9/11, Ten Years Later

Sunday marks the 10^th anniversary of the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001.  As Christopher Hitchens stated recently in Slate, “10 years ago in Manhattan and Washington and Shanksville, Pa., there was a direct confrontation with the totalitarian idea, expressed in its most vicious and unvarnished form.” On that day, as W.H. Auden put it in 1939, “the unmentionable odour of death/ Offend[ed] the September night.”  

It is important in this time of reflection and introspection to both honor the memories of those lost and contemplate where we’ve been and where we’re going.  Much has changed in the last ten years, both in the United States and abroad; the future success or failure of our country will be determined by the decisions made in the next few months and years. 

In September, 2001 the American economy was recovering from the bursting of the dot com bubble but still remained on a solid financial and political foundation.  The housing and construction industries were booming, corporations were enjoying substantial liquidity, and inflation and unemployment remained low.  Although the 2000 presidential election was as contentious as any in recent history, the government enjoyed a budget surplus and relative bipartisan enthusiasm.

During the Clinton years and the beginnings of the Bush Administration, the United States enjoyed stability in foreign affairs, disrupted only by small-scale conflict in Bosnia, Kosovo, and Iraq. 

But the world has drastically changed in the last ten years.  In technological terms, the United States has almost entirely completed the transformation from an industrial power to an economic system dominated by technological innovations, financial dealings, and hyper-compartmentalized knowledge industries. 

As New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman whimsically stated on Meet the Press, ten years ago “Facebook didn’t exist.  Or for most people it didn’t exist.  Twitter was a sound.  The Cloud was in the sky.  4G was a parking place.  Linkedin was a prison.  Applications were something you sent to college.  And, for most people, Skype was a typo.”

In many ways, the attacks on 9/11 have altered the military fabric of the world in a way analogous to the way technological innovations have completely altered the social fabric of our country.  They are obviously not equivalent in their ramifications, but understanding the extensive challenges we are facing is crucial, else we are deemed to repeat the mistakes of the past.

We are still mired in conflicts of astounding financial and personal cost.  The American political system is in a constant state of gridlock, our bond rating has been downgraded, and the budget deficit has skyrocketed in the past ten years.  We are at a crossroads; our leaders are, at this moment, debating if and how we can break out of this funk. 

Republican presidential candidates, such as Jon Huntsman and Mitt Romney, have proposed their own jobs plans—including capital gains cuts, tax reform, increased drilling and free trade agreements—and President Obama proposed his plan on Thursday.  They have also discussed and debated multiple perspectives on the foreign entanglements in Iraq and Afghanistan.

We can debate amongst ourselves the ideal solution to the issues we face.  Does government have the ability and the responsibility to solve this economic crisis through more stimulus spending, infrastructure projects and education investment?  Does the private sector have the main responsibility and greatest aptitude to create jobs and alter our economic system?  Should the United States completely end its involvement in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan?

What is unacceptable as a country is to do nothing.  Al Qaeda sought, on September 11, to disrupt and destroy the American military, political, and financial sector while simultaneously inflicting the most significant loss of life possible.  The effects were disastrous, but the fabric of our country survived, for a time. 

Lacking decisive action, our country is on a path toward failure—and by extension victory for al Qaeda—but we still have hope.  Al Qaeda is driven by a totalitarian, anti-American ideal which Hitchens describes as “the big lie.”  Abraham Lincoln commented that “America will never be destroyed from the outside.  If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.”  

Now, ten years after that tragic event, is our opportunity to once and for all declare victory.  The attacks on September 11^th “reordered and distorted the decade that followed” as David Remnick put it in The New Yorker.   The best way we can honor the memories of the fallen and defeat the “big lie” of totalitarian hate is for our politicians to set us on a path toward financial, military and political sustainability in the decade to come.  All that is required is political will.