Six years ago this morning, I was sitting at my desk in the Pentagon with my co-workers crowded around, watching the CNN website in horror as first one, then another hijacked airliner crashed into the twin towers of the World Trade Center. About 20 minutes later, we felt the building shake and heard a deep, rumbling boom as American Airlines flight 77 slammed into the Pentagon. We evacuated the building and made it to our emergency rally point safely, where we watched enormous clouds of inky smoke laced with red and orange flames roll into the bright blue morning sky. We heard what we thought were two more explosions, but which we later learned were the sonic booms of two Air Force fighter aircraft arriving too late to do anything but watch the devastation.
We had evacuated the building in a rush, and so I didn't have my car keys (in the briefcase under my desk) or my cell phone (locked in my car). I borrowed a cell phone to call Agnes and let her know I was safe, but the volume of calls had collapsed all the local cellular networks. I ended up waiting in line for an hour and a half for a pay phone at the Pentagon City Mall, and then waiting nearly another hour for a Metrorail train with enough space for me to squeeze aboard and get to our local station, where my daughter picked me up.
I was hugely inconvenienced and badly frightened on that September morning six years ago, but I was fortunate. Almost 3,000 people died that morning, and the world has not been the same since.
As an American, one learns early on that Yankee Go Home is an English phrase most foreigners know by heart, and that we will generally be blamed for all the ills of the world, no matter whose fault they are. But it wasn't until that morning six years ago that we realized there are people in the world so consumed with mindless hate and fired by arrogant religious bigotry that they would happily kill themselves if it meant they could kill us at the same time...and that thousands of others would dance in the streets of the Middle East in celebration, even as they happily accepted our foreign aid. We learned that while the Bible tells us to turn the other cheek in response to hurts, there are those who would happily hit us with the other fist.
Six years later, many of those who planned and financed the attacks of September 11th have been captured or killed. Osama bin Laden and his pet snake, Ayman al Zawahiri still live and still encourage others to attack us. From a position of unity driven by extreme adversity, our government has degenerated into a gaggle of squabbling, unfocused people more interested in scoring political advantage than in punishing the guilty. Allies who once were glad to stand with us in a time of danger have been marginalized and turned into skeptics, if not opponents, by the ill-considered actions of the Bush administration.
On this September 11th, instead of the heads of bin Laden and al Zawahiri on pikes in the crater of the World Trade Center, we have squabbling partisan politicians picking at the testimony of General David Petraeus, the man trying his best to salvage something from the wreckage of our administration's adventure in Iraq.
And we wait for another shoe to fall.
On this September 11th, as in every September 11th for the rest of my life, I will be reminded of the depths of depravity that twisted religious beliefs can reach, and that a world happy to accept American handouts is equally happy to cheer those who would kill us.
The world changed six years ago. Unfortunately, in a deep and cobwebbed part of my heart, so did I. Where I once had a certain sympathy for those who suffer in the Middle East, I now have nothing but contempt. As a Christian, however non-practicing, I think that's a sad thing.
In The Divine Comedy, Dante wrote that there were seven levels of Hell. On this September 11th, I hope there are still deeper and more terrible depths reserved for the likes of the bin Ladens and the al Zawahiris and the other religious radicals of the world.
And even that is better than they deserve.
I'll be over this funk by tomorrow. In the meantime, have a good day. More thoughts coming.
Bilbo
Being a direct part of 9/11 must really have been life changing. There was a headline today about bin Laden calling for caravans of matyrs....senseless!
ReplyDeleteOn this September 11th, instead of the heads of bin Laden and al Zawahiri on pikes in the crater of the World Trade Center, we have squabbling partisan politicians picking at the testimony of General David Petraeus, the man trying his best to salvage something from the wreckage of our administration's adventure in Iraq.
ReplyDeleteI think that's appalling too. Sometimes it seems to me that there are people in our countries who actually want failure in Iraq, because it will mean they have been proved right and they can use it for political gain. Sickening.
Don't get too down about the Middle East though. I'm not sure how unpopular America really is there; sometimes I think anti-Americanism is just a tool political and religious leaders use to shore up their own positions. (And not just in the Middle East either! Chirac was a great example of that way of thinking.)
You were so close to it on that day, Bilbo. The Dante comment is a good one.
ReplyDeleteIt really did change the world. I can't imagine being that close to the events. Even from where I sat in a classroom full of second graders in Mississippi, it changed my life forever. I can only imagine that it was even more profound for you. Great post.
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