In the aftermath, we were a country
united. Democrat and Republican, conservative and liberal, left and right, we
were all one. Sadly, the goodwill of the world—and the goodwill we had toward
each other—quickly evaporated.
The objectives of our attackers were to
terrorize us into retreating
from the world stage, to use long wars to financially bleed us while at the
same time inflaming anti-American sentiment, and to defend the rights of
Muslims.
Al Qaeda also had a vision for global
domination through a "violent Islamic caliphate."
After 9/11, we gave bin Laden and his
followers exactly what they wanted.
We have been at war for the past 14
years. Those on the right want to start yet another war in Iran, and possibly
send our troops into Iraq and Syria.
Not long after the War on Terror
began, tax cuts were enacted, even while we were at war. We were told
that deficits don't
matter. The wars would be put on a
credit card while the rich got richer, and the rest of us got poorer.
The attacks of 9/11 changed us as a
people. We have given up liberty in the name of safety. The Patriot Act took
away our privacy. We tortured people.
We have seen our police forces, from the
largest of cities to the smallest of towns, become militarized.
We have seen a rise in anti-immigrant
sentiment in our nation since that fateful day. All in the name of border
security. We have had presidential candidates actually infer that
Muslims should be rounded up.
Another candidate has stated that no
Muslim should be allowed to be president of the United States. This candidate has
obviously never read Article VI of the U.S. Constitution, which states,
"no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office
or public trust under the United States."
At the same time we have a young man—a
year younger than my own son—being arrested for the crime of building a clock and taking it to school. The police knew the clock
was not a bomb. Yet they arrested him anyway. I'd be willing to bet
that if my white-skinned, red-headed son built a clock and took it to school,
he would not have been arrested.
A lot of things changed on that
fateful day in September of 2001, and some of al Qaeda's goals were met because
of that attack.
While the United States has not
retreated from the world stage, we did see our economy collapse in the
aftermath of that act of terror.
And while it's not all al Qaeda's
doing, we have seen a violent Islamic caliphate form in Syria, and in an Iraq
weakened by a decade of war.
President Reagan once described our country
this way: "America is a shining city upon a hill whose beacon light
guides freedom-loving people everywhere."
Instead we became a vengeful, fearful
people who tortured our enemies. We became the big bully on the block. We lost
what it means to be an American.
