9-11 redux: the twin evils of barbarism and ignorance

There have been many regrettable moments in our life since September ll, but one of the worst for me came this morning, when I opened the normally vapid Parade magazine that comes with the morning paper. I made my way through the celebrity gossip, on the way to summer recipes, when I noticed a story about a retired New York police officer who lost his only son in the World Trade Center on that terrible day. This kid was his father’s pride, a straight-shooter, smart, loyal, better circumstanced than the previous generation. Naturally, his father took the death hard. But what did he do in the aftermath? Did he endow a scholarship at his son’s school? Did he maybe reach out to other people who were suffering. Sadly, no. He fell into step with the war drums the President was beating on Iraq, declaring that the US “needed to kick some ass” there. Somebody had to pay, he reasoned, for his son—why not Iraq? So he dedicated much of the next few months to getting his son’s name placed on bombs to be dropped there, in the deluded belief that somehow this avenged his son’s death.

It sickens me to see people here with that kind of caveman sensibility, almost a bloodlust. Since when is it remotely useful, to say nothing of moral or charitable, to inflict that kind of punishment on people who did nothing whatsoever to Americans? Where do people get the idea that anyone or anything nearby can be used as a punching bag when Americans are frustrated or bereaved? I didn’t think our people were capable of that. I guess I need to think again.

The story doesn’t end badly. The retired police officer did finally rethink his campaign for revenge, turning it in a peaceful direction and working to get his son memorialized in his neighborhood. Even here, though, his reasoning left a lot to be desired. He was watching TV one day when President Bush made one of his rare admissions that Iraq had played no part in 9-11, that there weren’t even any verifiable ties between Saddam and Al- Quaeda. The officer sat straight up in his chair—President Bush had spoken on the matter, and so it was time to change direction. In the police officer’s universe, “the President walks on water, ” and should never be doubted.

It makes you shake your head. Given the number of instances of documented Presidential prevarication—er, lying—why don’t people demand proof when the President says, “we need to go to war with X,” or “we need to punish X people,” or whatever dubious adventure the President proposes. Why don’t we see even a little bit of skepticism when the President says we have to have a war? We didn’t see it when Lyndon Johnson said we needed more troops, more bombing. We didn’t see it when Richard Nixon said he had a secret plan to end Vietnam, then escalated the war. We didn’t see it when President Reagan “couldn’t remember” people running foreign policy out of the White House basement. And we don’t see it now. How is it that people remain so ignorant of the history of recent disasters in this country? How can people continue to see the President as an infallible being, in view of all that?

Ignorance and barbarism—it’s hard to say which is more destructive. I guess I am reduced to hoping for less of both in the next five years of our “new normal.”