an unpopular position

I did not read or listen to any 9/11 posts or broadcasts. Well, except for one. I did read this one, The Decade Of Magical Thinking, and it sums up some of my feelings, although more nicely than I would have.

9/11 was a tragic day, and I don't intend to demean anyone's sorrow who lost someone they loved, but it was not the defining moment of my life and it should not have been a defining moment in the life of this nation. Or if so, it should have been a far different eye opener, a far different lesson than what this nation took from it.

Nearly 3,000 people were killed by the acts of a few.

Our national response once the shock wore off was not to have a dialog, a soul search, to understand how and why this happened, how our country's foreign policies could have engendered this response from a radical element.

No, our national response was to invade two countries and be directly responsible for the deaths of more than a hundred thousand innocent people. Because if those 2,977 people killed in the attack on the twin towers and the pentagon were innocent victims, then innocent too were the hundred thousand that We killed in retaliation.

In response, We sent another nearly 4,500 soldiers to their deaths and seriously maimed another 32,000. We engaged in torture.

In response, We willingly gave up some of our rights and freedoms under the guise of safety when we are no more or less safe than before but we are certainly less free. In actuality our acts of revenge increased the incidences of terrorism worldwide for many years.

Those of us who disagreed were charged with being unpatriotic, un-American. We were accused of not supporting the troops when in fact we did not want them in harm's way to begin with. We wanted our nation to act in a better way and were reviled for it.

I keep hearing the word 'sacred' applied to the site of 9/11 and I find it profane to use that term. We cry and beat our chests over the unprovoked attack, We claim moral superiority when, in fact, our government policies, policies that the people of this country supported, had been using and abusing the middle east for decades. We have set up and supported dictators who abused their populations in exchange for the right to go in and pillage their natural resources all the while sneering at the uneducated and disenfranchised third world populations. And when some part of them finally started fighting back the only way they could We cried foul when We have no moral high ground to stand on.

To claim that the American people are innocent of the travesties of our national policies is to deny the democracy in which we are supposed to live. We, the people, vote for and put into office the congressmen that make our laws and determine our national policies. In that sense, we, each of us, is responsible for the actions of our government. We are not a population that is at the mercy of a dictator or dictatorial institution. We said yes. And now, 10 years later, We continue to deny our own complicity because We surely have not changed any of our policies.

How different could the present be if We, as a nation, had raised up those populations instead of raising up dictators, if We had shared the bounty of their oil instead of taking it all for ourselves? The national tragedy is not that the twin towers fell and that nearly 3,000 people died at the hands of terrorists. The individuals that died that day were not the first Americans to die at the hands of terrorists, nor the last and yet those others are never remembered.

The national tragedy is that We learned nothing from the experience. We did not learn that national behavior comes with consequences. We did not learn that We cannot bomb thousands of innocents, We cannot set up dictators for our financial gain, We cannot set out to assassinate the political leaders of other countries with impunity and We certainly cannot claim the high moral ground. What goes around,comes around.

So revile me if you must, but I think We failed the test.

And yes, I know that as individuals We have within us some powerfully aware and compassionate beings but this is about the collective soul of this nation and judging from the last 10 years there are not enough.

Obviously, not enough.

edit: I must amend some of what I wrote. Several commenters have pointed out that while we try to elect people who seem to represent us, once in office, they represent only those of wealth and power and forget their promises to the rest of us who voted for them. So in that way, we, the individuals, aren't responsible for what our government does. But on the other hand, there are no massive demonstrations against what they do either.