CE Week #2: “Anniversary marks memory loss”
See related Cal Thomas article
Leonard Pitts Jr.
Miami Herald
September 10, 2007
Sept. 11 falls on a Tuesday this year. It will be the first time since that other Sept. 11, six years ago.
Do you remember? Can you recall how difficult it was to even conceive of going forward from that moment? The events of that day had so thoroughly lacerated us that it seemed as if, in some small corner of our collective soul, the clock had stopped. In that corner, it would forever be 8:46 EDT on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001.
Do you remember? If so, then the world as it stands six years later must come as something of a shock.
Six years ago, we saw people rushing to the World Trade Center site to search for survivors and recover bodies. Heroes, we said. Six years later, largely removed from public attention, many of those same heroes are sick and even dying, poisoned by the soot and dirt they breathed.
Six years ago, appalled and infuriated, the world rallied to our side. Candles and cards were left at our embassies. The French newspaper Le Monde declared “We Are All Americans Now.” The Masai, a tribe in rural Kenya, sent us 14 cows, a gift regarded by their culture as sacred. Six years later, our president is trailed by angry demonstrators wherever he travels, and it is headline news when he is actually cheered in Albania.
Six years ago, we vowed revenge on Osama bin Laden, the wealthy Saudi who masterminded the attacks. We would bring him in, said the president, “dead or alive.” Six years later, bin Laden is still free, and the president has said he is not particularly concerned about that.
Do you remember?
The terrorist attacks of six years ago this week are sometimes compared to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, 66 years ago this December 7. That is, of course, a reference to the shock, disbelief and anger Americans of both eras felt.
But there is a telling difference between 12/7 and 9/11. From the 1941 attack, there was forged a sense of national mission and purpose. Those feelings of shock, disbelief and anger became the building blocks of a consensus that we would do whatever, spend whatever, sacrifice whatever, until victory was won. After the attacks of 2001, by contrast, we talked national mission and purpose, but it soon became apparent that it was only talk.
Those feelings of shock, disbelief and anger became instead the building blocks of a political machine that duped the nation into a war of choice that had nothing to do with the terrorist attacks, eroded American civil liberties under the guise of protecting American lives and branded as traitors those who said, “Hey, wait a minute.”
Worst of all, it squandered the moment, threw away a historic chance to build a national – and international – consensus that could have marginalized the architects of terror, maybe even reshaped the world, more effectively than all the bombs and bullets used to date in Iraq.
This anniversary, then, laments not simply the loss of life, but of opportunity. And perhaps the worst thing is that one senses most Americans are like their president: We don’t think about bin Laden that much these days. He is not front-of-mind anymore.
So it is worth pausing here to remember that just six years ago, we were attacked.
Six years ago, people leaped from flaming skyscrapers.
Six years ago, flaming skyscrapers fell.
Six years ago, dust-caked people wandered the streets of New York City.
Six years ago, an airplane tore a hole in the Pentagon.
Six years ago, a hijacked plane crashed.
Six years ago, searing, airless shock was followed by resolve. Clear, cold, iron-fisted resolve.
Six years later, the shock is gone and it seems like the resolve is, too.
Do we remember? You couldn’t prove it by me.
The URI to TrackBack this entry is: http://pkautzman.edublogs.org/2007/09/10/ce-week-2-anniversary-marks-memory-loss/trackback/
I tend to agree with almost everything Mr. Pitts has said . A large part of America has moved on with their lives. The attacks were six years ago and no longer affect them. people who did not know anybody who was killed in the attacks or know anybody who knows of anybody who was killed in the attacks. All these people know now is this supposed “Operation Iraqi Freedom”/ War On Terror that is being fought over in Iraq and also still in Afghanistan which many people have forgotten about. Many people believed that Osama Bin Laden was dead until this new video came about, yet most people are no longer afraid of terrorism. People are no longer afraid of Osama Bin Laden even though he did mastermind the attacks of September 11th. They have gotten accustomed to the airport checks, stripping down and being treated like animals. They are also no longer disturbed the American deaths on television. People are no longer fazed by these elements that would have scared us all out of our pants 6 or 7 years ago. America and other citizens of the world need to realize that terrorism is still out there and is very real.
This topic is one that I actually have spent a while dwelling on. Many times it seems that people in this day and age are often quick to forget things. I can tell you that I often forget simple things on a daily basis. However, it seems odd that people can forget about the largest attack on U.S. soil ever. If you look back at our country’s timeline, I think a fare statement to make would be that our level of patriotism is on a constant roller coaster ride. I can still remember waking up and going in to say goodbye to my mom. She was watching the news of course and told me to just go to school. So there we sat, in sixth grade, watching footage of three aircraft hitting buildings most of us had never seen before. Obviously we all had a hard time wrapping our minds around what was going on. But what I also remember the great comradeship that seemed to be spreading across the nation. People hung flags on every stoop. Why? Because we all felt more whole as a nation than ever before.
