Monday, September 19, 2011

Innocence Lost?

Iraq invasion victim.
Americans have to stop talking about how 9/11 shattered their innocence.
The US dropped 2 atomic bombs, held slaves, segregated people by color and race, built numerous military bases around the world, spies via satellites, eavesdrops on its citizens, keeps dictators in power, embargoes poor nations, decimated its native population, put its citizens of Japanese descent in camps, invades countries that are not a threat, and generally treats the world like an outhouse.

9/11 was a horrible occurrence, to this day myred in mysteries worthy of a blockbuster Hollywood conspiracy flick, with an aftermath that resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan—by the Pentagon's estimation—while the supposed instigator sat safely in a walled compound in Abbotabbat, drinking Coke, smoking marijuana, and watching porn.

Meanwhile, America's shattered innocence syndrome introduced us to Abu Grahib, the now familiar term "rendition", secret CIA torture chambers in countries whose human rights violations we condemn in the UN, the burning of religious books, photos of soldiers urinating on killed enemy combatants, kidnapping combatants on their own soil and whisking them off to Guantanamo Bay in Cuba where they're held without due process, and countless other facts that are hard to chalk up to "innocence shattered" behavior.

Now, I'd go along with Pearl Harbor shattering America's innocence in a time when big news made for big headlines, shouted out by newspaper boys, but even then we see that the rise of fascism and Hitler couldn't happen without the support from American business giants like Henry Ford. Rarely do in history events stand on their own. There's always an underlying web of interests, money, and power-grabbing that serve as conduit for change.

Surely, 9/11 served some in the US well, if not splendidly without incurring much scrutiny, like the Republican Party, President George W Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, the entire industrial military complex, and the banks. That is, until the euphoria over I'll-gotten gains deflated into reality and the period ended with worlwide stock market crashes, the American automobile industry collapse, bank bailouts, mortgage crises, home foreclosures and Wall Street bankruptcies that threatened to drag down the economy of the "free world".
Yes, Bernie Madoff's innocence was shattered, and so was Abramoff's, in court that is. Courts that have up to now had little to no interest in prosecuting the architects of doom America had fostered within its own bosom, the greedy profiteers that only needed a foreig eccentric with a match to set off a bonfire of profits, unmatched in history. So, exactly whose innocence has been shattered when Americans wallow on national TV in self-pity?
Waking up in a house that's on fire is surely a shock to the senses, but then one springs to action, tries to douse the flames and save what can be saved. Instead, Americans yawned and changed the channel, tired of reality, hungry for the confinement entertainment provides.

Obama's pastor famously said that 9/11 was America's chickens coming home to roost, pointing to failed foreign policies, such as America dropping its support for the Mujihadeen that had kept the Russians' in Afghanistan's toes to the fire with CIA-delivered Stingers and AK-47’s, or selling weapons to Saddam Hussain, thereby consolidating his position as a ruthless dictator who can be seen shaking hands with Donald Rumsfeld to seal the deal in which he received the gas he'd later attacked Kurd women and children with. America's politics abroad has never been one that can be compared to a humanitarian rescue mission. Every dollar that went to alleviate the suffering of poor nations was accounted for in exchange for favorable trade agreements, mining rights, oil exploitation, and other cold calculations that were based less on Christianity than pure profit.

9/11 is now history and much of what went on that day is forgotten, such as the absence of fighter jets in the sky, the pinpoint accuracy with which untrained pilots were able to find their targets you and I would miss by a mile while playing Microsoft Flight Simulator. Questions remain, but no one's asking them anymore at risk of being called a fool. We all want to feel good, and maybe painting yourself as a victim is a psychological response to masking bad things that have been done in your name to others.

I still remember the Iraqi boy whose limbs had been blown off, surrounded by cameras as he was airlifted to a hospital in the US to receive prosthesis. He has to live with our shattered innocence. We? We just continue shopping. Just like we were told to do by George Bush in response to 9/11.