Forgetting

Yesterday was the 15th Anniversary of 9/11.  I still remember watching as the towers were attacked, as the Pentagon was attacked, feeling afraid, wondering when it would stop.  I remember the brave men and women running towards the carnage.  I remember New York City, and the country, shaking as the towers fell.  I sadly remember realizing I'd just witnessed a lot of people dying.  I remember the country being different afterwards, how we all changed.  I remember the skies being free of planes for weeks afterwards.

A way we remember 9/11 is to say "9/11: Never Forget," but many people who post this meme on social media are not being honest.  Many want you to "Forget," rather than "Never Forget."

They want you to "Forget" the incredible level of incompetence the Bush Administration had prior to 9/11; throwing out most of the Bin Laden info they were handed by the Clinton Administration because it had nothing to do with Iraq, downplaying warnings of planes being used as missiles to  attack targets in the USA, taking the entire month of August, 2001 off for a vacation, with the press secretary justifying the length of the vacation by insisting the Bush Administration had "complete control of government," and the Bush Administration (astoundingly!) ignoring intelligence briefings warning of an attack.

They want you to "Forget" the First Responders from that day; the First Responders who've had to fight the Republicans tooth and nail to get the medical coverage and benefits they deserve from doing their job, medical coverage and benefits they were promised over and over again by the Republicans in the days after 9/11, the same Republicans who love photo ops with any First Responder from 9/11.  For the record, many First Responders from 9/11 have died due to health complications directly brought on from doing their brave job fifteen years ago.

They want you to "Forget" what the victims of the tragedy deserve; answers to how this happened and who helped make it happen, with a complete investigation into Saudi Arabia's involvement, answers to why the Bin Laden family was allowed to fly out of this country afterwards, pretty much the ONLY flight that happened after 9/11, and compensation for the victim's long suffering families, more than an annual offer to show up at a 9/11 tribute for a political photo op.   They want you to "Forget" the survivors from that day, and their medical needs.  And they desperately want you to "Forget" the survivors and the family of the dead who dared questioned the motives of the Bush Administration and Republicans in the years after the tragedy.

They want you to "Forget" the intentionally incompetent handling of the US armed forces after 9/11; not the very justified attack on Afghanistan and Al Qaeda, but the White House's inexplicable command for the troops to 'stand down' when they had Bin Laden cornered in Tora Bora, the decision to attack Iraq, initially justified as "they were the REAL ones behind 9/11," but when that unraveled, "they're going to attack us like another 9/11, only this time with mushroom clouds and biological weapons," (all of which were lies), the clear lack of any plan for managing Iraq after combat ceased, outside of giving the Iraqi's oil to Bush Administration oil company friends, the 4,424 US military killed in action, and 31,952 US military wounded in action in a completely unjustified war, and their mismanagement of Iraq directly leading to the creation of ISIS.

There are only three things many people who say "Never Forget" want you to never forget;

• Muslims attacked us
• Any victim from that day whose family isn't asking fair and appropriate questions
• The dark, gut wrenching feeling we all had that morning, a swirling mixture of fear and anger, a trembling rage political opportunists try to manipulate to get you to hate what they want you to hate.

Maybe we should revise the expression - "9/11: Never Forget - Any of It."  I won't.