Never Forget

I saw a bunch of folks at work and on Facebook reminding everybody about the terrorist attacks 12 years ago.  I don't think I'm ever going to forget what happened, at least until I get old(er) and (more) senile.  There are a few details of that day, and our reaction to it, that I definitely don't want to forget.  Here's a few stats from David Wong (h/t Kaye):

Al-Qaida spent about $500,000 executing the 9/11 terror attacks. The U.S. government has spent up to $5 trillion fighting back. One expert estimated we're spending about $400 million per life saved.
In other words, for every dollar the bad guys spent, we lost 10 million. And that's not even counting the money lost due to the economic slump that followed. That, friends, is one hell of a return on an investment. Also: The 9/11 attacks killed 2,996 people. The response has killed 224,475 and displaced another 7.8 million refugees....
Keep in mind, a tsunami killed a quarter-million people in 2004, and another one killed 16,000 people in 2011, but neither caused us to refer to a "post-tsunami world." Only terrorism can utterly dominate our thinking that way.
And as a result, a bad guy can now make the whole world stop dead in its goddamned tracks with nothing more than a device built with about a hundred bucks' worth of shit he got at Walmart. If you pick up a gun and shoot six people at your office over a change in dress code, you'll be gone from the front page of CNN by the next day. But build a crude bomb and kill three people in the name of jihad while cameras are rolling? You'll cause an entire city to go on lockdown, utterly dominate the consciousness of a nation for months, and create scenes like this:

Moreover, I never want to forget how absolutely untrue rumors spread like wildfire 12 years ago. I remember hearing about a car bomb going off outside of the State Department (didn't happen). I remember hearing about a bomb going off at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base (didn't happen). I remember hearing that gas prices would spike over $5 and stations would run out of gas (A few stations did run out of gas, but only because some fools took all of their vehicles and sat in line for hours to make sure they got some gas before it was gone, a self-fulfilling prophecy [I'm looking at you, Barney]).  I was kind of looking forward to calling into work and telling them that I wouldn't be in because I wasn't smart enough to go sit in line all night so I could get a few gallons of gas.  Unfortunately, I didn't miss a day.

I also don't want to forget how some Sikhs have been targeted for violence because Americans can't tell them from Muslims.

I don't want to forget that we sent more than 4,400 soldiers off to their deaths in Iraq because, well, just because.  I don't want to forget that 4,400 is nearly 50% larger than the 2996 people who died on September 11.  And that is only the number of U.S. soldiers who died.  More than 100,000 Iraqis died in the clusterfuck we made there.

I don't want to forget how we expected attacks to continue almost daily after September 11.  And yet, fewer than 50 people have died since then in the United States. 

September 11, 2001 was a tragic day, and my heart goes out to all the folks who lost loved ones.  But I also don't want people to forget all of the terrible decisions we've made since then, the damage we've done to ourselves and others, and the lives and treasure we've blown since then.  May God bless America and may God keep us safe - from our enemies, and from ourselves.