9/11 Memorial

As each anniversary of this horrific event rolls around, there are the reminders to never forget. We renew our resolve to never forget the people who perished, the loved ones who continue without them, and the people who are still dying from the diseases contracted on that day and during the clean-up of ground zero. I believe that one of the tacit reasons we challenge ourselves to never forget is the underlying desire to strike back at the perpetrators of 9/11. I know that I am guilty.

That said, I must also remember to rise above my desire for revenge and to never forget that we have also been the perpetrators of obscene acts, as have the Germans, and the Japanese, and the North Koreans, and the Jihadists, and…well the list could, and does, go on and on.

The Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor to eliminate our interference of their imperialistic goals and to end the oil embargo we had put upon them. (Just as a side note, we are now contemplating doing this with China as they flex their imperialistic muscles). They chose a military target and of all who died on December 7^th, only 103 civilians were killed. A little more than three and a half years later we unleashed a new era by dropping two atomic bombs on Japan. We chose to drop these weapons of mass destruction on largely civilian targets, not military ones. Even though the battle for Iwo Jima ended almost four months before Hiroshima, all remaining civilian population had been removed from the island and bombing that instead, might have proved just as effective a demonstration and prevented a civilian death toll 75 times greater than 9/11. Just consider the fact that the bomb on Hiroshima was considered by some a failure because it yielded only 1.7% of its capacity during its release. Imagine if all its fissionable uranium had been used.

The United States has also bombed places like Libya and Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan along with 23 other countries. I believe much of it was justified, but if one were to add up the number of civilian casualties obliterated by American bombs, it becomes a little easier to understand the steadfast hatred leveled in our direction.

War is an abomination, but it would seem we will never be free of it. It’s in our DNA, and we suffer from ideologies of such extreme polarity that there is no hope for establishing a middle ground.

So yes, we must never forget. But the lesson is, we must never forget the extent of just how low humanity can morally descend and remember to seek the higher ground whenever possible.

Hiroshima Memorial