It's September 11th again. What was, for the first few anniversaries, a solemn remembrance, has become an opportunity for political posturing and chest thumping pseudo-patriotism. That, and an opening for all the crackpot conspiracy theorists to trot out their idiotic slants on 9-11 that the rest of us have mercifully forgotten. I have grown weary of all the reminders of how tough New Yorkers are, how brilliant Giuliani was, how the Saudis betrayed us, and most of all, how invoking that horrible day becomes an excuse to push whatever agenda the politician du jour is braying about.Then, of course, there's our embarrassment of a president.
An exclamation point? It's like he's announcing a celebration. Then the video of him double fist-pumping as he arrived at Shanksville, like it's a campaign rally or a victory party.
Every year we say "Never Forget", but have we actually learned anything in the last 17 years? We've been mired in a series of conflicts in the Middle East ever since. In Afghanistan we were supposed to drive out the Taliban and foster a democratic government. We toppled the Taliban government, but have managed to install a series of corrupt national leaders and encouraged the resurgence regional warlords, who run much of the country, the parts of it's not run by Taliban commanders anyway. We have lost a significant number of soldiers to attacks by Afghan soldiers and police; our alleged allies. In Iraq we intervened based on a purposeful misreading of the intelligence, and got sectarian fighting and ISIS for our trouble. We intervened in Libya with the result being no central government and a dead ambassador. We talked tough and supported rebels in Syria, and bombed a few airfields, but the Russians and Iranians have propped up Assad.
We've increased our military involvement around the world and curtailed civil liberties at home, but we have done nothing to address the root causes of the attacks in 2001.
We say "Never Forget", but we have.
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