So six years have passed. What has changed? For one Osama is still alive (?). People who once rallied behind the President in the effort to weed out terrorism are now withdrawing their support. The question seems to have changed from “What are we going to do about this?” to “How can we get out as soon possible?” I think people should not be so quick to forget about all the people who died. We shouldn’t just think of this event because of the anniversary, but try and change things for the better. We need to stick together.
Connor Christeson
I agree with Mr. Pittz too, although I don’t think people have necessairly forgotten about 9/11 and what happened, exspecially if you go to New York, I think that the real heart felt sorrow didn’t hit a lot of us because most people in Spokane don’t know anyone who was affected or who died. However, I believes Americans knew that a great tragedy had happened when they turned on the TV six years ago to see people leaping out of buildings, the streets filled with clouds of dust and debri. People screaming, people on the news desperately looking for their loved ones who may have been in or near the towers.
I do think that maybe we need to bring this topic up more than once a year on the anniversary of the day it happened. Just as we can’t let the people in New Orleans thinks they have been forgotten (which they kind of do thanks to the government not providing easy accessable funding that actually gets to the people) we also cannot let the firefighters and policemen and passerbys that helped find survivors, some risking their own lives, some died trying to help, and some are still dying from the health damages inflicted upon them for trying to aid the whole of New York by going back into buildings that were unsafe and on fire, we CANNOT forget these people.
I don’t think Americans have forgotten, but I don’t think they remember enough either.
The major disasters that have happened during George W. Bushes presidency have not been handled at all well by the government. As seen in Michael Moore’s “Fahrenheit 9/11″ when president Bush was informed about 9/11 that morning he was in a Tex@s elementary classroom reading a book to very young elementary schoolers, and when he was told he sat there in awe and continued to read the book. Then when New Orleans and other prominent cities of the Gulf were hit by Katrina government was very very slow to react, waiting almost a week to send troups in, but people could not survive a week without fresh water and many died that could have been saved in the government had mobilized faster. In the book “Plan of Attack” by Bob Woodward, Mr. Woodward talks about memos and notes he came across that had been passed between the president and vice president that states they had meetings and breifings on Iraq before bush was even inaugurated into office. When 9/11 happened Cheney appariently passed a note to the president that descussed using 9/11 as a way to get the American public to believe that Iraq could be a threat.
Obviously the American public was tricked into thinking that Iraq had WMDs that they could use on us. What lead the government to believe they did is the goods that they were buying and importing into Iraq. “Look what they are buying, rumfield complained to Powell at one point. They are buying these dumptrucks. They can take off the hydraulic cylinder that pushes the truck bed up and they can use it for a launcher for a rocket” (Woodward 15).
I think American needs to unite and find a way to fix our governments wrongs, and move forward and do better in the future, remember those things that brought us together and unite and act.
I cannot believe that it has already been six years since the 9/11 attacks. It seems as if the whole thing just happened yesterday. Also, when my mom woke me up that day, and I saw the plane crash into the world trade center it didn’t even seem real. I thought it was some kind of TV show because it just didn’t seem possible for the country that I lived in to be attacked in such a vicious and cowardly way. It also angers me that Bin Laden is supposedly still out there. I know how hard it is to find one single person in a country composed of hills and caves but it seems strange that with all these technological advancements we’ve made we don’t have anything to find one guy. Pitz is right too, Bin Laden doesn’t seem like a priority anymore and I think he should be because if he is still alive were going to wake up one day and the same thing is going to happen all over again. Like Sr. Kautzman said in class “It’s not if we will be attacked, it’s when will we be attacked.” I watched the recent season of 24 and in the beginning America was constantly being showered with terrorist attacks all over the country and we were even nuked. I find it frightening to think that something like that could even be possible so we need to find this guy before he does anymore harm and bring him to justice.
I remember where I was when the attack on the world trade centers took place. It was early in the morning and I had just gotten up. I walked out into the living room to eat breakfast and talk with my mom, and there she was standing in eyes wide staring at the television screen. At first we thought that it was an accident, until we saw the second plane hit. At that moment we knew that we were under attack. I all of a sudden felt a feeling of anger, and I had never even heard of the world trade centers before this point. This is the kind of memory that many people share. The question that I have that this article posses, is where is all of the shock and want for payback? Where has the fire in our eyes and iron in our hearts gone? The answer is I have no idea, and it’s sad. One thing that surprised me was the unity that the world had after. “The French newspaper Le Monde declared We Are All Americans Now.” I found this very interesting that the French had our back that they were there for us in our time of need.