Never again? Remembering 9/11

Fifteen years after the most lethal acts of terrorism on U.S. soil, the authors of those obscene acts are getting rewarded. Our country is in turmoil.

Ethnic tensions are rising, a presidential candidate is stirring passions against foreigners and Muslims, and an ill-conceived American takeover of Iraq is continuing to blow up in our faces.

Exactly 15 years ago today, 2,996 people from 15 nations were killed by the terror attacks orchestrated by al-Qaida hijackers in New York, Washington, D.C., and with the intentional crashing of a fourth passenger jet over Pennsylvania. That toll continues.

We should remember that thousands of first responders and others near Ground Zero suffered injuries as a result of the toxic stew of carcinogens released by the fiery collapse of the World Trade Center towers in New York City. The World Trade Center Health Registry now keeps track of the health of more than 71,000 people who were rescue workers or survivors of the attacks, according to a recent report by Newsweek. More than 5,400 of those people have contracted 9/11-related cancers, and others don’t yet know they are sick.

Changes in our country’s politics are not better either.

American political divisions, which for a brief time seemed to dissolve in the mist of national grief in September that year, are also back in full force — stronger even than when the 2000 election handed the presidency to George W. Bush in a disputed election.

Indeed it may be the aftermath of 9/11 that matters more than the original horror, which itself was spectacularly terrible.

President Bush, supported by Congress and most of the U.S. public, launched an ill-advised invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003. It was an invasion based upon the false claim that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and the bogus insinuation that Iraq had some connection to the al-Qaida terrorists of 9/11.

That rush to judgment — and invasion — toppled an awful dictator but left the Middle East region more unstable, more radicalized, and bloodier. The ongoing slaughter of civilians in Syria is only the most recent poignant tragedy in a world that has not found a way to stop al-Qaida’s successor, the Islamic State, from its attacks on Muslims and people of other faiths in Syria and on several continents.

In the U.S., homegrown terrorists are copying that savagery, wrapping it in a false cloak of a hijacked religion.

And Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump is stoking ugly passions against foreigners including Muslims – if not also African Americans. Nationwide, race and ethnic tensions are rising and our political discourse on race, police violence and immigration is more like shouts in the wind.

Certainly some leaders have kept their heads, just as some in our region spoke out clearly against the Iraq invasion.

Among those keeping their heads after 9/11 were Washington’s senior U.S. senator, Patty Murray, and Brian Baird, then the congressman representing Olympia and Southwest Washington. Both wanted more time and evidence before unleashing military strikes against Iraq’s Saddam Hussein. They were right.

Our nation was wrong to ride a wave of anger into an abyss. That massive error — or aftershock — is one lasting lesson of 9/11.

We also must recognize that although we may clean up after tragedies, healing takes longer.

In the case of many exposed to deadly toxins on Sept. 11, healing may never come.

This story was originally published September 10, 2016 at 9:41 PM with the headline "Never again? Remembering 9/11."