[Grovenet] 100-year Anniversary of 9/11

[Ron D'Eau Claire]

And no one seems particularly concerned for those 
10s of thousands of innocents in Iraq that have 
died since our invasion. Especially not the 
current administration! Seems like a pretty big 
pay back for 3000 people here.
Ed

-------------------------------------------------------

Especially since even the President said the events were in no way
connected! 

We went into Iraq for one and only one reason. The President said he had
knowledge - personal knowledge - that Saddam had WMD and intended to use it
against "America and Americans". That put Saddam higher on the priority list
than the "war on terror", until we discovered the President was wrong and
the rest of the world right - from many of our own intelligence experts to
those "Old Europeans" (in the President's words). 

It was only much later, after the scope of the horrible Iraq debacle became
clear, that the White House alluded to some tenuous connection between Iraq
and terrorism - a connection that has again been discredited by our own
intelligence agencies.

Still, we walk into a trap of our own making. Today we harangue over Iraq
and the fact that we didn't win the war against the Taliban in Afghanistan,
that the person(s) responsible for 9/11 are still free and at work there, if
indeed they haven't found better facilities elsewhere, all the while the
next threat builds force just as Americans grow weary and want to pretend
we're safe. 

I'm speaking of Persia - what since the 30's we've called Iran - who, since
the USA stopped them from holding free, democratic elections in the 1950's
because we wanted our chosen dictator in power there, has raised generation
after generation praying for the destruction of the evil Americas. And, once
our chosen dictator grew old and died, that hatred rose up to control the
country. These are not the "Arabs" many Americans dismiss as "rag heads".
These are not Arabs at all. They are members of the oldest surviving
civilization on earth, now well over 2,000 years old. Their founder, Cyrus
the Great, formulated many of the military strategies adopted world wide
today. For many centuries they led the world in technology, science and
engineering. Many inventions we credit to Rome stood in Persia long before
the first Roman engineers set to work. They have only succumbed once to
invasion since antiquity, and it's probably as accurate to say that Persia
conquered Alexander the Great as it is the other way around. Persia remained
a major power in the world through an educated, intelligent and resourceful
citizenry while Europe languished in the dark and middle ages. 

Today, the people Persia - Iran - demand their rightful place in the world,
which they envision as a world superpower as they were for centuries past,
and they see the USA as their greatest obstacle. They sit on unimaginable
riches - over the biggest known lakes of oil in the world. They are
intelligent, resourceful and driven to succeed. And they see their success
coming only upon the destruction of America. 

If we Americans - I should say US citizens since the USA is only part of
America - if we US citizens have any compassion at all, any sense of human
charity, any sense of responsibility for our acts, we will see to it that we
fix the damage we've done in the world as best we can, including Iraq,
Afghanistan and probably dozens of other places we in the general public
don't even know about. But I believe that must not be our only focus if we
are to survive. We must look to the future and the challenges it holds for
us. I hope we have learned that the world's best military can buy us only a
little time when we have failed as a nation. Our military can keep those who
would kill us and our nation from doing so for a while, but our military
cannot buy peace through violence. Bullets and bombs have never stopped
hatred or won the hearts of other people. 

Today is the very moment when the most critical "battles" with Iran are
being fought. They are battles of words and ideas. They are battles that can
only be won if we engage them, and we can't engage them when we pretend we
are something or someone we are not. What we are is a nation with our
self-interests strongly in hand, as any nation must be if it is to survive.
We are a great nation, but we are not an infallible nation. We are a nation
who in past years, recent years, have done things to others that must cause
us a sense of national shame. Until we embrace that shame and those
mistakes, we cannot embrace our selves. 

This war has been building for over half a century. It may be too late. No
one knows. We'll only know it as too late when the bombs start falling.
Until then, we're insane not to throw all of our political resources into
finding a non-violent path to correct our wrongs and ensure a stable future.
To fail to do that is to doom the people of the USA to more 9/11s. Only this
time the Iranians have promised they will be mushroom clouds, not the simple
cloud of a few destroyed buildings.

I don't want to see the disaster at the World Trade Center on 9/11 become a
model for the future of America. Standing tall and proud. Hurt by a terrible
blow, our brave citizens swarm in to stem the damage and save the injured,
then see it implode and collapse into the rubble of yet another lost
civilization in the world. 

I have a strong feeling that a lot of people around the world today would
look forward to just that.  

Ron D'Eau Claire