09/11/2004 1:45 p.m. We Must Never Forget…

That’s the phrase we hear a lot on this day every year. It’s a good thing to hear, too, because we’re a very forgetful people. Americans want more to be a forward-looking people; leave the history to “Old Europe.”

What does it mean when you tell someone to never forget an event. “Remember the Alamo!” the Texans thundered. Now the phrase mumbles from a gift shop, it plays in rental-car ads. What is it that we’re to remember about September 11, 2001?

Certainly we must remember the innocent lives lost, heroic rescuers, and the rest of us who helped—even in small ways—to put things back together again. We owe it to the ones who lost the most.

But we owe them even more. We need to learn about it and we need to understand what’s really going on. And we need to keep asking tough questions of our leaders.

Where’s Osama bin Laden? Why can’t we find him?
How did the War on Terror lead us to Iraq if our own 9/11 commision could find no working releationship between Saddam Hussein and al Queda?
Why did we take the word of Iraqi exiles that Saddam had Weapons of Mass Destruction?

I know a little bit about the history of this country, including the history of its foreign policy. I need to learn more. Here are my questions:

Why does al Queda want to attack us? The Bush administration says they want to kill us for our love of freedom. I believe that is true for the leadership of al Queda, but what about the rank and file muslim they’re still recruiting. Why do so many in other countries see us as the evil side in this fight between good and evil? A couple of answers I’ve heard is that it’s because we’re too permissive. Another is that they see us as an occupying power, an empire.