Remembering 9/11 and Moving Forward
By Rep. Dennis Kucinich
America must move from the errant, retributive justice of 9/11 to a healing, restorative process of truth and
reconciliation.
Before the Congress adjourns, I will bring forth a new proposal for the establishment of a National Commission on Truth
and Reconciliation, which will have the power to compel testimony and gather official documents to reveal to the
American people not only the underlying deception which has divided us, but in that process of truth seeking set our
nation on a path of reconciliation.
We suffer in our remembrance of 9/11, because of the terrible loss of innocent lives on that grim day. We also suffer
because 9/11 was seized as an opportunity to run a political agenda, which has set America on a course of the
destruction of another nation and the destruction of our own Constitution. And we have become less secure as a result of
the warped practice of pursing peace through the exercise of pre-emptive military strength.
It is not simply 9/11 that needs to be remembered. We also need to remember the politicization of 9/11 and the
polarizing narrative which followed, locking us into endless conflict, a war on terror which has wrought further terror
worldwide and which has severely damaged our standing worldwide as an honorable, compassionate nation. As we were all
victims of 9/11, so we have become victims of the interpretation of 9/11.
Our government's external response to 9/11 was to attack a nation which did not attack us. Indeed on the first
anniversary of 9/11, the Bush Administration issued a well-publicized stern warning to Iraq which was part of a campaign
to induce people to believe Iraq had something to do with 9/11.
The deliberate, systematic connection of Iraq with 9/11 has led America into a philosophical and moral cul-de-sac as
over one million Iraqis and over 4155 US soldiers have died in a war which will cost over $3 trillion. Additionally,
soldiers from 23 other countries have died in the Iraq war.
We attempt to unite Iraq by further dividing it. We talk about restoring Iraq while taking steps to place control of its
vast oil wealth in the hands of US oil giants. And we intend to impose upon the Iraqi people the cost of rebuilding a
country which our government ruined, keeping a once prosperous nation lashed to debt and poverty for a long, long time.
Iraq has paid for 9/11. We all continue to pay for 9/11.
The heartbreaking loss of the lives and injuries to America troops further binds us to the Administration's illogic of
the Iraq war: We remember our troops' sacrifice by demanding more sacrifice; we support our troops by continuing the
war.
The dominant color of our new national security since 911 is neither red, white nor blue. Everyday is orange. Everyday
reminders of fear of 9/11 become banal... Yet we no longer hear the airport announcements nor see the orange colored
warnings because they have commonplace standards in our new national security state, as is the Patriot Act, wiretapping,
and a host of invasions of privacy and diminution of civil liberties. The Constitution has been roundly attacked by the
very people who took an oath to defend it.
There is a powerful desire across America for change, not necessarily from control by one political party to another,
but a change from living with lies to living with truth.
Over two dozen nations, facing peril within and without, deeply divided by politics and war have travelled down a path
of restoring civil society through a formal process of reconciliation. At some point within each of those countries it
was understood that the way forward is shown through the light of truth. This process is not without pain because it
requires a willingness to study evidence to which eyes had been averted and ears had been closed. But in the process of
truth and reconciliation, nations found new strength, new resolve, and new commitment.
The South African Truth and Reconciliation enabled that nation to come to grips with its past through a public
confessional, bringing forward those who committed crimes and having the power to grant amnesty for full disclosure of
crimes against the people. Of course, our path may necessarily be different: High US government officials stand accused
in Impeachment petitions of violating national and international law. Our continued existence as a democracy may depend
upon how thoroughly we seek the truth. I will call upon the America people to join me in supporting this effort.
The truth can move us forward, as a unified whole, so that we can one day become a re-United States. 9/11 is the day the
world changed. It is the day America embraced a metaphor of war. If we are open to truth and reconciliation, we may one
day be able, once again, to embrace peace.
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