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A nationally syndicated columnist has recently urged that Americans forget
about 9/11, become adults, and "get back our groove." Thomas Friedman is the
senior columnist at the New York Times and hence de facto the most important
columnist in the United States. That he disapproves of the 9/11 cult makes
it official. As America's uber wise man, he has certified that the national
obsession with the World Trade Center attack is a sign of weakness and fear.
Yet in the marvelous Yiddish phrase, "Already, all right, enough!" The attack was a great evil, a terrible blow to the whole nation, a mass killing of innocents, a crime that calls to heaven for vengeance. It was an assault on American pride. It was perceived not only as a crime, but also as a grave personal insult to everyone in the country. It was also a serious attempt to demolish the morale and self-confidence of Americans. In all of these goals it succeeded beyond the expectations of the vile murderers who engineered and executed it. Every time we engage in a national commemoration, we stir up the weakness and fear again. We may wave flags, chant USA USA, and shout FREEDOM! FREEDOM! Such a response after six years may fill television time and newspaper space, but it is not a mature reaction from the people of the most powerful nation in the world. As Friedman says, it is immature and unworthy of us. |
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Unfortunately, our national leaders (not excluding Friedman in an earlier manifestation) have used the attack as an excuse for responding with chauvinistic fury. We heard promises of revenge -- we'd hunt the terrorists down and take them out. Arabs had killed some of our people. We would kill some of theirs (tens of thousands as it turns out). We must punish the terrorists by going to war against a nation that had nothing to do with the attack. To pursue this "war on terror" we would engage in kidnapping, torture and murder, and we would permit the president to use his power to, in effect, repeal the Bill of Rights. That's how a great nation responds. It flails around and strikes out in ways that diminish the clarity of its convictions and play into the hands of its enemies. At least we finally put bulletproof doors on the cockpits of commercial aircraft, an act that would have prevented the original attack. Whether any of the other "security" measures have been sufficient is certainly open to question, despite all the tough talking from the White House. Are the ports, the railroads, the electricity grids of the country any more secure than they were on Sept. 10? Our leaders made us a weaker and more frightened people, but not a notably safer people. |
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So Friedman's call for recovering our "groove" is welcome. It must be said, however, that neither he nor his paper has done sufficient public penance for their fanning the flames of post 9/11 paranoia that swept the country and still permeate our culture. Nor has there been an effort to replace the hysterical metaphor of "war on terror" with the more precise "counterterrorism campaign." New York City has made very little progress toward filling that frightening empty hole in its skyline. Islamist fanatics still roam the world. There is still danger, but a firm, calm and intelligent response to it is more mature, more sophisticated and, most important, more effective than paranoiac hysteria. Moreover, a country that once was a light of freedom to the world (and to some extent still is) must regain its "groove" so the light will shine brightly again on the mountaintop. The next president has his/her work cut out -- get our groove back!
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