Today is the second anniversary of the attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center and many Americans will be visited again by the familiar but unwelcome tightness in the stomach, the perceptible acceleration of the pulse. The sound of an airplane passing overhead seems to jump at our ears. People are solemn and subdued.
The world did change two years ago; it has yet to change back. Someday, this phase of history will be over, but we’ll never get back to where we were. Perhaps the most significant thing that happened on September 11th was the creation of the potential for change. Much of the change has been unpleasant. Americans lost a sense of security we had assumed was our birthright; our façade of international omnipotence was shaken, but at the same time, a current of global goodwill surged toward America and Americans.
Many of us took advantage of the opportunity for change two years ago. We re-evaluated our goals and found new perspective. We place a higher value on our families and communities and we recognize how quickly and concretely our lives may depend on the people we pass in the street.
As a nation, we have not fared as well. September 11th, 2001 presented America a chance to weave ourselves more tightly into the community of nations. We had a chance, two years ago, to commit our ingenuity and ambition to the task of creating justice and peace and equality across the planet; to destroy the narrowness of spirit that gives birth to terrorism. We failed to take that chance two years ago and we have consistently failed to recreate that chance in the weeks and months that followed. The failure has been foreign and domestic, economic, diplomatic and military.
There’s no need to renumerate the specific ways the U.S. government failed to capitalize on the opportunity for change offered by September 11th. Those faults are well known and I have spent a good part of the past 24 months pointing them out. I confess I’ve partaken of the satisfaction of a partisan pundit when I see the inevitable results of the wrongheaded policies I’ve criticized. The down side is that when one of my dire predictions comes true, it means people are suffering somewhere and too often their suffering is for no purpose.
The result of the collective failure of American policies is that – paradoxically – we have come full circle and have again arrived at an opportunity to join more fully with the world community to create peace and justice.
As I write, American diplomats are at the United Nations, working with representatives of other nations to bring a true international coalition to Iraq. It will not be easy. There are people in Iraq who want neither peace nor justice and will continue to sabotage efforts to create them. Most Iraqis do want peace and justice and those ideals can be found, but the first step is that Americans need to show our good intentions by bringing other nations into the decision-making process. We need more than money and troops; we need creativity and goodwill and another point of view. Our best thinking has brought us where we are today; it’s clear we need another point of view.
At home, our economy and our civil liberties are both battered. Neither will be restored unless and until the president and the vice president and the attorney general admit that their service to a narrow constituency of special interests has led them into violation of their oaths of office. This admission need not be made in public; there’s nothing to be served by having someone lose face. Changing policy will be more than enough.
As it was two years ago, our moment of opportunity is made possible through our weakness rather than our strength. To take advantage of it, we need wisdom rather than intelligence. If we fail to act now, things will get worse; more people will suffer and we do not know when we will have this opportunity again.
Two Years later
Today is the second anniversary of the attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center and many Americans will be visited again by the familiar but unwelcome tightness in the stomach, the perceptible acceleration of the pulse. The sound of an airplane passing overhead seems to jump at our ears. People are solemn and subdued.
The world did change two years ago; it has yet to change back. Someday, this phase of history will be over, but we’ll never get back to where we were. Perhaps the most significant thing that happened on September 11th was the creation of the potential for change. Much of the change has been unpleasant. Americans lost a sense of security we had assumed was our birthright; our façade of international omnipotence was shaken, but at the same time, a current of global goodwill surged toward America and Americans.
Many of us took advantage of the opportunity for change two years ago. We re-evaluated our goals and found new perspective. We place a higher value on our families and communities and we recognize how quickly and concretely our lives may depend on the people we pass in the street.
As a nation, we have not fared as well. September 11th, 2001 presented America a chance to weave ourselves more tightly into the community of nations. We had a chance, two years ago, to commit our ingenuity and ambition to the task of creating justice and peace and equality across the planet; to destroy the narrowness of spirit that gives birth to terrorism. We failed to take that chance two years ago and we have consistently failed to recreate that chance in the weeks and months that followed. The failure has been foreign and domestic, economic, diplomatic and military.
There’s no need to renumerate the specific ways the U.S. government failed to capitalize on the opportunity for change offered by September 11th. Those faults are well known and I have spent a good part of the past 24 months pointing them out. I confess I’ve partaken of the satisfaction of a partisan pundit when I see the inevitable results of the wrongheaded policies I’ve criticized. The down side is that when one of my dire predictions comes true, it means people are suffering somewhere and too often their suffering is for no purpose.
The result of the collective failure of American policies is that – paradoxically – we have come full circle and have again arrived at an opportunity to join more fully with the world community to create peace and justice.
As I write, American diplomats are at the United Nations, working with representatives of other nations to bring a true international coalition to Iraq. It will not be easy. There are people in Iraq who want neither peace nor justice and will continue to sabotage efforts to create them. Most Iraqis do want peace and justice and those ideals can be found, but the first step is that Americans need to show our good intentions by bringing other nations into the decision-making process. We need more than money and troops; we need creativity and goodwill and another point of view. Our best thinking has brought us where we are today; it’s clear we need another point of view.
At home, our economy and our civil liberties are both battered. Neither will be restored unless and until the president and the vice president and the attorney general admit that their service to a narrow constituency of special interests has led them into violation of their oaths of office. This admission need not be made in public; there’s nothing to be served by having someone lose face. Changing policy will be more than enough.
As it was two years ago, our moment of opportunity is made possible through our weakness rather than our strength. To take advantage of it, we need wisdom rather than intelligence. If we fail to act now, things will get worse; more people will suffer and we do not know when we will have this opportunity again.