Recalling Three 911s Renews Dedication to Nonviolence (Page 1 of 2)

The 11th of September. Say that date any other way, at least in this country, and you are talking about the World Trade Center. This September 11 will mark five years since the twin towers crumbled, horribly, unbelievably, into rubble; five years since a jetliner opened a gash in the side of the Pentagon in Washington, D.C.; five years since another hijacked jetliner was driven into the ground in a field in Pennsylvania, creating an immediate cemetery.

More than 2,300 people died in the short span of two hours, every death a tragic loss, every death leaving survivors, every death senseless, every death destroying a future. Who would have imagined then that five years out, we would have more than doubled the death toll in a war of our own making, perversely compounding the tragedy? Even as the futility of our “war on terror” and the utter senselessness of the sacrifice of lives in Iraq and Afghanistan become clear, who would have imagined then that we would be stubbornly pressing forward to more tragedy, more destruction, more death?

Five years ago, we were all horrified. We stared in disbelief at the TV screen: rescue workers streaked with blood and sweat and death, scenes too terrible for nightmares. We saw worse than we could have imagined, and then we imagined worse still. Who would have imagined then that our response would bathe the world in even more blood and death, that thousands of innocents in other lands would die at our hands, that five years out, we would be up to our armpits in religious and political violence with no way out?

Five years ago in this country in the immediate aftermath, pundits and regular people alike declared, “this changes everything,” suggesting that the world would never again be the same and life would never again be “normal.” Five years out, a lot has returned to pretty much normal in this country; the big changes were exported overseas, to far-away places, where bombs drop from the skies on wedding parties, where families packed in cars fleeing to safety are destroyed, where the rule of law is utterly and completely absent, and where the masterminds of terror remain at large.

Five years ago, a lot of people, even fairly progressive people (90 percent according to the polls) argued that a military response to September 11 was necessary— regrettable but necessary. Five years out we can begin to tally the balance sheet and see what we have gained and lost by our violent response. There is no way of knowing if adherence to the rule of law—a thorough civil investigation, evidence-gathering, apprehending criminals with police action, and bringing them to the bar of justice—would have captured Osama bin Laden and crippled the capacity of Al Qaeda. But we do know, now, that five years of military action has not done it.

Ironies abound as we mark five years since September 11, not the least of which are two other events commemorated on this same day for very different reasons. This year, in addition to mourning the victims of September 11, 2001, and all those whose deaths have followed, I will also be pondering these other dates, trying to connect the dots, to make coherent sense of the three September 11s.

The first goes back 33 years, to the 11th of September, 1973, to Chile, a young democracy in the southern hemisphere, where Salvador Allende held office as president, elected by the citizens.

He was removed from office on September 11, 1973 by a military coup that eventually installed the ruthless Augusto Pinochet as dictator. The United States, as it turns out, was not a disinterested observer; in 1973 we rolled up the banner of democracy and freedom and put it in a closet at CIA headquarters so the spooks could do what they do so well: provide support for the coup that toppled Allende.

Some years later, I met Allende’s brother, Juan. He was teaching at the University of Tennessee, and he attended some vigils held by the Knoxville Area Committee on Central America. He was a reminder to me that history is not words on a page, it is people’s lives. And a coup in another country is not just a news story, it is pain and suffering, and those people we don’t know about, half a world away, we might meet someday.

I don’t imagine for a moment that the overthrow of Allende was connected in any direct way to the horrors of our September 11. But I also don’t imagine for a moment that the two have no connection at all.