It's as if he had written this for me. Like Charles Cooke, I have never been at risk of forgetting what happened to us on September 11. And I too watch the documentaries and the footage of the second jet, and I want it to veer off. When I see a a cloudless sky of a certain blue shade, I think, "That's a September 11th sky". How can anyone not be affected? And how can anyone not be outraged at, and blame, the Al Qaeda hijackers who did this to us and murdered nearly 3000 people? Their evil act is still killing survivors and first responders to this day.
My parents, born in Brooklyn, NY in the 20s & 30s, did compare that day to Pearl Harbor. They had been treated to dinner at Windows on the World in the 90s, so that made 9/11 even more personal for them. For me, the nearest comparison was the day Kennedy was assassinated, and the terrible events of that weekend.
I knew that others were moving on quickly, or shrugging the attacks off completely, when I was told that I spoke about September 11 "too much". There is no "too much" when it comes to a traumatic national terrorism attack. To me, there's "not enough", and I'm still angry about it.
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"Nearly 25 years on from the attacks of September 11, 2001, my overwhelming sentiment remains what it was on that day: anger. Time often heals — or, at the very least, dulls — but, in this case, it has done no such thing. I remain livid with the perpetrators for what they did to the 2,977 people who were killed that morning, what they did to the thousands who were killed in the aftermath, what they did to the United States and the free world more broadly, and, on a significantly reduced scale, what they did to me, by abruptly ending my childhood. When bad things happen in the world, younger people look to adults for reassurance. September 11 was the first time in my life that that reassurance was not forthcoming. Even from the safety of England, my parents could not hide their shock or their horror, nor persuasively guarantee me that everything was going to be alright. To this day, much as is true for so many others, I consider September 11 to be the key dividing line in my life. I woke up as a child. I went to bed an adult. Beforehand, I knew little about the world, and I was content in my ignorance. Afterward, I knew all manner of things that I did not want to know. “May you live in interesting times,” insists the proverb. Screw that.
"There is, sadly, nothing unusual about living through an atrocity. Had I been alive at the time of Pearl Harbor, I would undoubtedly have similar feelings about that. But I was not, and, besides, while Pearl Harbor was an abomination, it was an abomination inflicted by one army upon another, in the midst of an already-raging global conflict. At Pearl Harbor, military aircraft, piloted by military personnel, attacked military ships full of military sailors.
"Not so on September 11.
"Sneering types dislike the contention that the United States was attacked “for its freedom.” I do not. Regardless, we can surely agree that the United States was attacked with its freedom. The assailants took advantage of a welcoming immigration system; turned quotidian commercial products into catastrophic weapons; and centered their attack around a pair of iconic private buildings in which civilians convened to trade with one another. They transmuted our media into a system for transmitting panic; used the selflessness of our first responders as a means by which to rack up kills; and turned the openness of our society into a liability. The architect of the attacks said, bluntly, that the difference between his band of thugs and the American people was that “these youths love death as you love life.” Indeed so. That most of those Americans assumed at first that what he had done to them had been an accident tells you everything you need to know.
"Nothing good came of September 11. Pearl Harbor, like Operation Barbarossa, brought about the conditions that guaranteed the Allies would win the war. Antietam led to the Emancipation Proclamation and, eventually, to the defeat of the Confederacy. September 11 had no salutary consequence. We would, without doubt, be better off if it had never happened. A quarter of a century later, I still find myself fantasizing idly about going back in time to stop it. When I visit New York, I look at the skyline and wonder if, somehow, the Twin Towers will magically be there. Even now, when I see the footage, I hope, impotently, that, perhaps this time, the planes will miss. They never do. They never will. Each time I watch it, three of the four will ineluctably hit their targets, and I will sit in stunned disbelief as if I were seeing it for the very first time. I cannot make it go away. It is indelible.
"It could have been worse. We now know what we did not at the time. We know that such attacks did not become commonplace. We know that the day’s events did not represent the opening salvo in a world war. We know that they did not permanently scar America’s sense of self — and, indeed, that, far from dwelling on it, Americans now have to be urged to “never forget.” I am at no risk of that.
"Nothing good came of September 11. Pearl Harbor, like Operation Barbarossa, brought about the conditions that guaranteed the Allies would win the war. Antietam led to the Emancipation Proclamation and, eventually, to the defeat of the Confederacy. September 11 had no salutary consequence. We would, without doubt, be better off if it had never happened. A quarter of a century later, I still find myself fantasizing idly about going back in time to stop it. When I visit New York, I look at the skyline and wonder if, somehow, the Twin Towers will magically be there. Even now, when I see the footage, I hope, impotently, that, perhaps this time, the planes will miss. They never do. They never will. Each time I watch it, three of the four will ineluctably hit their targets, and I will sit in stunned disbelief as if I were seeing it for the very first time. I cannot make it go away. It is indelible.
"It could have been worse. We now know what we did not at the time. We know that such attacks did not become commonplace. We know that the day’s events did not represent the opening salvo in a world war. We know that they did not permanently scar America’s sense of self — and, indeed, that, far from dwelling on it, Americans now have to be urged to “never forget.” I am at no risk of that."
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