But the gamble was a good one. The risk was commensurate with the reward: it was high risk to have our military men in harm’s way, to risk a fiasco where they get killed, but it was also high reward to identify Osama Bin Laden, to kill him, and to prove to the world that the deed was truly done. What mattered was not only that our commandos were terrific, and that they completed their work without U.S. casualties. What mattered most of all was this focus from President Obama and why we were there. What 9/11 was originally about, and why we should ever risk putting our military in harm’s way.
Too often, in the aftermath of 9/11, fear and paranoia were manipulated to focus on targets having little to do with what happened on that awful Tuesday in Manhattan, Washington, D.C., and Pennsylvania. I experienced that day as a New Yorker, and it is the day I became in my heart a New Yorker. But it is also the day I began to see this country twisted by opportunists and demagogues to focus not on Al Qaeda primarily, not on Bin Laden, but on agendas having little to do with what and who wounded us so profoundly.
Why did we start a war in Iraq? For weapons of mass destruction? But they weren’t there. For vague Al Qaeda connections? But the terrorists who harmed us were principally in Afghanistan, and later we now know, Pakistan. My opinion is that President Bush started the war in Iraq to finish his daddy’s work, to pay back Saddam Hussein for targeting his daddy, to prosecute a personalized, blustery foreign policy that put our military in harm’s way. For the wrong reasons. For the wrong target.
Hussein was a creep and a dictator, but that isn’t a national security reason necessary to commit to a war. And of course, once you start a war, as Eisenhower warned us, the military-industrial complex, from generals to lobbyists to anyone else who profits from wars, will make sure the ill-begotten war continues for years, with thousands of people dead, with hundreds of billions of dollars wasted. Attempt to stop a war we should have never started in the first place, and how many right-wingers will smear you as soft on ‘defense’? How many in the public will believe them? How stupidly can we keep going round and round without the right purpose?
Here was another wrong target and wrong focus. How did we allow what happened on 9/11 to be twisted first into fear about security within our borders, then into paranoia about border security, and finally into attacks against undocumented workers? We allowed idiots like Lou Dobbs to manipulate our fears into a full-throated xenophobia against anyone dark-skinned, anyone ‘not like us,’ anyone whom we could easily blame, anyone weak and close at hand.
We couldn’t get to Bin Laden, but we could kick these Mexicans pouring concrete on our sidewalks and slaving away for pennies, yes we could kick them in the ass and feel good about ourselves. It might have been false, this feel-good kick, but it was something, and it was what we had. How many of us stepped up, said no, and yelled at the xenophobes, to tell them they had the wrong target? How many pointed out that our lack of work ethic, and our lack of focus on educating our kids, and our adoration of a superficial, materialistic culture were primarily to blame for our not competing effectively against nations like China? Believe me, right now dying Detroit could be revived if civic leaders just rolled out the red carpet for one million, hard-working, undocumented Mexicans.
Obama, in that picture from the Situation Room, was focused. He was focused on the right target. He was focused on what should have been the target all along. Al Qaeda, and all it represents. Period. Now that this commando mission has been completed successfully, perhaps we in the United States can start focusing on our problems straight on. Our real problems. Not our prejudices. Not our fantasies. Not our petty vendettas. But the problems that matter, to solve them and to make us a better country. To overcome even the worst of our days.
