I believe there is quite a divergence of attitudes about the ongoing meaning of 9/11. E.g.,[ol][li]We are engaged in a world-wide war with a series of terrorist entities and the tyrannies that support them.[]The risk of terrorism has been substantially resolved. We’re not really worried about another 9/11-magnitude event, although the risk justifies some on-going attention to security concerns.[]No long-term meaning. It’s a piece of history, like Pearl Harbor or The Alamo. We can live our lives as usual.[/ol]My guess is that most of us live #3, even if our answer is #1 or #2. [/li]
So, does 9/11 still have meaning? How important is it now?
Of course there are a few other parts to the above excluded middle(s). Here’s one:
- What happened was a criminal act of mass murder, and the correct response is to use, coordinate internally and internationally, capitalise on, and increase intelligence, in order to track down, arrest and try terrorists and their leaders, put resources into domestic security while encouraging dubious governments to quash international terrorism, while considering the reasons for the growth of such terrorism and seeking to pursue foreign policy paths that lead to a diminishing of that terrorism, rather than brash acts that diminish international bodies and cooperation, and serve further to inflame those committed to do harm to the west, pro-western governments, and in particular, the US. The danger has not passed. A “war on terror” is unwinnable.
Earnest as your entreaty to join the debate assuredly is, dec, I feel the options are a little confused:
- The word “war” in the phrase “war on terrorism” is, and always was, mere hyperbole. A nation state does not declare war on a terrorist group any more than it does so on a cartel of dodgy bookmakers. An intensive criminal investigation involving numerous and forceful arrests? Yes. War? no.
As for the “tyrannies who support them” then, again, the links between the two are extremely dubious. Even in the best case, *ie.*Taleban & Al Qaeda, it is possible that those AQ terrorists who carried out or are still planning attacks outside Afghanistan were entirely unaffected by the campaign.
-
The chances of another 9/11-scale event were always smaller than many people worried about due to the sheer planning and audacity required of the original atrocity. (OBL: “Now, my disciples, I want you to use these penknives to destroy both towers of the World Trade Centre”.) The threat now is from “common” terrorism: car-bombs, assassination attempts etc., and the heightened security awareness instigated by the original attacks make this less likely.
-
Everything has a meaning (especially history), and even if 1. & 2. were true, we could still live our lives as usual.
The three options are not mutually exclusive, and contain contradictions within themselves, but a good old debate might well be had.
I’m with number 4. I think that we’re now (after the initial shock/reaction phase) settling into the phase of the process where hard questions are asked, and the answers aren’t what we assumed they were a year and a half ago. I think the OP’s question was rhetorical, but I’ll try to sort of answer it in a non-rehetorical way: Yes, it still has meaning, it will for the rest of this generation. However, the meaning is beginning to no longer be “stand around the flag with your NYPD tshirts and chant USA!USA!USA!” but “how did we get here?” Only the obtuse-est of the bellicose won’t cop to the fact that the US at least in part engendered this sort of terrorism as a direct result of our foreign policy.
The meaning of 9/11 to me has evolved into
- 9/11 was an atrocity. Just like every other atrocity that occurs in South America, Europe, the Middle East etc. 9/11 is special because an atrocity occured against an imperial power. It is no more important than suicide bombings in Israel or mass murders in Colombia. We reap what we sow. This is the world we have created.
More and more, it looks to me like the meaning of 9/11 is “an excuse for the government to lend validity to whatever extremist actions it wants to take.”
What does 9-11 mean?
The pigeons came home to roost.
Yeah! I mean, look at the way she was dressed!
:rolleyes:
It has become a symbol of how many Americans would rather hold each other and sing Cumbaya as if we had just survived an earthquake or tornado then go after the people who are responsible.
Well, you could always back you Resident into invading yet another Third World nation under some trumped-up charges of inminent danger and ties with Al-Quada. You know, that whole “TWAT” thing.
Killing thousands of innocent people in retribution for your pain might not actually make you safer, but apparently it works wonders on the latent jingoism present in large parts of American society. Cumbaya singers excluded of course.
While there are no absolute guarantees to protect anyone from terrorism, launching a tragicomic Crusade against an Islamic nation that had nothing to do with the attack seems like a particularly misguided way to tackle the problem. In fact, I daresay you’ve managed to grossly enlarge your list of enemies with your post-9/11 actions. Then again, I hear they are now welcomed to “bring it on.”
