What I’ve been wanting to say, but didn’t know how

Someone had to say it, and Paul Krugman did. We can all recognize the sacrifices people made and the lives that were lost on 9/11 without having to agree with the way that this country’s politicians handled the aftermath of the situation. It was shameful. And I know that — just like Paul Krugman — I can say that without it making me unpatriotic.

The truth is — and we hate to hear it but — those who attacked the United States, on our own soil, on that ill-fated day 10 years ago…they won. They accomplished exactly what they set out to: they took the most idealistic nation — a beacon of freedom and opportunity, a bastion of liberty and civil rights — and brought us down to their level. Yes, we’d had our missteps and committed our fair share of wrongs (and more) but to many, both in this country and out, the United States was a symbol — a symbol of what was possible, a symbol of what we could be. That all changed.

In the years following the attacks we methodically hacked away at the rights and privacies of our own citizens – those that we should have, at that time, protected the most. We traded death for death abroad until the innocent casualties of non-Americans multiplied to far greater numbers than our own. We became the worst possible versions of ourselves: a nation of bickering children, increasingly stratified and separated by wealth, class and politics. We neglected the content of a man’s character and, yet again, focused our attention, our prejudice, our judgment on the color of his skin. We condemned other religions and points of view. To protest, to disagree, to hope for more became unpatriotic and patriotism became the rallying cry of those who sought to plunge our great nation into hate, those who would nurture the thirst for revenge, those who would embark on an unyielding quest for vengeance.

New York Firemen fly the American flag in the midst of World Trade Center debris.

We can see clearly the change that has happened. That eleventh day of September only ten years ago exhibited what people can do together. Feats thought impossible were overcome. Lives thought lost were saved. All through the power of love – love for one’s country and love for one’s fellow man. Those who aided in the evacuation and rescue efforts in New York and Washington, officers and civilians alike, are the real-life heroes of today. Those who gave their lives to save someone else’s did what I — and I believe all of us — hope we would have the courage to do were we given the same choice. Even now, as I write, I’m overwhelmed by the compassion and conviction with which those men and women acted, and unflinchingly at that.

Then, just more than four months before this tenth anniversary, we saw the culmination of the hate and lust for blood that had been brewing in this country, despicably fostered by those with their eye on personal gain – be it money, power or otherwise. We all heard somehow: the manhunt was over, Osama Bin Laden had been killed. And while I will not mourn the man, there was a part of me that was lost on that day. The part of me that was unbelievably proud to be an American — the part that had been whittled away at over the last nine or so years through two absurd and unjustified wars, which had been justified to us because of 9/11. That day, May 2, 2011, I witnessed my fellow Americans celebrate death. And even though Bin Laden did orchestrate the attacks, as well as numerous others, for some reason it just didn’t feel right; all we had done was add one more to the death toll. We said: “You killed us, so we’ll kill you,” and we did. And just as Al Qaeda celebrated the “downfall of America,” likewise, we celebrated theirs.

To some, 9/11 was all about how we, as Americans, had been wronged and, no matter what it took, we would set things right. That is an empty quest, my friends. I, instead, see 9/11 as a day where people came together to make the best out of something that was terrible beyond our wildest dreams. There was so much potential to bring hope out of despair and to show love instead of hate. But I fear we were so busy trying to avenge the ones we lost that we forgot to honor them. As the saying goes: actions speak louder than words.

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