NPR - Going Back

I've heard the rhetoric of many flavors about the importance in our recent history of 9/11 and the aftermath that has happened in politics, religion, socio-economics, ad infinitum, or ad nauseum if you choose. And I for one am tired of it. I want to go back to 9/10 and live life as then. It's not what the pundits, politicians, religious leaders or whomever says about going back or 9/10. It's about living and freedom.

And not fear. After 9/11 we lost our edge. We became vulnerable, but more importantly we became human, the same as the rest of the nations and people on this planet. While terrorists struck upwards near a thousand times a year around the world, we were free of those attacks, only vulnerable from home grown ones. We joined the rest of the world of victims that day.

We so easily forget the Oklahoma bombing was an act of terrorism by a terrorist against the government. But we didn't lose our pride and humanity, it made us better. So why did 9/11 turn our world so upside down?

Have we forgotten Pearl Harbor, the worst act of terrorism in our history, far worse than 9/11? Yet, we didn't lose our pride and humanity, it made us stronger and wiser. So why did 9/11 turn us inside out, our fear now worn like an overcoat?

Or have we been deluded by politicians and leaders selling us fear in the name of an agenda for power and control?

Could we still be a nation, country and people without all the "national security" we've implemented since 9/11?

I answer yes, and I say we would be better now than we are now with all the "national security." I say this because I challenge people to stand up to terrorists to say they haven't changed us but made us better, wiser, stronger and more human. We won't changed our values for a bunch of thugs.

But we have changed our values for a bunch of thugs, but the thugs aren't the terrorists we should fear, but our own government. Our own government is now the terrorist in the room, treating every citizen as a potential, even possible terrorist with our police state against it's own citizens.

If our political and military leaders had worked with the UN and focused our efforts on Afghanistan, it would be over. The whole world would be different, and while we would haven't solved the problem of Iraq, we could then we more productive and efficient means for less money. After all we tolerated him for 30 years before, a few years more woudn't hurt.

And now we've spent over $1 Trillion in Iraq and Afghanistan for what? And endless war? We'll in Afghanistan longer than the Soviets did when they invaded and occupied the country before we even can talk about withdrawl. And we supported the Taliban and Al Qaeda then, the same forces we're fighting now.

No one can dispute Iraq wasn't the threat from 9/11 and was a total distraction for political purposes that's blown up in the faces of those same leaders who are trying to scrape all the foul-smelling shit of this war off their face and clothes and put it on us, you and me, in the name of patriotism. It's doesn't matter who wears it, it still smells, and I won't wear it.

I want the freedoms we had on 9/10 and make the FBI and other agencies do their jobs to find and fight terrorists. It could have all been done without the obvious police and military bravado and all the money gone to private contractors and corporations for profits than results.

We don't need the Patriot Acts of any flavor. The government just needs to do it's job. More on surveillence and indefinite detention of citizens isn't necessarily. That's what the courts are for, investigate and prove it. It's brought us this far without the big brother police state we now have. And we're paying for it. But for what?

Because the government thinks every citizen is a terrorist and be treated as one? Is that what 9/11 is all about? Us?