On the lovely early evening of September 11, 2003, I took my son to soccer practice. As the kids ran around on the darkening grass expanse sprinkled with a few early autumn leaves, I was brought back to a soccer match two years ago, just a few days after September 11th. The sky was stunningly blue that day, making the kids’ jerseys into moving technicolor splashes. The usual playing field chatter and cheering seemed oddly remote and distant as the parents ringed the field, grimly speculating about what kind of country and world their children would grow up in.
Of course, two years later none of us know the answer to that question, but as I watched my son play soccer last night and exchanged pleasantries with the other parents, I thought about how, in significant ways, I’m more pessimistic about the country’s future than I was two years ago. All of us remember the feeling that the nation was pulling together in unexpected ways, recognizing shared values and priorities. It was inevitable that some of that feeling would dissipate, but now it’s gone, in large part because America’s leadership has failed us.
Responsible, intelligent, moral, and yes, practical, leadership could have marshalled not only the country’s newly discovered common purpose, but the good will of the world. George Bush, however, has taken the nation down another path as he and his allies have shamelessly and relentlessly exploited 9-11. Their false patriotism has devalued this country’s civil discourse, and their policies have made us less secure.
As we reflect on our post-September 11th direction, two voices in the mainstream media (of all places!), offer useful and sober perspectives. This is what Ted Koppel said on Nightline:
It’s a tough call. When roughly 3,000 people — most of them Americans, but people from all over the world — are killed in four synchronized acts of terrorism on one bloody day, attention must be paid. The survivors, the mourners, deserve to know that millions of us grieve with them.
And yet.
By repeatedly emphasizing our sense of national loss, we also give satisfaction and encouragement to the architects of the next atrocity. When, early on, President Bush spoke about bringing Osama bin Laden to justice “Dead or Alive,” it raised his visibility to that of an international superstar.
Terrorism is a strategy of the weak. To the degree that we magnify the importance of a terrorist leader, or emphasize the impact of a terrorist act, or tamper with our own civil liberties, we endow our enemies with the very qualities they lack.
We can grieve silently. We can hunt our enemies down without bravado. They will only have the power to undermine our values if we grant it to them.
And The New York Times‘ Paul Krugman, who has been one of those few voices in the mainstream media to have consistently and strongly challenged Bush, warns in his column “Exploiting the Atrocity” about the upcoming presidential campaign:
…[T]these people must win, at any cost. The result, clearly, will be an ugly, bitter campaign - probably the nastiest of modern American history. Four months ago it seemed that the 2004 campaign would be all slow-mo films of Mr. Bush in his flight suit. But at this point, it’s likely to be pictures of Howard Dean or Wesley Clark that morph into Saddam Hussein. And Donald Rumsfeld has already rolled out the stab-in-the-back argument: if you criticize the administration, you’re lending aid and comfort to the enemy… In other words, if you thought the last two years were bad, just wait: it’s about to get worse. A lot worse.