3,650 days

I have been hesitant to join the bandwagon of commemorative voices for the 10^th anniversary of the attacks on 9/11. As an historian, my knowledge base is filled with anniversaries, April 18^th, June 6^th, November 11th, August 8^th and on and on. I am sure that few could recall the importance of those dates, though in some ways, these dates are more momentous than 9/11. Certainly some of them mark dates/events that cost more lives and had more impact than 9/11.

But we are apt to remember and give importance to dates that we recall and that have had an impact or meaning to us, and for most of us, 9/11 is truly a date like that. It marked our lives, and it is one of those days that even divide our lives. I have heard people say countless times “before 9/11, I could or did, or after 9/11 I couldn’t or did things differently.” That is no less true for me. I can recall no real other event of such magnitude. I remember where I was when I heard that MLK was shot, when Nixon resigned, when the US hockey team won, when an actor, a scion, a hillbilly, a son and a Black man became president, when the Challenger exploded and Black Tuesday and I suppose many more days, but these events were comparatively tiny blips in world history.

But for all of us who were more than about 10 years old in 2001, 9/11 is a bright line that does divide our lives. What is sad for me is that for many things I see the world as less bright and promising—that is no doubt naïve of me. It was for many and for me, too, the moment when I felt like I discovered that there was true and simple evil in the world. Certainly it existed before this date. But 9/11 brought it home much more than from when Pol Pot reigned or where Bosnian Serbs ruled and killed thousands just because of the person’s religion, though these were two horrors that took place in our lifetimes. And most of us could name other evils just as dark.

Yes, Virginia, evil exists, right along side of Santa Claus. I say it like this because there are some things that came out of the 9/11 attacks that make me proud to be, well, proud to be part of the human race. I have observed and celebrated tremendous acts of personal and group courage and sacrifice, whether it was from a firefighter who gave her life, the 6,400+ US soldiers who have died fighting in the decade of war that followed, or in a group of National Guard soldiers who sacrificed their lives in so many ways. Or, in how many people stood up at great personal cost to challenge things just because they were wrong, whether it was standing up for a Muslim who was wrongly targeted or accused or fighting for the right to voice our dissent.

But 9/11 and the ten years since has exposed some evil that does make it harder to view the world so brightly. Many would comment on torture, extraordinary rendition, civilian casualties, or the loss of many civil rights and protections as the things that make us look at the world and our fellow citizens so darkly. Yes, things like these sadden me and cast a pall. It is more than just living in a world where people can find out which books I checked out of the library, or where they scan (all of) me at the airport. Do we make ourselves less by sacrificing some of or all of our rights and personal liberties to perhaps make ourselves safer? Many do think this.

But these things pale in comparison to what is truly weighing down my heart. That is the simplistic prioritization of things that seems to have become the norm since 9/11, and the real costs of this. Since 9/11 the so-called “war on terror” has cost the United States at least 3.4 trillion dollars, and it cost the rest of world almost that much. These are actual costs for guns and bullets and people sniffing dogs and machines and for paying for the thousands of security changes and for spies and drones and and and… And this in no way counts or measures the costs of human life—this is just the checkbook account of all this.

But what of the opportunity costs of all of this? Even if you can justify a trillion or two, what of the costs of not spending a trillion or two on our schools? Would we be safer if we had a more educated and successful population? What about if we used a trillion or so for public works which would put people to work and make our bridges safer or an internet infrastructure equal to some of the countries who are ahead of us, like Spain and Finland, those other world powers? Would a trillion have helped reform our health care system so more people could have health care? Or remember that we borrowed most of that money—would a trillion or two less in national debt help the country and make us safer and more secure? Does this guns vs butter argument even matter?

I don’t know. Maybe every penny of that 3.4 trillion was well and appropriately spent. Many do believe this. It may take a few more years and more history to know if this is the case. But it will take that same amount of time to know whether or not the opportunity costs of not spending that money on people or schools or bridges outweighed any gains in world security or safety. I know that this is just pondering, but I have to wonder if we are better off than we were on 9/12? Are we the United States that we want to be or should be? Maybe we will know this in a few years as well.