this bjturk.commentary:
two years, gone

It has now been two years since that terrible September day of crumbled concrete and twisted steel. The United States has fought and supposedly won wars in two countries, and yet the anguish remains. What have we learned from the last two years?

The attacks of September 11, 2001, will forever be etched upon the national psyche of the United States. Since that day, a great deal of blood and money has been spent. How goes the war on terror? By all appearances, not as well as one might hope.

As I have noted before, we can do no better than to fight the war on terrorism to a draw. When the enemy is so ill-defined and only located and either captured or killed with great difficulty, it becomes nearly impossible to truly win. There is no central authority to surrender, and there will undoubtedly be more to follow those who fall.

The U. S. now find itself mired in not one difficult situation, but two. It is too often overlooked that there are still quite a few ground troops in Afghanistan, and the relentless pursuit of Osama Bin Laden continues unabated and unrewarded. While troops search the nooks and crannies of Afghanistan, their brothers in arms do the same in Iraq, but seeking Saddam Hussein. To date, there have been achievements, but the grand prize in both scavenger hunts remains elusive. It is likely that this will remain true for some time, and in both nations, there will continue to be resistance. With that resistance will be loss of life, and this will be unavoidable.

For how much longer will the fighting and death be tolerated by the American people? One cannot be certain. While the initial attacks were generally greeted with enthusiasm by the American people, the time that it has taken to date, and the lives lost, are taking their toll. Americans still support their troops, but their support for their mission is waning. More American lives have been lost since the end of major combat in Iraq than before it, and things are not improving. While Americans recognize that the war on terror takes time, they are also seeing only fighting on two fronts, and the results are not quite as good as they thought they had reason to believe.

Has the U. S. bitten off more than it can chew? Perhaps. Its forces are spread thin and, from a purely military standpoint, are vulnerable. While the U. S. has oft said that it does not wish to be the world's police force, one cannot help but see their use of force as being in a police capacity. One needs only to look at how the police were used in Chicago seventy years ago to recognize that, just as Chicago used armies of police officers to retake control of the city, the U. S. is using its armies to take control of countries. The hard question is this: who benefits?

At this point, Afghanistan has a barely functioning government after almost two years. Iraq may not have one for some time, the way things have gone, and intervention by members of the United Nations may be a long time in coming if the U. S. insists on retaining full control over postwar Iraq. These two nations have citizens, and their citizens are going without basic human needs while the U. S. postures. If Iraq was invaded ultimately for the benefit of its citizens, then when will their hardship abate? Saddam Hussein may not have been the greatest leader, but at least most of the Iraqi people then had food, water and electricity. Not anymore.

Two years after four planes hijacked with box cutters slammed into three major buildings and a Pennsylvania field, who can honestly feel safer than before? For that matter, who can honestly say that the sacrifices made — troops, freedoms, mental health — have been worth what little has been gained? In these last two years, has anything at all been learned anything that might not have been learned without further loss of life?

As we mourn again those lost on September 11, 2001, we must also remember to mourn those who continue to be lost in Afghanistan and Iraq. They continue to honorably fight for freedom, but their leaders will not admit that true victory is not possible. Who will tell them that their fight is unwinnable?

We have more to mourn today than two years ago, and not all that we have to mourn are the dead.

September 11, 2003

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