The Fifth Anniversary, Part I
We owe them remembrance of their individual humanity. For Americans, September 11th is unique in its character as a national day of mourning. Being optimists, Americans generally mark birth-days. Pearl Harbor is noted more as the point of our entry into World War II; Memorial Day is generic, not specific to the lives lost in specific battles. Only for September 11th do we mark the day of passing.
We owe them remembrance of their individual humanity. For Americans, September 11th is unique in its character as a national day of mourning. Being optimists, Americans generally mark birth-days. Pearl Harbor is noted more as the point of our entry into World War II; Memorial Day is generic, not specific to the lives lost in specific battles. Only for September 11th do we mark the day of passing.
We owe them recognition of their heroism and its legacy. There were victims, of course, but also an untold number of heroes – some by chance and some by choice. There were those who rose to the occasion thrust upon them. And there were those who, operating counter to every known human impulse, ran into danger instead of out for the sake of their fellows. Their legacy has been heightened American vigilance and increased cooperation among law enforcement and government agencies, but that is not enough. We vastly increase our security when the rest of us are vigilant as well and cooperative with our law enforcement agencies, not only in the moment of tragedy but in the everyday world in which people can work to prevent tragedy.
We owe them perspective. The world didn’t become a more dangerous place on 9-11; we simply became aware of the danger that long existed. The war against our country, our friends and our way of life didn’t begin on 9-11; those who wanted to destroy us had been fighting and killing us for years – in Beirut, in Yemen, in Tanzania, and in New York in 1993. The war began in 1979 with the success of the Islamic Revolution in Iran and mutated throughout the region, creating a swamp of terrorists and states that harbor and support them in a variety of ways.
We owe them clarity about the nature and ideology of their killers. Terrorists and their apologists would have us believe 9-11 and other acts of terror around the world, including in Israel, are a response to things America or Israel or the West does wrong. While we are fully capable of doing wrong or being wrong, Islamic radicalism is rooted in itself, not in us. It is a violent, fascist, sexist, anti-Western, anti-Semitic, anti-Christian ideology drawn from the most narrow possible 8th Century interpretation of Islam and a desire to attain Islamic hegemony in as much of the world as possible. Terrorism is a tactic in service to the ideology and to its spread.
The perpetrators were sent by masters abroad to live among our citizens and millions of law-abiding, freedom-loving immigrants whose hospitality and protection they abused. The terrorists believed they were protected by America’s legendary commitment to privacy and personal liberty. They were, unfortunately, right in their time – but wrong in this time. Liberty is the right of innocent people to be secure in their everyday activities. Those who seek to kill us in our homes and our workplace, or actively support those who would to that, are not entitled to privacy and certainly not to liberty.
Finally, we owe them continuance of America’s righteous anger until justice is done.