9/11 denial

Disagreement with President Bush’s policies can take some radical extremes:

The Bush administration has constructed a new enemy — terrorism — which is not an enemy at all but a series of predictable actions taken by those who have no other means of addressing wrongs committed against them. Bush is using this as a pretext for global war and domination. – William Straub, Pasadena, California (source)

So 9/11 was a predictable action. Terrorists are not enemies, but instead a construct of the Bush administration. Three thousand dead is not a hostile act of war, nor is it a terrible human tragedy — it’s simply an action “taken by those who have no other means of addressing wrongs committed against them” — as if we should sympathize with them. They were wronged first, after all, and they had to get their message out somehow.

Call this 9/11 denial — the refusal to acknowledge that 1) we were caught off guard by a foreign enemy, and that 2) in the future we may be caught off guard again. Disagreement with the war on terror abroad leads Bush critics to make statements that would erode the war on terror at home. Thus they would rather have us forget that 9/11 happened. Some would even argue that anti-terrorism measures aren’t necessary at home because another 9/11 could never take place. (The first one must’ve been a cosmic fluke.)

In the weeks following 9/11 we spent a lot of time insisting that we couldn’t let the terrorists win. “No, we can’t [verb],” we’d say, “because then the terrorists would win.” Bravo for us. Now, however, we face a more difficult challenge: fighting complacency. All we need to do is relax in the feeling that 2001 was a long time ago, that terrorists probably don’t hold grudges against us for very long, that everything’s going to be okay. That’s all the terrorists need to strike again.

Of course we think it unfitting that the Bush administration continues to operate at high alert. Five years have passed without a successful domestic terror attack — plenty of threats, but no attacks. So it’s all good, right? Nothing to worry about. Those Bush people really need to get a life. Why can’t they relax like all the rest of us?

Unfortunately it doesn’t work that way. Factories keep track of the number of days since the last workplace injury for a reason: not to let employees know they can finally relax, but to keep them vigilant. An accident could occur any day. In fact, the more time passes, the more likely the odds that an accident will occur — through complacency. So when workers see “460 Days Since the Last Injury,” they shouldn’t slack off and pretend everything will be okay. They should remain just as cautious, knowing that any single day the clock could be reset.

Americans, for some reason, don’t like that clock. We don’t appreciate it as a caring reminder, but rather resent it as political fearmongering. Perhaps it’s because our clock warns us every minute of every day of our lives, which is, frankly, exhausting. But that’s the nature of terror — a nature that we reject. Instead we rationalize. Those terrorist proclamations take place so far away. And who even understands them? They’re always issued in some other language. President Bush is the only one threatening us.

Our attitude is a backwards echo of the premise of The Usual Suspects:

You never knew. That was his power. The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist.

Our devils — Al Queda and other terrorist groups — only need us to believe they’re not a real threat. Strangely, however, they make frequent statements in order to stay fresh in our minds, hoping we won’t forget that they’re still out there.

We are the ones — we 9/11 deniers — who are deceiving ourselves.