Our
View: In memory
Like
everyone else in the nation, the occurrences
on Sept. 11 were a wake-up call for us.
Not from the fact that a large amount of
animosity towards the United States had
been building up around the world for decades,
but from the century-old idea that we were
safe from all the other forces across the
two oceans.
The
days following Sept. 11 were filled with
people's anger and fear that our fledgling
president would make a few horrendous decisions
leading us into further turmoil. He waited
on that until later of course. Politicians
struggled to pass enough legislation to
demonstrate that they were not as impotent
as they seemed in this time of terror.
The
USA Patriot Act was passed in record time,
likely without most representatives even
having read it. Country songs and little
flags threatened to clog our tear ducts
and reminded us of elementary school when
we sung LeeGreenwood's "I'm Proud to
Be an American, where at least I know I'm
free" in support of the first Gulf
War.
Gone
are the days when anything is that simple.
Like Saddam Hussein, the United States had
ties with Osama that went back to earlier
involvement in Afghanistan. Bin Laden was
also an ex-patriot from our bestest Middle
East buddy, Saudi Arabia, where a huge proportion
of the terrorists involved in Sept. 11 also
hailed from.
It
was harder this time, as compared to when
we were younger, to follow whole-heartedly
what the president and all his cronies were
saying. And with the patriotic propaganda
that followed, where dissidents are traitors
and blindly following whatever the government
says is patriotic, it was hard to stay sympathetic
to America's plight.
Shocked
and bemused, many Americans for the first
time realized that not everyone wants to
be like America. Supposedly free and supposedly
equal, we are not the idol of the world,
not the beacon that leads the way to democracy.
Instead we are powerful, and adept at making
other nations conform to what we think they
should be doing.
Two
years later, do Americans know anymore about
themselves or their government? Maybe, but
only those who choose to see it for what
it is seem to understand.
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