldn’t be a surprise. It is well known that in war, the first casualty is truth – that during any war truth is forsaken for propaganda. But sanity was a prior casualty: it was the loss of sanity that led to war in the first place. Our foreign policy has been insane for decades. It was only a matter of time until Americans would have to suffer personally for it. It is a terrible tragedy of life that the innocent so often have to suffer for the sins of the guilty. When will we learn that we can’t allow our politicians to bully the world without someone bullying back eventually? President Bush has authorized continued bombing of innocent people in Iraq. President Clinton bombed innocent people in the Sudan, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Serbia. President Bush Senior invaded Iraq and Panama. President Reagan bombed innocent people in Libya and invaded Grenada. And on and on it goes. Did we think the people who lost their families and friends and property in all that destruction would love America for what happened? When will we learn that violence always begets violence? Teaching Lessons Supposedly, Reagan bombed Libya to teach Muammar al-Qaddafi a lesson about terrorism. But shortly thereafter a PanAm plane was destroyed over Scotland, and our government tried to convince the world it was Libyans who did it. When will we learn that “teaching someone a lesson” never teaches anything but resentment – that it only inspires the recipient to greater acts of defiance. How many times on Tuesday did we hear someone describe the terrorist attacks as “cowardly acts”? But as misguided and despicable as they were, they were anything but cowardly. The people who committed them knowingly gave their lives for whatever stupid beliefs they held. But what about the American presidents who order bombings of innocent people – while the presidents remain completely insulated from any danger? What would you call their acts? When will we learn that forsaking truth and reason in the heat of battle almost always assures that we will lose the battle? Losing our Last Freedoms And now, as sure as night follows day, we will be told we must give up more of our freedoms to avenge what never should have happened in the first place. When will we learn that it makes no sense to give up our freedoms in the name of freedom? What to Do What should be done? First of all, stop the hysteria. Stand back and ask how this could have happened. Ask how a prosperous country isolated by two oceans could have so embroiled itself in other people’s business that someone would want to do us harm. Even sitting in the middle of Europe, Switzerland isn’t beset by terrorist attacks, because the Swiss mind their own business. Second, resolve that we won’t let our leaders use this occasion to commit their own terrorist acts upon more innocent people, foreign and domestic, that will inspire more terrorist attacks in the future. Third, find a way, with enforceable constitutional limits, to prevent our leaders from ever again provoking this kind of anger against America. Patriotism? There are those who will say this article is unpatriotic and un-American – that this is not a time to question our country or our leaders. When will we learn that without freedom and sanity, there is no reason to be patriotic? |
