Nine Years

It was just another work day when I got out of bed, a beautiful morning, really, and I wished I could go to the beach. I got my shower, my coffee, and the remote control, and decided to catch the news before I had to leave for work. What the hell was happening? That was the Twin Towers, and one of them was on fire! Someone was being interviewed, and I watched as a plane smashed into the World Trade Center again. Troy, my roommate, came into the room then, and he said, "what kind of movie are you watching?" My eyes still glued to the television, I answered, " That's New York...it's happening right now. I think we're at war." Good God! What should we do? What could we do? That was nine years ago...I still ask myself those questions sometimes.

The war still rages on. At least with Pearl Harbor, we knew what to do. The enemy had a uniform, a national identity, and even when they were cruel, they at least had a code of conduct. My grandparents were prisoners of war at a Japanese camp in the Philippines, and they came to know the enemy well. Today's enemy has no face, flies no flag, and takes no prisoners. The kamikaze plane that smashed into a destroyer was clearly marked, but the enemy pilots in this war fly passenger planes, full of innocents, anywhere they think they can kill the most people. How do we fight the enemy if they are just busboys, lawyers, or salesmen right up until the second they attack with a bomb strapped to their chests?

So the debate over civil liberties began. We have had to balance our need to protect our selves and our thirst for justice with the responsibility of the civil society and the duty to be fair. We can't profile people based on their race or religion, we don't want to betray the high ideals of this nation. After all, not all Arabs or Muslims are terrorists...and yet, all of the conspirators of 9/11 were both. There are plenty of patriotic, peace-loving, American Muslims...some of them are even in our armed forces, fighting and dying this very moment...but the next moment, someone like Major Nadal Malik Hasan at Fort Hood, Texas, will attack his fellow American soldiers, shouting, "Allahu Akbar!" Benjamin Franklin said, "Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both." I believe that, too. So I still ask, what can we do?

Yes, this is a day of remembrance, a day to pay tribute to all of the people who died that day, to honor our police and firefighters, to give thanks for the men and women who protect us still. Today may be this generation's "Pearl Harbor Day," but we have yet to have our "VJ Day." I wonder if we ever will have a day when the parades roll down Main Street, when we celebrate our victory with streamers and the like, a "Victory Over Terror Day." The purpose of war, I have heard someone say, is to kill people and break things until the enemy are dead or they give up. It's ugly, but it's the only way to win. The problem is, we can't even agree who the enemy is. Some Americans will even tell you that we are the bad guys, that we deserved it, that we still do. So we are at war with ourselves, too.
The first anniversary of 9/11 was a heavy day for me. There was a singer, I think it was Suzanne Vega, who sang a song on a talk show that day. She sang, "It hit home...it still does..." I cried. Now on September 11th, 2010, there are no tears, but there has been little healing, either. Never Forget, the radio talk show hosts say. Well, who can forget? How do you forget that you are at war? Maybe one day, jaded Americans will use this day as a holiday, a day to grill hot dogs and complain that the Post Office is closed, maybe one day if the war ever does end. Today is Saturday. A pretty summer day in Oklahoma. I woke up late, had some coffee, and watched cartoons with my children. Nothing blew up, no one died, at least that I know of, and I guess I have a whole lot of people wearing uniforms to thank for that. But I still hear that song, and I still ask myself, "what can we do? What should we do?"

The Hagia Sophia of Manhattan

As a person who believes very strongly in the right to private property and the right to worship, the issue of "the ground zero mosque" has been a difficult one for me. The simplest way to express my frustration is this; I hate it, but there's nothing we can do about it. Building a mega-mosque so close to the site where so many innocent people were killed for jihad is more than just insensitive, it is a ball of spit right in America's already black eye. We know why they want to build it, and many Americans are broken-hearted and angry at the thought of a huge Muslim victory flag being placed so near the spot that even the president, who came out in support of the mosque, acknowledged is "hallowed ground." Yes, as long as they own the property and do not break the law, they can build just about anything they want there. They can tear down the existing structure and put up a statue of Ronald McDonald, if they want to. And since this is America, they can go there and pray to God, Allah, the Devil, or even Whitney Houston...it's a free country. But if Islam is truly a religion of peace, if they truly wish to foster understanding and build bridges, and all of that other touchy-feely crap, they ought to understand exactly why so many Americans, particularly New Yorkers, are so strongly against it. They should hear the people, some shouting, some crying, and say to themselves, "you know, there are lots of places to build in New York...we don't need to cause more pain here." They would decide, out of consideration, to build somewhere else. It would be the decent and sensitive thing to do. As one protester's sign read, "If you care, build it elsewhere." We don't want to stop them from worshipping. We just don't want them to do it on our loved ones' graves. But they already know all of this. They don't care. And we know why they want to build it there. Oh, it's a matter of principle, sure, but not an American principle. It's not about freedom of religion or private property rights. This mosque is intended to be not only a victory flag, but a weapon, a means to divide us further, to get the warm and fuzzy liberals to fight with the hard and scaly conservatives. We'll fight each other, throwing out words like "racist" and "traitor" and the mosque will go up. Some idiot nut jobs will try to burn the place down and, as the FDNY is doing their jobs putting out the flames, everyone will be tripping over each other to apologize for it, and the Imams will be laughing at us. They are using our own high-minded ideals against us. They have every right to build it, and we have no right to stop them. But if they really wanted to show us what a non-threatening place this is, they could build a memorial to the victims of September 11, 2001 with a plaque displayed denouncing those murders. Or they could build a true "community" center for everyone, of all faiths, Jew, christian, Muslim, Hindu, to pray and reflect.Instead, they are like a schoolyard pest waving their arms around us, making funny faces, yelling, "I'm not touching you! I'm not touching you!" I hate it. But there's nothing we can do about it. Isn't that sick?