WARNING: This article does not deal directly with city affairs. It is prompted by the anniversary of a great national tragedy. On this occasion, I will look beyond the city to say what I think about the War on Terror. It is not meant to be a thorough or complete exposition of United States foreign policy or the world situation. I believe that the U.S. made honest mistakes, one clearly in not knowing what was going on before 9/11.
I know that some people I respect will disagree with me, to a greater or lesser extent. All readers are invited to express their views on the situation, and if they are coherent, I will post them on the website.
Two years later, the date is burned into our memory, and it always will be with us. 9/11 not only killed 3000 innocents, destroyed two iconic buildings, and blighted a region, and left countless bereaved families and friends; it also signaled the beginning of the war in which we are now engaged. In today's world of weapons of mass destruction, nuclear, biological and chemical, this war is more dangerous to us than World War II.
Yet, since so many of our own day-to-day activities remain undisturbed, this period resembles the Phony War from September 1939 to March 1940, when Hitler had proclaimed his goals, devoured Poland in co-operation with Stalin, but had not yet invaded France and the Low Countries.
Osama bin Laden and Saddam are alive, but in hiding. They have not won the war. If John Wilkes Booth were holed up somewhere in the Piedmont, that would not mean that the United States had been defeated. On the other hand, bin Laden has many more deluded followers than Booth.
The obscurantism and the nuttiness of the crowd at Riverside Church this week, led by former Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney of Georgia, propounding revisionist theories alleging that the United States knew about or was responsible for 9/11, shows both the strength of our democracy and the prescience of Phineas T. Barnum.
Yet around the world millions of people believe these lies; not only in the Arab world but in Europe and in France, where a book making these claims was a best seller. If truth consists of what people believe, America has a problem. But shifting public opinion must not prevent us from defending ourselves or helping to secure freedom for others. After the fact, opinion generally favors the winners. All the complaints about the United States' actions over the last two years did not cause the attack on the World Trade Center, just as the settlements, problematic as they may be, did not cause the multi-state attacks on Israel in 1948 and 1967.
The sad truth in world affairs, as well as city issues, is that the facts are so often not what we would want them to be. Reality simply does not conform to our notions of how people should behave. There are thousands, if not millions of people in the world who wish us dead, and are ready to give up their lives to kill us. Yes, you and me.
Nations decay and empires crumble because, in the end, their citizens are too decadent to fight, or they are overwhelmed by enemy forces and superior weapons. We are not at risk for the latter, but one can see fissures—the Hollywood elite and other geniuses—in our population who believe that America can do no right. It is ironic, almost laughable to see the richest and most successful among the most foolish. But some dissenters are young and idealistic, which is sad. They are either undereducated or overeducated, sometimes at the same time, by guerrillas with tenure.
My father came here from Germany and my maternal grandparents from Czarist Russia. If they had stayed where they were, they would have been murdered. I am very grateful for having been born, raised and educated in the United States, where I have had the chance to live and work in a way that would never have been possible in Europe, even if my life had been spared. Thank you, America.
I continue to feel great intense sorrow and anger at 9/11. I hope that this country has the strength and will to bring the War on Terror to a successful conclusion, and that nations in all continents will be freed of the bands of gangsters and murderers that may rule over them, and their people given the right to choose their own leaders, just as free countries do.
If all nations were free, 9/11 would become more of a memory than a threat.
Henry J. Stern is the director of NYCivic.