During Friday’s 9/11 commemorations, it was startling to realize that one-third of the American population today wasn’t born when it happened. To those of us of an older vintage, Sept. 11, 2001, seems like it was yesterday. The terrorist attacks at the hands of Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida, which killed nearly 3,000 people, leveled the World Trade Center and damaged the Pentagon, marked a turning point in our history. Whatever sense of invulnerability America may have had as the world’s only superpower was shattered, and it precipitated massive changes in the way we lived, traveled and perceived ourselves. We started what was quickly named the global “war on terror,” and our president, George W. Bush, proclaimed that the rest of the world was either with us or they were with the terrorists.
Sept. 11 was a politically unifying event at first, as wars tend to be. On the evening of the attack, members of Congress and senators of both parties came together on the steps of the Capitol to sing “God Bless America,” and within days they approved the broad, vaguely defined Authorization for Use of Military Force that remains in effect today, giving the green light to every military action that has taken place since. Former Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Calif., who now serves as the mayor of Oakland, cast the only dissenting vote.
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