Would you have any problem with 9/11 memorials legally required to include the phrase “and then we took far greater vengeance on guilty and innocent alike?”
I join several others and also disagree with the OP.
ETA: agree that it’s not a contest. I grieve for my first cousin Norman, who died from covid.
It’s not a contest. I can still grieve for the two friends I lost on 9/11, as well as the two aunts I lost to Covid (the last of my parents’ generation).
I am so sorry tha USA squandered all our heartfelt solidarity, mine included. My condolences still go to the people who died, sufered and their relatives and friends. But no longer to the US Government and its stooges. I think it is deplorable that Barack Obama did not close Guantánamo, and that he took the Registry of Muslim Travelers, created by John Ashcroft, and instead of simply purging it, he transfered the contents to diferent sub-systems of the newly created Department of Homeland Security. A Department which is itself a shame and a moral and operational failure. I regret seeing the USA become more racist in a broader way: no longer just against black citicens, Native Americans and Latinos, specially the poorer ones, but against muslims everywhere, and non US-Americans in general. I regret also that lawyers working for the Government have made a travesty of spurious excuses for torture, detention without trial and surveillance on a unimaginable scale in the USA and abroad. And it makes me vomit to think that all this - and much more - paved the way for disgraced twice impeached former pres. tanTrump, who was able to harness the hatred of those who saw how the response to the attacks was botched but were not able to asign blame on the right culprits.
If this analysis rings a bell for you, may I recommend the book Reign of Terror by Spencer Ackerman, who analizes this and much more way better than I can sum it up?
I think the reason why some people want to commemorate 9/11 and ignore the much, much larger number of those who died from Covid is because the first is something “they” did to us, and the second is largely something we did to ourselves.
I can’t even find the video clip anymore, but there was a guy a few years ago on Last Comic Standing that had a bit about ordering a pizza and they had “9/11 - Never Forget!” printed on the pizza box. He says “And then I notice that they forgot my breadsticks. And I’m thinking, why don’t you print that on the box? Never forget the breadsticks!”
As others of have said, when I think of how many lives we’ve needlessly lost due to COVID, or all of the civilians killed in Iraq and Afghanistan over the last 20 years, or all of the gun deaths that could have been prevented in this country with sensible gun control laws… all of the 9/11 observances just seem like so much BS.
They would have just found a different excuse. If anything, the 9/11 attacks made it more difficult for the Bush administration to promote the war they wanted to be fighting.
I think Saddam Hussein gets the blame for that one. Our current military presence in the Middle East began in 1991 in response to the invasion of Kuwait. (Update: Kuwait was liberated within six months. Our troops are still there thirty years later.)
Bin Laden wasn’t trying to draw the United States into the Middle East. His goal was the opposite; he wanted our troops to leave. So he failed in his goal.
But they are remembered. They are remembered by those with memories of them. Those who knew them.
Not knowing anyone who died on 9/11, the nearest analog I can think of in my own life is people I have known who died in war. I look around at Memorial Day events and comparable remembrance days in other countries, and I see these ceremonies of wreath-layings and people gathering around cenotaphs to somber music, and I wonder… what in the fuck are these people doing? Because it all looks so empty. Like a show. A performance of remembrance and memorialization, but without conveying any sense of memory.
Who is the show for? Not for me—I don’t need it to remember. And certainly not for the dead. One way or the other, I have to believe they are beyond caring what people think of them now.
You’re correct, and indeed, Bin Laden’s objectives and motives were manifold and more complex than what I laid out in my post. I guess baited wasn’t the right way to characterize it - it’s not even clear that he anticipated what America’s immediate reaction would be, but as you say, ultimately, he believed he could sever our relationships with heads of state in the region and also become a hero to the oppressed throughout the region.
Our response has ultimately proven to be a case of imperial overreach
You think peedin could have said it more eloquently than RTF did?
You could be right, I suppose. peedin, get in there and at least try…
ETA: It could be worse, I suppose. At least we’re not doing Patriot Day furniture sales.
Yet.
AFAICR, whatever observances we had of Pearl Harbor + 20 were much more muted than today and the lead-up to it.
My WAG is that winning the war got people over Pearl Harbor.
Oh, I agree completely with you.
I’m just saying that it’s well past time for it to cease being an observance that’s treated like the whole nation is expected to join in.
At the risk of hijacking my own thread, I must disagree. IMHO, having whipped up a jingoistic response to the 9/11 attacks, all the Bushies had to do was connect the dots to Saddam (in people’s minds, though not in reality). Absent the attacks, there’d have been a big SEP field* around Iraq in most Americans’ minds.
*Per Douglas Adams, the SEP Field is a powerful tool for rendering things invisible by making them look like Somebody Else’s Problem.
No
The idea that we should just get over events that manifestly changed the course of history is bizarre. How the fuck do we ever learn anything if we just erase the past? This entire premise is idiotic.
What the fuck do we need to learn from Dec 7 remembrances that we don’t already know? To always remember not to trust the cowardly Japanese?
They won’t help us learn the right lessons. Like the one about not getting involved in a land war in Asia. Or about not locking up or murdering American citizens because their parents were Japanese, or Muslim.
How about that we should never be complacent, and always be ready for a sneak attack? Ok, on the aniversary of another cowardly sneak attack, maybe that’s a good thing to remember. Too bad we never learned it.
But laying a wreath on the Arizona isn’t going to fix those problems.
Pretending it never happened and just ignoring it works for individuals. It does not work and should not be acceptable to the country. Lucky for you, time will work its magic and everyone will just forget. You won’t find many Pearl Harbor Day ceremonies outside of Pearl Harbor. So, don’t watch, don’t remember. Fine. Berating those who do want to remember or who do think it’s important is ludicrous. Your buddies are a few threads over in the thread whining about Amber Alerts.
The observances aren’t the learning part. They’re the remembering part. They’re supposed to remind us of what we’ve learned.
I won’t say that there haven’t been some tacky and exploitative observances, and some shaming going on. But, on the other hand, this is the 20th anniversary, and the war that this started has just ended. Plus I’m seeing a whole lot less of the above than in years past.
While the observances have never particularly bothered me, I did understand the annoyance for some. This. however, is the one year that I really don’t see the ire.
I agree with this rant and I would add to remember 9/11, but keep it in perspective. January 6 did far more damage to our way of life. Ironically, the damage of 9/11 came from our overreaction and the damage of January 6 comes from our not taking it seriously.
Just because a historical event doesn’t have a nationality celebrated day of remembrance doesn’t mean that everyone is pretending the event didn’t happen or is ignoring it.