"To be safe or not to be safe? That is the question": 9/11

No one in America or the world could have even come close to imagining how much the world was about to change on that sunny, early autumn day in September, 2001. When you ask American's to reflect back on 9/11, none of them say that they imagined that on that day, when they woke up, they would witness right before their very eyes the death of 2977 innocent people within an hour's time, see two buildings that were landmarks of America's capitalism and financial strength topple to ash, fathom that anyone could come close to striking the Pentagon which is quite possibly the most famous symbol of military might in the world,  or months later the United States would begin a war that almost 2 decades later  would still be ongoing. The shock was only increased with the news that a plane had crashed in a Pennsylvania fields killing everyone aboard after its passengers had rushed the cockpit trying to stop hijackers.  Most importantly, Americans couldn't fathom the dark world of polarization, financial despair, and national security policies that would be adopted turning the once "Live Free or Die" mentality of this great land into a land of wire-tapping and violated civil liberties in the name of the "War on Terrorism." After all, these things happened in Tom Clancy books and in Russia, not in the United States of America.  Wrong. 

As the days and weeks progressed following 9/11 there was great "sense" of patriotism.  Americans became proud by each day hearing stories of everyday public service heroes who went up the stairs of the World Trade Center Towers as everybody was frantically going down trying to escape. Stories of phone recordings began to depict the super hero- like actions of the passengers of United Airlines Flight 93 who sacrificed their own lives to bring down their hijacked plane thwarting the hijackers plans to crash the Boeing 757 into the White House had everybody all over the country quoting passenger Todd Beamer's famous last words, "Let's Roll." America was on a patriotic "high" and the come down was about to crash not just individuals and American moral but also the economy and very foundation and constitution that the United States was built on.  

Who could forget the famous National Terrorism Advisory System that the newly Homeland Security Department had so miraculously come up with?  American's suddenly felt “safer” glued to their televisions looking for “the color of the day” just like Smokey the Bear warning elementary school children of the danger level of forest fires. Fear had taken over America overnight and invaded homes and lives like a thief in the night stealing any real sense of reality and what being an American was all about. The President was easily given the power to thrust the country into two wars that has already cost American Taxpayers close to $1 trillion and, according to the Center for Budget and Policies, will account for almost half the projected national debt of $20 trillion by 2019.  That's not even the tip of the iceberg.   American citizens stood back out of fear and allowed their elected officials to vote “yes” on the Patriot Act which essentially allowed the government to impinge on god given civil liberties by wire-tapping civilian phones and accessing their public library, medical, and financial records without warrants.  Yes, not only did America allow its own government to spy on them, but they PAID, and continue to pay, them to do it.  

America's dirty little secret is not just the NSA; it's also the fact that the defense division of the government employs over 800,000 employees, most of them private contractors, and those same private contractors not only don't have to answer to Congress, but they also are enticing government employees to work for their firms, and then turning around and "renting" them back out to the same federal agencies they hired them from at 2-3 times the cost. On top of that, it would take all day to explain how the American intelligence world has, currently, 51 agencies that do the same job of federally tracking terrorist's flow of money.  ("The 'Top Secret America' Created by Sept. 11", NPR). No wonder the United States’ government has a problem with oversight of its intelligence community; nobody knows who is coming or going. So why are American tax payers continuously okay with allowing their senators and representatives to write blank checks to the defense departments? It's like giving the wife the Black Card and setting her loose in Barneys during their yearly Christian Louboutin sale:  you just don't do, but America does. 

Some would oppose and insist all the above is to save lives and the future safety of America and subsequently the world.  But is America safer? Are lives being saved? 9/11 cost al Qaeda roughly $500,000 and they killed 2977 people in one day along with another 4340 lives in other attacks all over the world.  What is America’s numerical breakdown on their fight against al Qaeda and terror?  The United States is $3.3 trillion in the hole, all connected to the backlash of 9/11; and the government has instigated two wars that has killed, soldiers and civilians combined, over 140,000 people while, as of 2012,  al Qaeda had lost 50 of its influential leaders.  According to the score board America is not winning, not even close.  

Despite these facts, America is now polarized on the issues more than ever.  Insults are thrown at each other faster than at the family Thanksgiving table when the subject of national security is brought up.  In general, the Republicans will be the first to claim that the above is worth all the costs and the only way to deal with terrorism is to strike first, hard, and aggressively.  Democrats, on the other hand, couldn't agree more; they believe that the course the government has taken in response to 9/11 has cost too many lives, destroyed the country morally and financially, and are not working. Most importantly, Democrats now believe that, if allowed to continue, the Patriot Act will forever compromise the very civil liberties that makes America the beacon of freedom to the rest of the World.  

