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Show OPINIONS VOLUME 111 ISSUE 6 SEPTEMBER 12, 2011 WWW.UVUREVIEW.COM What we should remember when w ByFELICIA JOY Asst. Opinions Editor In his last State of the Union Address, President Barack Obama said that the United States is the most unique country in the world because of its ability to constantly reinvent itself. Ten years have passed since the events of 9/11. The collective narrative about that infamous day is being reexamined, edited, fortified, remembered and commemorated for the tenth edition. Books written on the subject in 2001, when the proverbial wound was still fresh are now are being republished — this time with additional introductions, extended discussions and new covers that better reflect what the events mean to us now. The jargon has changed. "Terrorism" is a commonplace word that lacked a substantial definition for the U.S. in 2000. When the press first released the name "Osama Bin Laden", many qualified reporters didn't say it correctly. Now it's rarely mispronounced. Even the term, "9/11" was coined by someone. It might sound silly, but those numerals were once previously a mere month-andday abbreviation. Now, "9/11" is a coined term, a sort of incantation, which conjures up specific memories, specific implications and a specific running conversation about political and ideological conflict That is what happens when a shared experience becomes history and that history becomes something of a myth. Myths in our culture have several functions. Sometimes the details of myths, while not factual themselves, represent some larger, truer context. Sometimes they provide a meaning for actions that have little persuasive power otherwise. Sometimes they become the sacred humanizing paragraphs in the memoir of a culture. 9/11 has become a little bit of all three. Questions abound about what actually happened that morning. There's controversy about whether the Bush Administration were as blindsided by the attacks as they said they were. There's curiosity about building seven, which fell straight down, "demolition style" without ever being hit by a plane. In fact, in the 571 pages of the Government-issued 9/11 Commission Report, not one single mention is made of that particular structure. There's ambiguity about why, with hundreds of surveillance cameras surrounding the Pentagon, only one shot, from one angle, of poor pixilated quality has ever been released to the public. Osama Bin Laden himself has become this random, evil entity. His name is a hiss and a byword. But we forget — or choose to not remember - that he was trained by the CIA and armed and funded by the U.S. for several years. He had "kept in touch" often since the Reagan Administration. Decades worth of intelligence has been gathered on the man - which makes the Untied State's three-trillion-dollar, tenyear hunt for him somewhat peculiar. These kinds of questions are easier to ask now. The myth has become more malleable and the people who originally told it less stalwart and astute. The total number of those killed on Sept. 11, 2001 is 2,981, according to the Commission Report. They came from as many as 115 countries around the world. The number of U.S. service members who have died in Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom is 6,026 as of July of this year. The number of U.S. troops who are seriously wounded is 32,130 (excluding psychological trauma). Twenty percent of those seriously wounded endured major brain or spinal injuries. The number of civilians who have been killed directly by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are estimated, modestly, at 130,000. If the lack of clean drinking water and food and the consequences of displacement because of the war are considered, the civilian statistic rises to around 600,000. The number of Iraqi police and soldiers who have died is 10,119 was of this past August. CONTACT• The number of people who are or have been detained in Guantanamo Bay, many without charges for several years totals at 779. The calculations for detainees in the Abu Ghraib prison, where some of the worst torture in the current and known world occurs is impossible to measure. The building holds 14,000 prisoners at a time. Arrivals, releases and deaths are poorly documented. These numbers fail to take into account the number of refugees, kidnappings and rapes which escalate indefinitely with the onslaught of war or "occupation" - if semantics mean that much at this point. In this ten-year commemoration of 9/11, we have an opportunity to reflect. We have the chance to think of the people who were murdered that day and the ways in which it changed the world. We can take an opportunity to reflect on the fear and paranoia which plagued every citizen, regardless of station, religion or race in the days, weeks, months and sometimes years that followed. We can tell the stories of courage and confusion. After that, however, I hope that we do what Obama believes we Americans are best at. I hope we decide to reinvent ourselves drastically. The people in the Middle East are tired. They are starving. They are displaced. They are dying. We did not find the weapons of mass destruction. We dismantled the reign of Saddam Hussein and had him tried and executed. We killed Osama and all of his powerful friends. Yet we are still fighting. We are also tired here at home. A whole generation of soldiers is coming back to us traumatized and broken. We have let politicians invade our privacy under the guise of guarding our safety. We are engaged in a lengthy, vague and unwinnable War on Terrorism. At more than 1.3 trillion dollars, this fight is an albatross hanging around the neck of our economy and cutting off our air supply. And, like other ideological wars the United States has fought, such as the War on Drugs, we have not abated our enemies in any measureable way. A commemoration of the events that happened on Sept. 11th, 2001 is only proper. Let us build memorials. Let us stand for a few moments in silent, reverent contemplation of the day that changed the course of our lives and the people who so senselessly died in these attacks. Engrave the names of the dead on metal plates, and fix those plates to a stone structure, so that future generations can understand where our nation is heading in the context of where it has already been and what is has gone through. But, after we have honored the dead, after we have erected our monuments, after we have silently reflected for a reasonable length, let us move forward. Let us reinvent. Let us shift the current paradigm. Let us elect politicians who will take steps in ensuring that the tragic legacy of 9/11 does not inform our country's decision making any longer than it should. Let us reject emotional, reactionary attitudes and adopt ones that are borne from clear, rational thinking. Let us use the decade following 9/11 as a cautionary reminder when another infamous day occurs in our nation. Like Pearl Harbor; like the Iran Hostage Crisis; like the Oklahoma City Bombings; 9/11 was a devastating event for the American people. We must remember days and events like these. They remind us that we are not invincible, which is an important lesson for any people to learn and re-learn. In some individual cases, these events remind us how courageous, how stalwart and how beautiful humanity can be even in the face of absolute hell. But in recalling such a woeful day, we must also bear in mind that, often, it is not what we remember that matters, but how we remember it. OPINIONS EDITOR ASSISTANT OPINIONS EDITOR OPINIONS DESIGNER jrboyce@gmail.com felicialartey@gmail.com tjmendenhall@q.com JOHN-ROSS BOYCE FELICIA JOY TARALYN MENDENHALL • Total number killed on Sept. 11, 2001: 2,981. • They came from 115 countries around the world. • Number of U.S. service members who have died in Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom is 6,026 as of July 2011. • Number of U.S. troops who are seriously wounded is 32,130. (excluding psychological trauma) • Number of civilians killed directly by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is estimated to be around 130,000. • Number of Iraqi police and soldiers who have died is 10,119 as of August 2011. |