Memorial: Learning from our mistakes

It’s the memorial day of 9/11. I mourn for the loss of anyone during any war. It is a greater tragedy when it is civilians who were no part of the decisions that led to the violence. 

What saddens me most, however, is that we learned nothing from it. The many people who see the whole thing as a crazy unprovked attack because the Taliban “hate’s freedom’ is part of what prevents us from preventing the whole thing from happening again.

We can not prevent these things by turning the country into a police state, subjecting women and men to cavity searches just to board a plane, and outlawing mouthwash. We can not prevent it with rhetoric, posturing and chest beating. And we certainly don't prevent it by ignoring the issues that generated it.  The first step in preventing terrorist attacks of this type is to look at what happened and why it happened.

We need to  recognize that the attacks were a direct retaliation for our interference, arming, training and support of violence and war in Afghanistan. It was exacerbated by our depletion of all financial aid and resources at once when Russia ended the war.  A country in chaos, torn apart by years of bombings, flooded with weapons which America freely sold to whoever would buy them, is very likely not to take well to us walking away at the worst possible moment and saying “sorry not our business” as their country crashes down around them.

We must  realize that the key to stopping this sort of hatred, is to put firmer better control over our weapon sales, and attack interventions.  We helped to create chaos, rule by guerrilla states, and an unprecedented hatred of American foreign policy.  

We must hold our officials accountable, and demand firmer stricter rules be placed on our distribution of weapons to terrorists and governments. We must approach with more diplomacy, and not intervene in wars where we are helping to repress and terrorize local populace.

Do not get me wrong, the attacks on a civilian population were NOT an appropriate or reasonable response to our mishandled foreign policies. However, it didn't happen in a vacuum, and now that those we hold responsible have been removed from power, we need to work to prevent creating new terrorist groups that will continue to hate us, and use diplomacy and other approaches to become the good guys again. A country people looked to for moral guidance, instead of one people hated and feared.

That’s how we honor those who died in these terrible attacks.