9/11 Tears Of Grief

I was driving to a doctor appointment ten years ago when I heard on NPR about the first hit in New York and remember the ache in my chest that returns as I consider this again.

Nevertheless, I’m reluctant to beat the drum for 9/11. There has been such manipulation in the name of the dead. And maybe some good – more “democracies” and some impact even that may have influenced the Arab Spring.

And such cost. According to a study at Brown University,

More than 2.2 million American military personnel have served in Iraq or Afghanistan. More than 6,000 of them, as well as 2,300 U.S. contractors, have died in the two wars. Some 150,000 U.S. soldiers and contractors have been wounded. Another 20,000 soldiers from U.S. allies and Iraqi and Afghani security forces have died. The wars have claimed the lives of at least 172,300 civilians in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan and turned another 7.8 million into refugees. The wars will cost U.S. taxpayers between $3.2 trillion and $4 trillion, including the cost of assisting veterans for decades to come. The U.S. has already paid $185 billion on interest on the loans used to finance the wars.

There’s got to be a better way. For example, the Buddha’s injunction, “Hatred never ceases by hatred but by love alone is healed.”

Here’s a stanza from W.H.Auden’s “September 1, 1939,” shared this morning on one of the teacher listserves:

All I have is a voice
To undo the folded lie,
The romantic lie in the brain
Of the sensual man-in-the-street
And the lie of Authority
Whose buildings grope the sky:
There is no such thing as the State
And no one exists alone;
Hunger allows no choice
To the citizen or the police;
We must love one another or die.

9/11 Tears of Grief