On the first anniversary of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, President George W. Bush spoke from Ellis Island in New York City. Bush talked about the courage of Americans: the brave passengers on Flight 93 and the emergency responders who entered the burning buildings while others fled. He talked about America’s greatness as the
“nation [that] has defeated tyrants and liberated death camps and raised the lamp of liberty to every captive land” and went on to say that the enemy will not be ignored or appeased. “
What our enemies have begun, we will finish” the president added.
North of the border, Prime Minister Jean Chrétien used the opportunity of the first anniversary to pontificate about what the causes of the September 11, 2001 attacks were: it was the “
greed and arrogance of the West” that led to the attacks that saw almost 3,000 people lose their lives. By the “
West”, Chrétien of course meant the United States of America.
How everything has changed in the past seven years.
President Barack Obama delivered a speech at the Pentagon on the eighth anniversary of the attacks. If the Pentagon had any significance as being the headquarters of the most powerful military in the world, Obama didn’t see fit to mention it. No doubt the Pentagon was chosen as the locale of the 9/11 speech only because it was a “crime scene”. While the president made passing reference to the almost 3,000 people who lost their lives back in 2001, he made no reference to the men and women in the military that are fighting America’s enemies in Iraq and Afghanistan. Obama used the opportunity to push his domestic agenda, especially health care, building schools and creating green jobs as if these things have anything to do with the tragedy eight years ago. His main emphasis was on his wish to have people perform public service which we have recently learned includes bringing under aged girls from El Salvador to the US illegally to work as prostitutes or presumably to “service the public”. Somehow in Obama’s mind by turning every September 11 into a day to focus on public service or another Earth Day, the victims of the attacks are somehow honored.
Meanwhile in Canada, Prime Minister Stephen Harper spent part of Friday at the National Military Cemetery in Ottawa. Speaking near the memorial to honor the 24 Canadians who died in the World Trade Center buildings and on the doomed aircraft, Harper not only honored the victims of the attacks but the brave men and women in Canada’s military who have made great sacrifices in Afghanistan to prevent “
such a dark day from ever re-occurring.” Harper also said that time has not lessened the impact of the events of September 11, 2001, something that is apparently lost on the current occupant of the Oval Office.
If anyone feels that the world has been turned upside down, they’re probably right.
