9/11: The Day America Embraced a Metaphor of War

By Rep. Dennis Kucinich, The Nation. Posted September 11, 2008.

We should not only remember 9/11. We should remember how the
politicization of 9/11 locked us into a "war on terror" that has
wrought more terror.

Before the Congress adjourns, I will bring forth a new proposal for
the establishment of a National Commission on Truth and
Reconciliation, which will have the power to compel testimony and
gather official documents to reveal to the American people not only
the underlying deception which has divided us, but in that process of
truth seeking set our nation on a path of reconciliation.

We suffer in our remembrance of 9/11, because of the terrible loss of
innocent lives on that grim day. We also suffer because 9/11 was
seized as an opportunity to run a political agenda, which has set
America on a course of the destruction of another nation and the
destruction of our own Constitution. And we have become less secure as
a result of the warped practice of pursing peace through the exercise
of pre-emptive military strength.

It is not simply 9/11 that needs to be remembered. We also need to
remember the politicization of 9/11 and the polarizing narrative which
followed, locking us into endless conflict, a war on terror which has
wrought further terror worldwide and which has severely damaged our
standing worldwide as an honorable, compassionate nation. As we were
all victims of 9/11, so we have become victims of the interpretation
of 9/11.

Our government's external response to 9/11 was to attack a nation
which did not attack us. Indeed on the first anniversary of 9/11, the
Bush Administration issued a well-publicized stern warning to Iraq,
which was part of a campaign to induce people to believe Iraq had
something to do with 9/11.

The deliberate, systematic connection of Iraq with 9/11 has led
America into a philosophical and moral cul-de-sac as over one million
Iraqis and over 4,155 U.S. soldiers have died in a war that will cost
over $3 trillion. Additionally, soldiers from twenty-three other
countries have died in the Iraq war.

We attempt to unite Iraq by further dividing it. We talk about
restoring Iraq while taking steps to place control of its vast oil
wealth in the hands of U.S. oil giants. And we intend to impose upon
the Iraqi people the cost of rebuilding a country our government
ruined, keeping a once-prosperous nation lashed to debt and poverty
for a long, long time. Iraq has paid for 9/11. We all continue to pay
for 9/11.

The heartbreaking loss of the lives and injuries to America troops
further binds us to the Administration's illogic of the Iraq War: We
remember our troops' sacrifice by demanding more sacrifice; we support
our troops by continuing the war.

The dominant color of our new national security since 9/11 is neither
red, white nor blue. Every day is orange. Every day, reminders of fear
of 9/11 become banal. Yet we no longer hear the airport announcements
nor see the orange-colored warnings because they have commonplace
standards in our new national security state, as is the Patriot Act,
wiretapping, and a host of invasions of privacy and diminution of
civil liberties. The Constitution has been roundly attacked by the
very people who took an oath to defend it.

There is a powerful desire across America for change, not necessarily
from control by one political party to another, but a change from
living with lies to living with truth.

Over two dozen nations, facing peril within and without, deeply
divided by politics and war have travelled down a path of restoring
civil society through a formal process of reconciliation. At some
point within each of those countries it was understood that the way
forward is shown through the light of truth. This process is not
without pain because it requires a willingness to study evidence from
which eyes had been averted and ears had been closed. But in the
process of truth and reconciliation, nations found new strength, new
resolve, and new commitment.

The South African Truth and Reconciliation enabled that nation to come
to grips with its past through a public confessional, bringing forward
those who committed crimes and having the power to grant amnesty for
full disclosure of crimes against the people. Of course, our path may
necessarily be different: High U.S. government officials stand accused
in impeachment petitions of violating national and international law.
Our continued existence as a democracy may depend upon how thoroughly
we seek the truth. I will call upon the America people to join me in
supporting this effort.

The truth can move us forward, as a unified whole, so that we can one
day become a re-United States. 9/11 is the day the world changed. It
is the day America embraced a metaphor of war. If we are open to truth
and reconciliation, we may one day be able, once again, to embrace
peace.