As America looks ahead to upcoming international affairs such as the Russia/Crimenia/Ukraine controversy, they must realize that things will only get worse unless they commit to moving on using 9/11 truly as a learning experience, which has yet to be done.  Politicians need to stop trying to sway voters by using their fears from 9/11 and insecurity over national security as ways to sway the vote, but citizens must also realize that the true power lies in the constituents.  Conservative or Liberal, maybe it's time to really commit to Obama's plan of alienating al Qaeda from the majority of the Islam world.  The reality is that newly instigated revolutions such as Arab Spring seem to be more of a threat to al Qaeda and their supreme goal of establishing a "caliphate” than any War on Terror raged against them  ("The World After 9/11: Part I", Bruce Riedel; Yale Global online).  Despite what most Americans are lead to believe by the media and political leaders, the Islam world detests extremists; the concept goes against every aspect of their religion and the Koran.  Instead of trying to alienate itself from the Islam world, The United States should recognize that they may quite possibly be its most powerful ally when it comes to fighting and eliminating al Qaeda. 

It is important America looks at the mistakes of the Soviet Union during their war with the Taliban in Afghanistan in the 1980's.  More focus needs to be brought on issues such as the conflicts between Pakistan and India, and the fact that the largest al Qaeda support now lies in the heart of Pakistan and its government.  Iraq needs to be counseled on how to improve Sunni and Shiite relations to avoid further recruitment by al Qaeda of disenfranchised citizens, and focus how civil wars in countries like Syria can be used for recruitment purposes by terrorists.  Hindsight is 20/2 so maybe it’s time to use the past to regain perfect vision of how to better the future.  America must find a way to bring bipartisanship back so the country can confront the one issue that threatens America more than any nuclear weapon or terrorist threat: separation.  9/11 was meant to separate the country as a nation and make Americans prisoners of their own fear, and they have done and become just that while al Qaeda hides behind the chess board screaming, "Check Mate."

The Boston Bombings: Past, Present and Future

I still remember clearly where I was and what I was doing the day of the Boston Bombings, because I had been complaining all day about having to work on Patriots Day, especially since it was such a beautiful, sunny day. I was taking a late lunch-break by browsing through my Facebook page when I saw that somebody had posted that two bombs had gone off at the Boston Marathon's finish line.  Thinking it was a sick joke, I immediately pulled up MSNBC where I was able to confirm the sad and tragic truth.  I immediately knocked on the exam room door and waited for my boss to step out to give him the news. The whole office rushed to the front desk computer and started to look up news feeds to get more information.  More patients started to trickle in for their appointments, one of them even just having come from his home in Copley, and they all had our same reaction: fear and shock. I think we all instinctively were brought back to 9-11 as the initial fear took over us.  I even called my roommate frantically asking her to come pick me up from work in Newton, because I refused to take public transportation home too afraid and sure that the MBTA would also at some point that day be targeted; I was convinced this was not the end of the attacks and surely there would be more.

Looking back, I learned a lot about myself just from my initial reactions of that day.  I learned how fear can easily control us as individuals and make us go against every bit of logic, morals, and values we have.  Taking a look back to a year ago, I am also upset at myself for being so okay when martial law was declared in the pursuit of the Tsarnaev brothers; in hindsight, after reading The Role of Federal Military Forces in Domestic Law Enforcement Title (found with this link : http://usacac.army.mil/cac2/call/docs/10-16/ch_11.asp ), it is clear that this decision by our government officials rode on a thin, dangerous line of what our constitution considers to be  just caus to call in the United States Military to solve domestic issues.  None of us spoke up or even dared to question these decisions, just as we set back and allowed the NSA to violate our civil rights, liberties, and freedoms following 9-11.  Months following the Boston Bombings, I was haunted by my inability to stand up and exercise my rights as an American; rights that people all over the world die and kill for every day while I am afforded the luxury of those same very rights being a birthright. One injustice or crack in the system threatens us all, and at the time of the attacks we all allowed our fears and prejudices to shadow that valuable fact.

