Remembering 9/11

I do not need to
hear politicians comparing those of us who oppose the war in Iraq
to the appeasers of Nazi Germany.

I don’t need a lot of help remembering 9/11 since there are
reminders all around me every day.  You
see I live in the landing paths of Dulles airport where the plane that attacked
the Pentagon took off.  Since I do most
of my flying out of Dulles, I routinely ponder that day five years ago just
about every time I walk down the jet ways there.

And then there are the schools where my kids were that day,
surrounded by classmates whose parents worked at the Pentagon and who were
picked up by terrified parents during that Tuesday to wait at home to find out
what had happened to their fathers and mothers.

When I go to church I see David, who got up from his desk at
the Pentagon to buy a cup of coffee only to have the plane strike his office
and kill his co-workers while he was out. 
And there is Bob, a federal agent, who assisted in the search for
bodies, and found David’s ID tag in the rubble and told authorities that David
was alive because he had seen him at church Wednesday after 9/11.

In the aftermath of 9/11 and during the early days of the Iraq
war I spoke at many churches in the greater Washington
area on the ethics of the war and I met several people who lost co-workers and
family in the attacks here and in New York City
and I heard their stories.

I expect to tune out a lot of the major media hype in the
next few days.  I don’t need their
help.  But I especially do not need to
hear politicians comparing those of us who oppose the war in Iraq
to the appeasers of Nazi Germany.  As we
get closer to the midterm elections this reeks of the last desperate act of a
failed presidency.  A majority of the
country now opposes the Iraq
war.  Does this mean the president thinks
a majority of us are the moral equivalent of Nazi appeasers?  His stubborn misguided insistence that
staying the course in Iraq
is the right thing to do in light of the terrorist attacks of 9/11 is a sham
and it insults the American people who know better.

I did not vote for President Bush in 2000.  But I took some solace in his early talk of seeking
to be a uniter not a divider, and from his pledge to pursue a humble foreign
policy and his desire to restore civility in Washington.  Back then I reminded a chapel full of
students at my school that it was and remains our duty to pray for him whether
we voted for or against him.  While that
is still true that early promise seems so long ago and far away.  He had an opportunity to unite the country
but chose to invade Iraq
allegedly to fight the terrorists of 9/11. 
On this anniversary please spare me the partisan political
speeches.  May God have mercy.