I had work in the city and as usual I decided to camp rather than hotel-motel. Babler State Park was my first choice but they were remodeling so I pitched a camp at Robertsville. My birthday was coming up on the 14th and I was looking forward to having dinner with my daughter. She knows all the Tex-Mex joints and I know the Italian. Either was fine with me as long we could spend the evening together.
When I'm camped out I'm always up with the birds. After my coffee, I laid out some clothes and took a shower. I was just dawdling around when the campground host hurried over and told me that planes had crashed into the Twin Towers in New York.
The only station we could get clear and with no commercials was NPR. They had Daniel Schoor and Diana Reems on. Then a plane flew into the Pentagon, and that really got my attention. Just how many more planes were headed for targets? That question kept us tuned in.
When I hear people speak of the shock, the horror, the fear, I just can't relate. Maybe it was the way my father raised me, my time in the Navy, or perhaps the innate insouciance I feel towards life in general and catastrophe in particular. In short, a thousand miles from the action I felt no danger.
Nor did I feel fear, or even anger.
The fact is, I found it pretty exciting. Something was happening and there was the scent of chaos, panic, uncertainty, and it stirred my adrenaline like the opening round of a title fight. Though in retrospect what it really amounted to was a fly-by shooting. Instead of bullets they were using jumbo jets with an exponential increase in effect.
Prior to that day, like most people, I was focused more on my life and getting through it than politics and world events. I wasn't unaware of the problems in the Middle East, but before September 2001 I hadn't really connected the dots. The first bombing of the World Trade Center, the embassy bombings in east Africa, Khobar Towers, and the USS Cole. In each case the Muslim jihadis had taken their best shot, and it seemed that we just didn't care. Just like when the Marines in Lebanon were attacked. It was as if our government could not be bothered, that there was no provocation worthy of response.
Personally I avoid troublesome people, but I don't make major detours when one of them crowds my path. Yet the more I learned about the jihadis and Al Qaeda, that's exactly what it seemed our government was doing. Just stepping around the wreckage, and ignoring the casualties.
I would come to feel great empathy for the people who had died in the collapse of the Towers, the Pentagon, and of course for those who simply wanted to get somewhere in a hurry. The videos that were broadcast would bring that home.
None of those who died five years ago in those attacks were known to me, though by some degree of separation I might find a link. As a veteran though, I do feel a camaraderie with those who serve in our military, and as the number of men and women who have died since 9-11-2001 in Iraq and Afghanistan now exceed the number of those who died that late summer day, I become more and more frustrated with those who are charged with leading this country.
Partisanship does not enter into this. The Clinton Administration hindered the investigation into the bombing of the USS Cole, ignored evidence of activity here in the USA and abroad, and failed to exert due diligence in too many other ways to list. Our bureaucratic institutions did not take the threat seriously and undermined those who did.
The present administration for all its bluster has not been effective. First they parleyed an alliance with Pakistan which has not only acquiesced to the jihadis, but has also provided North Korea and Iran (perhaps others) with nuclear materials and expertise. George Bush didn't send enough troops into Afghanistan, and then he quit the hunt for Osama bin Laden to settle an old score with Saddam Hussein.
Of course it was the previous Bush Administration that pieced together a coalition to oust Saddam from Kuwait, thereby favoring one dictatorial regime over another. Worse, they decided to maintain troops and air bases in Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states as a deterrent to Saddam's aggression despite the knowledge that this offended bin Laden and others who believe that foreign troops desecrate their hallowed ground
Does anyone even remember Somalia?
And of course the question here is whether or not we are served by a foreign policy that entangles our government and our citizens in the affairs of those who do not share our culture or values, and are just as likely to turn against us as to remain a friend.
In WWII we trained the VietCong only see those tactics used against us. We supported Saddam in his ill-fated venture into Iran, only to oppose his ill-fated venture into Kuwait. We trained and supplied the mujhadeen and now face the same weapons and tactics that brought the Soviet army to its knees.
Would it not be more prudent to ally with those who have common goals and aspirations?
I have no compassion for those who embrace the jihadi philosophy, and I see no alternative but to assist them in their quest for martyrdom. Kill them one and all. Scorch the earth they inhabit, destroy the foundations and proponents of their beliefs, and do this with a zealous determination. But do this and all that is necessary with prudence and forethought. Know the enemy better than he knows us, and use that to destroy him.
On this day a recent Navy retiree named Bruce Gorman will drive into New York City a bus decorated with a photo collage of virtually every person killed on 9-11-2001. He's already been to the Pentagon, and Shanksville, Pennsylvania, to commemorate those who died there. But who will in likewise fashion commemorate the 3003 service members who have died in Iraq and Afghanistan? Who will remind us that 21,000 men and women have been wounded in battle, and many times that number will suffer from the fatigue of duty in a war zone?
This is not a battle that we can relinquish, and yet we must be aware of the real price that our citizens and soldiers are paying, and make sure that a good result comes from their sacrifice and effort. For in the end it is not a matter of dollars and cents, but one of life and liberty.
