Seven Years After 9/11 -- now what?
It seems to me, on the eve of 9/11 ... and two months prior to the November elections, that Americans have to face reality.
The word "Reality" seems, to me, to be associated with something negative ... a pulling back of the reins, a lowering of expectations.
That's not what I mean by reality.
What is America's positive reality, going into 2009?
- We have tremendous resources. Should our representatives in Congress decide to listen to We the People, we will tap those resources and boost our economy in the process. Oil drilling, Wind Farms, and the R&D necessary to produce new alternative fuels will create new jobs and careers.
- We have lots of land.
- We have lots of food ... so much so, that we use some of it for fuel. This is idiotic and it WILL change in the coming years ... but the point is we are the breadbasket of the world.
- The greatest minds in the world come here to study, and work for our tech companies.
- Where once stood the Taliban and Saddam, now stand fledgling Democracies.
- As the mysterious Spengler points out in an article, Russia's acts in Georgia are desperation moves by a nation suffering from severe demographic problems. Other nations in Europe suffer from this -- the United States does not.
- We have great technology.
- We have great wealth.
- Despite all our "Flaws," we have the best freedoms and opportunities in the entire world.
- We are the most giving, selfless nation on the planet. Just this week, I read about U.S. aid going to Haiti after all the hurricanes have battered that tiny island. What does the U.S. get for helping a poor nation -- credit, or praise? How about nothing in return, or criticism for not doing enough. I wonder if other free nations get criticized like the U.S. for not doing anything in Sudan or Rwanda. Somehow, I doubt it.
Damian recently reminded me of how patriotic the nation was right after 9/11. I recalled that you couldn't find an American flag in stores, and that all the cars on the road had the stars and stripes waving from their windows.
I'm still proud of this nation. I'm proud of our military, and the hard work they do. I'm proud of our nation's charitable giving.
There will be plenty of posts here and around the web about all the negative consequences of U.S. actions here, there, and everywhere ... today, I'd just like to remember the positive.
Here's a video a military family member shared with me. Enjoy:
Labels: 9/11, democracy, food, no man's land, reality, resources, seven years later
posted by Skew | Wednesday, September 10, 2008
10 Comments:
that guy was good.
it takes talent to make terrorism funny.
great stuff.
Thank goodness they got those buildings. I've always hated them! They're so ugly.
My boyfriend is a surfer and when he was dismissed from work, he was stressing not about the attacks but about how to get to the beach. He left me in Manhattan to go surfing on Long Island.
Best special effects I ever saw
I called up my boyfriend -- Do I have to use the word 'lover'? It's so cheesy -- who was also sent home from work. We went to a local Chili's, drank gin-and-tonics and watched the TV. Then we got a hotel room together and in between making love, we watched the events unfolding on the TV.
So basically I used the day off as an excuse to get a hotel room with my boyfriend. But the truth is I was scared and devastated by the events and it felt right to spend it with someone I loved.
Yeah, it's true...I've never told anyone this and it feels great to finally let it out. Especially since I know for the rest of my life that every year when 9/11 comes I'll think of how I spent it having sex with my secret boyfriend. I don't regret doing it, though!
I would like to thank the anonymous CL/MySpace crowd for paying a visit to this blog.
Now, excuse me while I go flush this toilet. Flusssssshhhhhh.
Save us!
Nope.
The Republicans claim that America is safer now because of the invasion of Iraq. That's wrong by several measures.
Bush's two top reasons for the invasion were to destroy Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and end its support for international terrorism. Both premises turned out to be false. Since Saddam Hussein's Iraq posed no threat to the US, overthrowing his government had negligible direct impact on American national security. But invasion under the doctrine of preventive war in defiance of international institutions and under false pretences, plus the deployment of more than 150,000 troops for more than five years has wrought far-reaching national security harm.
The Iraq invasion distracted the US military and the world from the real fight against al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. It also pre-empted providing Afghanistan with the political and infrastructure foundations needed to create a modern nation. Meanwhile, Osama bin Laden remains at large, and al-Qaeda has orchestrated attacks on London, Madrid and beyond that have taken hundreds of lives.
The Iraq invasion - a unilateral attack on a Muslim majority country - has served as al-Qaeda's best recruiting tool. It's given terrorists of all stripes a training ground, just as the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan did for Osama bin Laden's generation. But you don't have to be a jihadi or even a Muslim to have lost respect for America over the Iraq debacle. After enjoying virtually the entire world's goodwill after 9/11, polls showed America's standing in the world plummeted after the Iraq invasion.
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