How quickly we forget lessons we were supposed to learn in WWII when one crazed, fanatical man who's own insecurities led him to obsessed racism of a whole race of people, and then, through fear, was able to incite the masses to try to eliminate that same group of people off the face of the earth.  One man, who could not accept responsibility for his own failures as a young man, was able to take fear and prejudice and turn it into a hatred and racism that became so radical, extreme, and evil that it allowed a whole country of people to stand back and let more than 7 million people be killed just because of their religious association and declare war that ended up turning the whole world upside down. Yes, Adolf Hitler is the man I am talking about, and yes, he was able to incite World War II by one thing and one thing only: generating fear amongst the masses over an exaggerated threat.  Terrorism at its best.  In Germany the terrorism was not from an outside source, however; it was as terrorism by the people on its own people. The German people became victims of their own fear and despair by not being able to step out from under the cloak of the unknown created by it's misguided leaders to look out and see that, in fact, the Boogie Man was not lurking around the corner; their fear overshadowed the fact that the only danger was conforming and not standing up for what was right  This too goes for America following the Boston Marathon Bombings.

The Boston Bombings have exposed the fact that we, as a county and people, have come to this dangerous fork in the road; the impasse where we must decide if we are going to give into our fears and forget everything our forefathers painstakingly mapped out for this country that Spring day in 1787 during the Philadelphia Convention, or be true Americans by exercising those rights that started on the same day we were celebrating the day of the bombings: Patriots Day.  Patriots Day isn't just a day for us to get a day off of work to veg out and watch the Boston Marathon on television.  It's a day celebrating the Battles of Lexington and Concord. It's not called "The shot heard around the world" for no reason at all.  On April 19, 1775 American colonists gave their lives to begin a battle that would result in a country with a foundation so inspiring, beautiful, and strong, that over 300 years later, people from all over the world would still be continuing to give their lives for just a shot at being a part of that very same country and her ideals .  How dare we jeopardize it all out of fear.

Fear is not a new concept to this country; and fear is not an enemy we haven't time after time conquered as a unified nation. Why start now? We must all learn from this situation along with lessons from the past and stop doing the terrorists' missions for them.  Yes, there is a danger of acts like these happening again, but the acts we should be the most fearful of are the ones we and our government commit against ourselves and the constitution  in the names of "protection' and "safety." We can't allow ourselves to profile one another; we must stay  tolerant towards one another's religious and civil liberties; in fact, it is our DUTY to protect not just our rights but our fellow Americans' rights as well.  How? By using the very tool our forefathers made sure we would have when they wrote that 4 paged document in 1787: our voice.  The minute we stop speaking up out of intimidation, the terrorists and radicals have won.

Our issues are not Islam, Al-Qaeda, or even terrorism; our issue is one another.  We must be careful of who we label our enemies and the power we give up by quickly jumping to conclusions and refusing to look at our own actions as a nation as possible breeding grounds for the very hate that these extremists and ,in the case of the Boston Bombers, criminals are cultivating.  We are the catalyst, and until we accept this fact and work to rectify it, we will continue on the same tragic, torturous path.  The Boston Bombings were not attacks by Islamic radical groups on America and its citizens and residents like on 9-11.  They were acts by two young, confused men, who had no direction or positive figure to turn to.  They were immigrants who came to this country and became citizens with the hopes of experiencing the American Dream only to find out that their adopted land did not consider them a part of that very dream.

Through our ignorance and inability as a country to generally accept and embrace things that are different from us, we took two non-radical citizens and treated them like enemies creating a hate so strong and desperate that they felt the only way to ratify that hate was to kill. Is it a excuse or free get out of jail card for the  younger brother who will now stand trial for these actions? No, but I think it is a valuable lesson we should all take heed to. We must realize that as we speak, there are hundreds more just like the Tsarnaev brothers teetering on the edge of either becoming positive members of our communities or giving into radicalism out of desperation and anger. Are we going to learn from our mistakes of the past caused by our own ignorance and prejudices and make these individuals our friends or enemies? Are we once again going to be that nation that was such a beacon of light and freedom for the world that millions gave up their lives just for chance at being a part of it; just to have those "inalienable rights" that we now are so willing to throw away in the name of fear and ignorance? I hope not.  I hope that we all take a moment to allow the Boston Bombings to allow us to heal, grow, and open our eyes to the world around us, and the next time we get the chance, we do just as is written on the statue of liberty: "Give me your tired your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breath free.  The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.  Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed, to me: I lift my lamp beside the golden door."