The Best Way to Remember 9/11

I spoke with a friend of mine shortly after the 9/11 attacks. He is a congenital conservative and self-confessed "dittohead." We spoke shortly after President Bush announced that the US would invade Afghanistan or after our troops were already there in pursuit of Osama Bin Laden.

Pat, my friend, was all for it. I was against it, for pragmatic reasons. I suspected that Bin Laden and his cabal had already fled Afghanistan, or if he was still there, we would somehow fail to get him. I felt that George Bush's tough rhetoric - dead or alive and all that - was risibly juvenile, and his statement that we wouldn't rest until we defeated evil eveywhere was just monumentally unrealistic and foolish. The invasion of Afhanistan was, I told my friend, an impotent gesture of vengeance that catered to the public's need to see someone punished for the attacks on 9/11. Our discussion was actually brief, concluding when my friend said, "Let's see what happens six moths from now."

U.S. military action in Afghanistan officially commenced on October 7, 2001. Since then, an estimated 10-30,000 civiians have been killed.

Osama Bin Laden continues to evade capture.

The U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, falsely premised on Sadam Hussein's connection to Al-Qaeda and 9/11, resulted in tens of thousands of Iraqi deaths.

The best memorial to 9/11 is continued oppositon to President Obama's escalation of the war in Afghanistan and our continuing war of occupation in Iraq.