Ten Years Later

EXCERPT:
Is it possible to be happy in hell?

This question runs through my mind like an unwelcomed, stubborn tune as I reflect on last weekend’s observances of the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. For amid so many moving remembrances of that awful day lurked a desire to avoid remembering its aftermath.

Ten years later, our public observances stressed whatever is consoling and life affirming. We admire the perseverance and the courage of the victims’ families, we honor the memory of the victims themselves, we follow the healing and growth of their children, we praise the heroism of the first responders and rescuers, we salute the sacrifices and service of our servicemen and women, and we stand proud of our country’s resilience, power, and virtue.

But by lifting our hearts, we also distract our minds from the real consequences of those terrible attacks - - consequences far beyond the 3,000 victims we remember and mourn this week:
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Ten years later, more than 5,000 U.S. troops have been killed.
Ten years later, more than 40,000 young Americans are permanently disabled or traumatized by their battle wounds.

Ten years later, nearly 200,000 Iraqis and Afghanis have been killed - - 80% of them women and children.

Ten years later, more than two million Iraqis are in exile, refugees who fled the war-torn land created by the U.S. invasion. These refugees are also mostly women and children--including girls as young as 10 who must prostitute themselves in Syria just to survive.

Ten years later, we remain simultaneously mired in the two longest wars in U.S. history, while insurgencies still disrupt civil order.

Ten years later, those wars continue to fuel the growth of terrorist groups.

Ten years later, those wars continue to strengthen the hold of Iran on life in Iraq.

Ten years later, the once-defeated Taliban has risen like a Phoenix after our paranoid invasion of Iraq took our attention away from Afghanistan.

Ten years later, our nation’s policies and practices are profoundly altered, even corrupted. We have engaged in systematic torture. We have paid others to torture for us. We have paid others to kill for us, spy for us, and even spy on us. We continue to imprison people beyond the reach of our justice system. We continue to send drones on killing missions that cannot tell terrorists from bystanders. We continue the explosive expansion of a “Top Secret America” whose 17,000 U.S. locations comprise, according to the investigative reporting of the Washington Post, a “huge bureaucracy that you can’t really see,” whose budget is a “state secret,” whose brand new headquarters of the Director of National Intelligence is as large as the Pentagon, and whose activities operate “behind a black wall,” beyond public view as well as congressional or judicial oversight.

…

Ten years later, our nation’s landscape has transformed. Police cameras track our movements, scanners record our license plates, warrantless intercepts record our calls and emails, and “fusion centers” in every state collect the data on us but keep it secret from us.

Ten years later, our economy has buckled from the burden of two prolonged wars bought on credit. Our huge surplus from 2000 (originally projected to total $3.5 trillion by 2008) is now a massive deficit (projected in 2008 to grow to $3 trillion within ten years), we have become the world’s biggest debtor nation, and our political system seems paralyzed by the challenge of the faltering economy.

We all know the 9/11 attacks were acts of terror - -but do we know what that really means?

It means that the attackers were not aiming at a conventional military victory: they did not seek to gain territory or treasure or control of power. The 9/11 attacks, as is typical with most terrorists, aimed to trigger a retaliation that would lead to aggressive attacks abroad and repressive, even police-state tactics at home. The real aim was to prove that our government cannot protect us without violating the rights of other nations and the privacy of its own citizens.

In short, Bin Laden’s goal was to damage the long-term moral character and reputation of our government both here and abroad - - and to accomplish it in a single day at a cost of 3,000 lives. In one day, this villain sought to disrupt the peace, tranquility, and security of the American way of life for years to come.

After ten years of war, anxiety, deficits, and the erosion of our rights, who is to say he did not succeed?

Ten years later, Osama Bin Laden is dead. Most Americans surely believe he is in hell, and they know he must be sorely disappointed to find himself thus punished, rather than rewarded by Allah, for his terror campaign against the west. But if it is possible to be happy in hell, he must be nonetheless pleased by the fruits of his labor.