(I
wrote this post last September 11th, but don't see any change in the
American understanding of this tragedy's true dimensions.)
If only I could confine the wound in my heart to the 2, 988 men, women
and children who died in the September 11, 2001 attacks on the Twin
Towers and the Pentagon. But unfortunately, my emotions don't work
that way. They refuse to be switched on or off depending on whose flag
is draped over the victim's coffin.
U.S.
Army field reports
record that 66,081 Iraqi civilian deaths between January 2004 to
December 2009 are attributable to the U.S. invasion of their
country. This war of vengeance, launched to perk up American spirits
after 9/11 has cost this country $3 trillion, according to a September
5, 2010 article in the
Washington Post, and sent
the U.S. economy into a downward spiral, from which it has still not
recovered. The number of American soldiers killed in Iraq (4,287) has
surpassed the number of people who lost their lives in 9/11. And
Senator Harry Reid, (Democrat Nevada)
now declares this war to have been "the worst foreign policy mistake in the history of this country."
Perhaps the most disingenuous statement made about the consequences of 9/11 came from former New York mayor, Rudy Giuliani who
declared that ". . . we feel renewed devotion to the principles of political,
economic, and religious freedom, the rule of law and respect for human life."
On Sunday, an entire nation including thousands of churches, synagogues,
mosques and temples across America, will memorialize the innocent
victims of 9/11. But who will mourn as well for the equally innocent
victims of our foreign policy blunders? I will.
Related Post: Has America Learned Nothing from 9/11?
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