A Second Look at U.S. Identity
Joshua Wachtel
Corsair Columnist

I can’t help but think of where I was a year ago when I was struck dumb by the attacks in New York, Washington D.C. and Pennsylvania. I am still numb today thinking about it. The same way I go numb thinking about Nagasaki, Hiroshima, Auschwitz, Rwanda, Bosnia, Cambodia, the Soviet Gulag, the Trail of Tears, and the list goes on. Today I mourn for all those murdered a year ago and years ago.

Most consideration today is focused on what changes have been brought about since Sept. 11, which is too myopic. The question should be, “What has America been in its 226 years and before?” Not what has its ideals and flags looked like, but who are we really as a nation?

A common American sentiment, “America, love it or leave it,” should be trashed. Many will not hear a bad word spoken against America, especially in its time of mourning. But it is this intolerance that stigmatizes America in much of the world.

Even now President Bush cannot get the world to attack yet another country, Iraq, automatically. The Cold War is alive and well and there are already three dominoes we have yet to push around. Since we have an Axis of Evil, if Iraq is fair game then we must go into North Korea and Iran. America is about equality, so we can hardly leave them out of the war.

No, wait. America is not about equality. We want nuclear nonproliferation and to unilaterally pull out of missile treaties with Russia. Nor does our equality attack Saudi Arabia where many terrorists are said to have their nationality. And why not other terrorist nations such as Libya? What about Cuba, which is refused the slightest acknowledgment, while China is ushered into the World Trade Organization? American hypocrisy is easily bought with plentiful cheap labor.

Another illusion is how democratic America is; yet Bush won’t share secret information about how OUR administration forms energy policy or the secrets about WHY they will attack Iraq.

The American people must be too dumb to be trusted with these decisions. As is the Senate which was recently told that President Bush has the authority to declare war on his own. “Nothing [Saddam Hussein] has done has convinced me.... that he is the kind of fellow that is willing to forgo weapons of mass destruction…,” Bush said, according to the National Review. Using this logic India and Pakistan would have been targets a few years ago. And since Israel is rumored to have nuclear weapons and is certainly not Palestine’s good neighbor, they too should be a target.

And there is also the Pentagon’s Office of Strategic Influence, which was to spread propaganda to America, allies, and enemies alike. Apparently we might not like ourselves as much as we should. Or maybe we aren’t sad or angry enough to kill everyone who must deserve it. The American people are being manipulated to serve the government when it is the government that is supposed to serve the people.

American history is full of terror. Domestically, American slavery was propagated by terrorism right through to decades ago. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. did not enjoy all the inalienable rights white Americans did. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were bombed even though President Roosevelt was making the bomb in part urged by Einstein’s letter fearing Germany would make it first—not Japan.

The bomb’s original use, as a deterrent to a first strike, as was envisioned by Einstein, only became so after the Soviet Union got one too. The Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment allowed, even forced (as they were removed from military service so they would not be treated), a curable fatal disease to run its course in black men and was not stopped until 1972. Hiroshima and Nagasaki are much the same, as military leaders objected to its use because Japan was already militarily defeated.

These are just a few examples of brutality. America and any nation, humanity in general, is full of brutality. They have theirs and we have ours. Our daily lives include “road rage,” “air rage,” “going postal,” schoolyard shootings were a fad, babies are put in dumpsters even though it is legal to leave them at a hospital or church. To twist Benjamin Franklin a little, “we are going to hang together.”

Today we don’t know ourselves half as well as we thought we did. Sept. 11, 2001, proved that to us all. America prides itself on its ability to adapt and change as a nation and as individuals, but clings even harder to its ideals whether they are true or not. America is not the world’s fairy godmother doing only good.

Today, our new national holiday, Patriot Day, will see official mourning everywhere, but if to mourn is to begin to heal and continue living as we would normally, then I refuse. I can’t help but remain in shock. Remaining in shock is more in line with the slogan that is on so many 9/11 bumper stickers, “Never Forget,” an echo of the “Always Remember” slogan from the Holocaust. This kind of tragedy is not something you get past. This is something you learn to live with. This time it was them, but it was only dumb luck that it wasn’t you.