Eleven years on. It's still a horrifying spectacle — planes slamming into the Twin Towers, flame and smoke and rubble and dust, the scars on the Pentagon, a field in the countryside …
All those awful images.
And what's followed hasn't been very nice, either. A war in Afghanistan. A war in Iraq. A war on "Terrorism." A national security state, both theatrical and sinister. Shoes and belts off at the airport, and pat-downs of diapers and colostomy bags. Renditions. Prison camps. "Enhanced interrogation." Dismissal of Habeas corpus and other rights. Killings of numerous AQ "Number 2" Men. Killing of OBL himself. Drone attacks.
As +George Wiman puts it, our Lizard Brain took over on 9/11 (http://www.decrepitoldfool.com/2012/09/our-lizard-brain-lives-in-9-11/).
We can't ever forget 9/11, nor should we. What we need to consider is what that memory drives us to do. How much we act out of fear vs. reason. How much we consider the consequences of our actions at home and abroad. How much we realize that there may be no good answers and no perfect safety, and decide what we're still willing to do about it. And what to do with all those djinnis we've already let out of their bottles.
9/11 will be considered one of the defining moments of this century and this nation's history, not for what it was, but for what it scared us into doing.
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