9/11: Ten Years Later

Every time I look at the American flag, I feel torn.  The flag, like every other, is a symbol.  The American flag in particular represents some wonderful things.  Most of the greatest events in the last 200 years were thanks to America, events such as the rise of modern democracy.  But America also has some stains on her history, things like slavery (after most of the rest of the civilized world had abandoned the practice), internment camps for Japanese Americans, and ethnic warfare against Native Americans.  But through it all, we are a nation that has always tried to do our best, and when we have fallen short of our ideals, we faced it honestly, and we strove to do better.

Ten years after 9/11, and what's different?  Osama bin Laden is dead, at the hands of US commandos.  Democracies have blossomed in Turkey, Iraq, Afghanistan, Ivory Coast, Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya.  On the streets of Libya, people praise America.  American institutions have stayed strong, our country is still free, and the new World Trade Center is 84 stories tall.  This work was begun by George W. Bush and is being completed by Barack Obama.

Have the last 10 years been stainless?  Hardly.  The CIA tortured prisoners.  The FBI spied on Americans.  We have angered allies like Pakistan, and their people hate us, even as we hand them billions of dollars.  We have insulted allies.  Hundreds of innocent women and children died in Afghanistan and Iraq, victims of American bombs and bullets.  Racism against Muslim Americans has skyrocketed.  We hired thugs like Blackwater and outsourced our prisoners to second-world countries to be tortured.  Bush successfully brought democracy to Iraq, but he bankrupted our country in order to do so.  A lot of people in Iraq and Afghanistan want us to leave.

Meanwhile, can we really take all the credit for the Arab Spring?  Hardly.  It probably owes more to an unemployed 26-year-old who lit himself on fire in a backwater town in Tunisia.  In fact, Obama stayed silent as Mubarak slaughtered his own people in Egypt, and waited until the last possible minute to save the rebels in Libya.

But in spite of all of that, we have mostly stayed true to our principals in the last ten years.  We have mostly been a force for good, and we have mostly supported the right people in doing the right things.  Unlike previous empires, like Britain or Rome, we have not enforced our own way of life, but instead gave people the freedom to choose their own path.  Cynics grumble that we're really only interested in oil, but the truth is Afghanistan never had oil, and Gaddhafi was giving us as much as the rebels will.  Sometimes America really does the right thing for the right reasons, and in the last ten years, we mostly got it right.

As I read articles and watch retrospectives on what happened 10 years ago today, I am reminded of the pain every American felt on that day.  But we, as a people, took that pain, and healed it, and channeled it into something constructive.  Do cluster bombs count as something constructive?  Of course not.  But girls' schools in Afghanistan count.  So do voting stations in Iraq.

The world is a better place today than it was 10 years ago, and the United States deserves a good portion of the credit for that.  That, perhaps, is one of our greatest accomplishments: that we can transform our own pain into joy for so many other people around the world.  Other countries respond to national tragedies with ethnic cleansing and centuries-long blood feuds.  We respond by spreading freedom.

So today, looking back at the decade behind us, with my head up and my eyes open, I can say with complete honesty: I am proud to be an American.