9-11, give me a break.

[abaris]

Back in 2002, the first anniversary, someone on the Fearbush boards of old, brought up the other 9/11. The one happening 28 years earlier in Chile. Got a lot of flak for that. I for one didn't even remember that this was a date, having some symbolic meaning for other nations as well.

What I don't get about this is all the flag waving involved. Obviously there's a lot to mourn. I get as much. But there's not a lot to take national pride in. Neither internally with all the rollbacks on civil rights associated with the Patriot Act and other bills, nor in the ensuing quagmires in Afghanistan and even more so in Iraq.

Many nations remember defeats, by the way. The Japanese always have a memorial the days the bombs fell. Also the Germans have a memorial for Dresden every year. Some 20 years back it was a very touching ceremony. After the wall fell, many survivors and allied bomber pilots were still alive. And they used to gather in the newly rebuilt Frauenkirche to reflect together. The point is, none of these memorials are beacons of national pride, but simple memorials for the horrors of war and lives being lost.

And I think that's a major difference.