It means the U.S. (and by extension our NATO allies) were attacked. In an act of war. It means we can no longer live in ignorance trying to be Mr. Nice Guy. It means we put others on notice that people who do this sort of thing, and those who help them to do it, will face the consequences.
Pigeons came home to roost, <expletive deleted>.
Do some reading up on Neville Chamberlain and Winston Churchill.
I would say something similar to 1
We are using the pretext of 9-11 to go after people we want to. We will try to do something about terrorism as well, but you have to understand that it just isn’t that important.
Or in other words the al-Qaida link to Iraq was entirely fabricated
I’m going to basically ignore the options presented in the OP, as I agree primarily with SentientMeat that those options are muddled and contradictory.
That said, 9/11 still has a great deal of meaning. It means different things to different people, but it still has an effect on the lives of people living in America.
For politicians (of all stripes) 9/11 seems to mean political capital, to be used to whatever ends they see fit. It depends on the individual politician, of course, but I see Democrats, Republicans, and others using the events and the aftermath of 9/11 as currency to further their own disparate agenda. This meaning of 9/11 makes me nauseous.
For many Americans, it means unity… a common cause to fight against, or a common tragedy to lament.
For many other Americans, it means division… the reasons for 9/11 will likely never be agreed upon, and the proper reaction to it will certainly never be settled. Some people want vengeance, others see it as the strongest impetus to make sweeiping changes from within our own country.
Some Americans (like me) see it as both a unifying concept and a divisive one. It unifies in the sense that we can all share anger that it happened, grief for those who were lost, and pride in those who helped however they could. It divides in the sense that reactions to it are widely varied, and the aforementioned use of 9/11 as political currency breaks along predictable lines of division.
Many Americans see the effects of 9/11 today as an annoyance. It means that there’s a longer line at the airport, and it means that they’re more likely to be searched before they board. It means a heavy dose of suspicion, mistrust, and paranoia floats heavily on the air. It means international travel, even to Mexico or Canada, is more difficult.
To me, personally, 9/11 means that I check up on distant friends just a little more often. It means that I write my family and friends more often. It means that a small, armed Coast Guard boat shadows the ferry I take into the city almost every day. I find new, different meanings in old songs, and I have one more reason to be proud of people rescue workers and firefighters, any of whom established so powerfully that day the sacrifices they are willing to make and the challenges they have signed on for.
Perhaps most importantly, 9/11 is an element of history, one about which many questions remain unanswered. When more of those questions can be resolved, if they ever can be, I hope that we can learn from it. Just because it is history does not mean it is, or should be, forgotten.
Beautifully stated, Avalonian. Excellent post.
I almost agree with Sterra’s statement that it’s “something similar to 1,” but I’d say that a better way to express it is that 9/11 is approximately 0.8182.
Seriously, though. I’ve always thought that Osama was the luckiest terrorist there ever was. I can’t imagine that he could have predicted that the WTC towers would fall, because the best architects and engineers in the world wouldn’t have predicted that crashing a 727 into a building would make it fall because it melted from within. I think his goal was, “Big planes go boom,” and that anything beyond that was pure gravy (for him, not for us). Again, I’m being serious here. Any evil genius smart enough to have modeled the WTC towers collapsing would have long ago sought greener pastures, say, by requiring computer manufacturers to bundle his operating system with his web browser.
That having been said, almost all of our reactions to 9/11 seem to me to be gross overreactions. The world was an okay-but-occasionally-dangerous place on 9/10, and it was an okay-but-occasionally-dangerous place on 9/11. IMO, the most dangerous thing to do on 9/10 was to eat saturated fats while drinking alcohol while driving, and that didn’t change the next day.
I look at it as being analogous to a family’s reaction when a family member is killed by a drunken driver. It’s shocking, it’s personal, it makes them contemplate mortality, and it wakes them up to the fact that there’s a situation out there that is perhaps a little more important than they thought before the accident. You can go kill the drunken driver, or you can crusade to close down the bars, or you can try to figure out what causes people to drink so much. Whatever you do, you still have a dead family member to grieve for, and there are still drunks on the road, and there really isn’t an organized conspiracy of drunks out there looking to run over our children. (Really, just my opinion).