Post 9/11: Have I Learned Anything?

Thursday my posting, Train 911, described my personal observations on September 11, 2001 – a day of infamy for the USA and the world. I was very fortunate not to suffer any personal loss that day. I know others who did. My heart continues to ache for them. I cannot write about their suffering or even begin to understand their loss. But 9/11 is a "tipping point" for many Americans. Some have changed dramatically and are "different" people. Others, like me, are just coming to understand how both our personal and collective responses to the tragedy have altered our lives. If an historic event such as the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon do not cause us to reflect on the event and our response, what will? Here are some of the profound and much less profound life lessons the tragedy and responses to that tragedy on 9/11 have had on me:

• I am fully convinced that I will never be able to understand what mental and emotional processes can enable a human being to perform wanton acts of destruction toward other human beings.
  
• It has taken me years to fully admit and come to grips with the instantaneous prejudice 9/11 caused me to have toward Arabs and Moslems. Due to the magnitude and senselessness of the 9/11 attacks, I needed somewhere to vent my rage. I internalized this prejudice and over the first few months/years after the attacks, I might have spoken of forgiveness, but harbored resentment. I still need to confront myself in this area, but now realize that the attack was planned and carried out by very few people, who happened to be both Arab and Moslem. This does not mean that all Arabs and Moslems are bad people.
  
• I better understand that all religions surround us with holy people and saints that provide wonderful models for living a better life. Religious writings and rites help me better understand my relationship with God and the people around me. I am also aware that religious people are not necessarily good people; some are evil. The events of 9/11 made me leery of the Koran and of Moslem leaders. I had never read the Koran or met a Moslem imam and perhaps this lack of knowledge added to my discomfort. More recently, I have reflected on how Christians from Spain, Portugal, France, England and the United States either killed or dispossessed all Native Americans from the Hudson Bay in Canada to the tip of Argentina in South America. My religious beliefs provide me with the opportunity for more insight and tolerance, but no religion guarantees instant holiness!
  
• Wars are not good for people! Unfortunately, people are good at wars! But the US is not that good at wars when the enemy is not a nation. For example, in 1964 Lyndon Johnson declared a War on Poverty. This was a very noble cause. Poverty in the United States dropped from 22% in 1959 to 19% in 1964 a decrease of 3%. But the nation rightfully believed that 19% are too many Americans living in poverty. During the next forty years we fought the War on Poverty and we reduced those living in poverty to 12% of the population. I have to tell you that I do not get warm and fuzzy feelings that in forty years we have only reduced the percentage of people living in poverty by seven percentage points. With our growth in population, there are more people living in poverty then when we started this war. We have most likely lost this war. We are also waging a War on Drugs in the United States. My thoughts are that we are doing slightly better fighting against drugs than against poverty. In this fight we have spent over $35 billion dollars by some estimates and now America has the largest percentage of its population incarcerated than any other nation in the world. Drug use is reported to be down. Perhaps if we can keep drugs out of our prisons and incarcerate 100% of the population, we can declare this war as won!
  
• Now we are aggressively engaged in a War on Terror. This war was declared in response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the United States that killed 3,056 civilians. Again the United States is waging war against an ill defined enemy. In this war the US has already lost 4,155 troops in Iraq, and 589 troops in Afghanistan. The US government acknowledges over 30,000 Iraqi civilians killed by violent military causes and other estimates put the total Iraqi civilian deaths at 1,255,026. The US military expenses in Iraq are estimated to be $2.5 billion per week. Homeland Security spent $69,107,000,000 in 2006. Although, we have not had any repeat of a terrorist attack in the US – that's a very good thing – I wonder if some of the $3.8 billion dollars a week we are spending in this War on Terror could be better spent to fight cancer that is killing over 1,500 Americans each and every week.
  
• Richard Rohr, A Franciscan priest and author, writes, "The three great demons are fear, guilt and anger." In his first inaugural speech, Franklin D. Roosevelt told us, "So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself -- nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts…" I believe fear is the goal of terrorism. If it is, then we are losing this war also. Look at us. We are constructing walls at our borders similar to the great fences strung across Australia to keep the animal pests out of the grazing lands. We are restricting visits to our country and in rebuttal are having restrictions put on Americans who want to travel abroad. We are permitting our government to monitor all our email and phone conversations. We allow someone to designate a person as an enemy combatant and then be put in jail with no legal recourse whatsoever. We tolerate the torture of people in the fear of a potential terrorist action. I believe we have allowed our fear of terrorism and desire for safety, to let us subrogate the very freedom and values that make America the great country it is.
  
• Who has won the airport security battle? On the US side we have had no successful terrorist actions at our airports in 2008. This is a battle we seem to have won. Then again we all allow at least one additional hour at the airport to get through security and make our flight. Last year there were 675,000,000 airline passengers in the United States. Besides the cost to provide airport security, American airline passengers invested a minimum of 675,000,000 hours or 77,054 man years waiting in line at the airport. Each passenger must also remove his or her shoes because one person (terrorist?) attempted to place an incendiary device in his shoe. That means 1,350,000,000 shoes are removed and replaced each year at the airport and giving that it takes two minutes to take off and replace those shoes, Americans invest an additional 5,137 man years in shoe shuffling. I trust the TSA has found enough shoe bombs to justify this activity!
  

I apologize for using these trite examples. I just want to make certain we realize we have let fear of terrorism affect our lives. Unfortunately, many of the not so trite examples are a much greater threat to our American values. I am certainly not done with my learning process, but it is clear to me that both the cost of the 9/11 tragedy and the cost of our nation's response to the tragedy are way beyond the value of any personal wisdom I might gain.