The Real Lesson of 9-11
C January 5, 2005

Note: Yes, I am a sergeant in the Army and, yes, I did serve a tour in Iraq during the war. That’s in advance of anyone who questions my patriotism...

I want you to read this. I don’t want you to think this is another fluff piece about how stupid I think our president is, or why I don’t want to get sent back to Iraq. I have a serious message to display here, because I think a lot of you who think you get it, really haven’t got a clue.

Approximately three years ago now, after we all got over the patriotism fad that swept through our suburbs and garnered me a few salutes from people that really didn’t know what service my suit represented (green equals army, you morons), we began hearing a lot about how the world had changed. I believe this was intended to mean that Americans could no longer consider themselves separated from everything that was happening “over there.” Isolationism was really finished with this time.

In another way, it was also intended to mean that we were all running around with our tails between our legs, not letting high school students into the library between classes and giving dirty looks to foreigners and jumping a little extra when we heard a car alarm, and other things that really didn’t make much of a difference to national security. We were scared, and I think when history looks back on this decade, what we are going to see more than anything else is the fear. Fear of non-English speakers and cardboard boxes lying in the road and the powdered sugar on your donut and the guy standing next to you. For a while it even overshadowed Columbine.

But this fad, like the patriotism that went before it, and the pre 9-11 carelessness before that, is going to have to end too. And like all fads, beneath the surface, nothing has really changed at all.

“Over there” is still over there, and the war was never really taken to us, and everybody can still sleep securely in their beds with the knowledge that this is America, dammit, and nothing bad can happen in America. Or if it does, it’s something corporate, with slim mobster shades and neat little handguns that the police can deal with. But we’ll just pretend we really feel threatened by that guy in Iraq because it’s what everybody expects.

The real lesson of 9-11, for those of you that want to hear it, is that the world is a dangerous place. That’s it, without the radical change of perspective you felt was required. The world is dangerous now, it was dangerous before, and it will still be dangerous in a hundred years.

And there will always be bad men out to get you.

That’s the lesson that our president doesn’t seem to have learned. This is still a non-partisan message, by the way. We cannot win “The War On Terror.” No one can, for one simple reason: “The War On Terror” is the new American euphemism for what used to be called “real life.”

I think that when the president speaks of “The War On Terror,” he’s thinking that there is a big black castle somewhere where all the “terrorists” live and that they have a king and they are constantly brainstorming ways to come get us. Presumably, he thinks that the castle is located somewhere in Iraq, and that if he blows it up, it will end all terrorism forever.

Natch. A terrorist, and we’re speaking of one specific type of terrorist, is a person who grows up and, for any number of sometimes plausible reasons, decides he doesn’t like the United States. They are the bad men and as I just said, there will always be bad men. You’re never going to convince everyone in the world to love America.

That’s why we can never win “The War On Terror.”

Really.

But then I said that the real meaning of “The War On Terror” is real life. Consider this: an ex-girlfriend of mine in Sri Lanka, before the tsunami, claims to have been almost killed twice in the last week. Sri Lanka is locked in a civil war that has lasted twenty years, and people are blowing up all the time, and you’ve probably never heard of it.

Here’s another thing: Sri Lanka is not the worst country. Around the world, everyday, thousands of people, maybe millions, die for no reason at all. Followers of the Irish Republic Army kill and die for a cause that would be hard for me to explain. Firefights break out routinely in Brazil. Subways get bombed in China. And you only ever really hear about it when it concerns rich people here in America.

Point being, lighten up a little. You may be a little more aware of the problem now, hopefully, but you’re still relatively safe here in America, land of the free and home of the brave. So please, don’t sweat it, and don’t give yourself an ulcer unless you’ve been there.

And if you have been there, I thank you.