The very solemn ceremonies marking the eighth anniversary of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centers, the Pentagon and on Flight 93 were poignant and reflective.
No American should forget the attacks and the innocent lives lost should always be commemorated.
But for me, that isn’t the terrorist attack that I remember most. No, that one was April 19, 1995, in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, when Timothy McVeigh, calling himself a patriot, drove a truck up to the Alfred P. Murrah federal building and detonated a large bomb, destroying the building and killing 168 people. America changed after the 9/11 attacks – some for the better, some worse. It helped to galvanize the nation and spurred a paroxysm of patriotism, with American flags displayed everywhere.
But it also helped to polarize a nation, as some sought to define patriotism as blind allegiance to the government’s efforts to combat the terrorism. Worse yet, for some patriotism became a synonym with supporting the prosecution of the war in Iraq, which, we learned later, had absolutely nothing to do with the terrorist attacks. With more than 4,000 deaths recorded in that war (and more in Afghanistan), the death toll for the reaction to the terrorist attacks long ago eclipsed the number of lives lost in the actual attacks.
That polarization has not dissipated, as we have devolved into Red States and Blue States, and not United States. We list political affiliation first – Republican, liberal, Democrat, conservative, Libertarian – before we say American.
The tragedy of what has become known as 9/11 is that as terrorist attacks go, it was horrific, and the pictures from it will always haunt.
I’ve tried to erase the photos of the people leaping to their deaths from my memory… but they won’t go away. I still see the ghostly images of survivors, covered in that sickly soot, coughing and wheezing as they were led away from the carnage.
I remember where I was when I heard the Murrah building had been attacked. I remember looking at the news photos and seeing the babies, the kids in the day care center, being carried away, their bodies limp. There was a particular one of a firefighter carrying a little boy. I don’t cry often, but I had a two-year-old then, and I felt that pain.
Timothy McVeigh calmly walked away from the death and destruction, and when finally captured, called the loss of life, particularly the deaths of children in a day care center at the building, “collateral damage.”
When the terrorists were done with the 9/11, all of the known participants were dead. Their deeds sparked a wave of racial profiling that made everyone of Muslim descent a target, a terrorist.
But the most insidious aspect of McVeigh’s dastardly terrorism (until 9/11 the most terrible terrorist attack on U.S. soil), was that he wasn’t a Muslim, wasn’t an Arab, wasn’t a foreigner, wasn’t a communist, wasn’t part of the radical left, wasn’t a member of the ACLU, wasn’t Jewish, or Black, or Hispanic or Asian. There could be no racial profiling to find people like McVeigh, those who thought that America needed to be taught a lesson by “patriots” like him. Perhaps that is one of the reasons why he could drive a truck filled with homemade explosives right up to the building, get out, and walk away. He didn’t “look” suspicious, because he looked just like all the other white American men walking around in Oklahoma City.
No one talks about McVeigh very much, even though he is the greatest domestic terrorist in America’s history. He declared war on the federal government, and while some decried the loss of life, I remember at the time that some people – particularly the militia types – were blaming the government. They invoked the name of David Koresh in Waco, Texas and Randy Weaver in Ruby Ridge, Idaho as provocation for McVeigh.
Terrorists like McVeigh grew up here, don’t need a passport, won’t get stopped at the border. They are building bombs, and hate, in their basements, and they feel they’re patriots. They are emboldened by people like South Carolina congressman Joe Wilson, who screamed out “You lie!” to the President of the United States during a joint session of Congress. For those who consider our government the problem, there is no room for civility. For those like McVeigh, there is no room for humanity.
I hope that all those who paused September 11 to remember those attacks also took a moment to remember Oklahoma City.
Lou Ransom is executive editor of the Chicago Defender.
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