DO NOT LET THIS HAPPEN AGAIN.
Posted on 09/11/2003 3:20:49 AM PDT by ejdrapes
In the country where I have spent the past nine months trying to blend in, today is Patriot Day. By federal mandate there will be flag-waving and pride, commemoration and sorrow, in every city across the United States. Sounds a bit Soviet, doesn’t it? Not over there, in the country where it happened. Not for most people. For tens of millions of Americans 9/11 remains raw in ways we can only imagine, and Patriot Day sounds just about right. Two years after the throat-slitters’ apocalypse the rest of the world may be debating the rights and wrongs of American foreign policy, but America herself is debating how to win the war that began that day. The country has been polarised, but over means, not ends. The immediate issue is Iraq, not Afghanistan or even the twin towers, but the reason for the war remains 9/11 and its insignia are everywhere. On the street where we lived, two miles from Hollywood and ten from the Pacific, yellow ribbons that went up in March were still there four months later. The dominant bumper sticker was not shrill or partisan — at least, not obviously. It said simply: “United We Stand”. Local shops displayed the Stars and Stripes in their front windows because whatever their owners thought about Iraq they knew a flag could not be bad for business. Each engine in the Burbank Fire Department’s fleet, which operates 2,500 miles from Manhattan, bore a reminder to “Remember The Fallen”, and each Burbank firefighter was a hero. At the local airport, busy with West Coast commuters but surely low on al-Qaeda’s target lists, we all did our bit. Minute searches of every shoe and handbag may not catch the “bad guys” the Administration is still chasing, but they bring the war to the people. To endure them stoically and even cheerfully — as everyone does — is to show your agreement that the war must still be won. America lives with fears that two years ago were non-existent. Twin-jets banking over built-up areas attract a special, silent upward glance that jumbos don’t. More rationally, every major fire, crash and blackout raises the question, “terrorism?” Such fears are moulding the way Americans live. They fly less, steer clear of tunnels and think twice about visiting New York. But they are not the most important legacy of 9/11. Anger is; anger of two sorts. The first is with the wider world. France and Germany may not have grasped it yet but their refusal to join Bush’s coalition of the willing has cost them real friends in real places; indignant American spenders switching to Jeeps from BMWs and holidaying in Oregon instead of Paris. The United Nations is mocked as spineless and amoral by people who gave it no thought at all until last year. Iraq and her neighbours are guilty in many American eyes of an even graver sin — that of ingratitude. Such anger mirrors the Administration’s and takes its lead from right-wing talk radio, but it is no less real for that. The second sort crackles over dinner tables and the airwaves between Americans of different views on how to prosecute the war on terror. It’s the anger that cost Bill Maher his show on ABC after he accused the Pentagon of cowardice for aiming cruise missiles at the Middle East from the security of high-flying B52s. It’s the anger that lost the Dixie Chicks one audience and won them another from the dissident Left after they announced that they were ashamed that George Bush was Texan. 9/11 detrivialised American discourse. You have to feel your way carefully into conversations with anyone whose views you don’t already know, and, as a foreigner in America, you have to be ready to be shocked. I was, last month, when a friend called any discussion of civilian deaths in Iraq unpatriotic as long as GIs were fighting and dying there. For someone brought up on the BBC, that kind of assertion triggers an urge to lecture. But for outsiders in America it’s still better to listen and observe. And as the 2004 presidential race unfolds, and the incumbent pulls ahead and wins on simple soundbites about terror and security, we should remember: it’s 9/11, stupid.The legacy of 9/11 is anger; American anger with the world
DO NOT LET THIS HAPPEN AGAIN.
I think it good that he warns Europeans to keep their mouths shut when they come over here.
Says it all.
Can't imagine anyone would think we're "over it" after two years.
"You're either with us or against us."
No, "American anger" is NOT "the legacy."
I hope that this exaggeration because Jeep is Chrysler is Daimler-Chrysler which is majority-owned by Germans which makes it little different from BMW. It is ironic that the iconic Jeep is now majority owned by the very same country that it was conceived to be used against!
As for this post, I too feel that it is an accurate conveyance of a different viewpoint and not fully deserving of the "Barf-Alert". It probably helps in explaining our continuing angst over 09/11/01 and its continuing motivation. I am trying to conceive of a similar event for the Brits and the best that I can come up with is the Falkland Islands seizure. The lack of any true match helps explain the puzzlement on the part of foreigners.
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