Ten Years. Now What? / 9-11-11

Happy September 11 to you.

I know, right? What do you say? How do you, well, celebrate? Celebrate? Remember? What. Gah.

Me? I slept in. I helped my brother move. I picked blackberries with my boys. We had a family dinner. I watched football, and agonized over the waning minutes of the fourth quarter of a Cowboys-Jets game (yep) that would mean fantasy league victory or defeat. (Thanks, Tony Romo, for your late-game ADHD moments!)

The most altruistic things I did, I would have done any other day. Packed a few boxes, moved some cabinets, made desserts for the neighbor kids, spent time being a good dad. It could have been Octemberpril 34th, for all the attention I paid the calendar today. I could have freakin' mowed the lawn, it was that kind of day.

That means something. For sure, some folks made today a day of service, or they did something significant to better the nation. Or they laid a flower somewhere, or they lit a candle, or they flew their flag.

Aw crap. The flag. Totally meant to do that. Our family loves displaying the flag. We take great pride in this nation's ideals, as symbolized by the Stars and Stripes. We flew it on Memorial Day 2011, Flag Day 2011, July Fourth 2011, and it'll probably make its way out there at Veterans Day 2011 too. Missed it today, though.

That means something.

Hm. There are no universally accepted 9/11 customs. It's only been ten years, after all. I didn't expect we'd all be exchanging gifts or sending family picture postcards or dressing up in red, white and blue, or anything like that on such short notice. But the event that was meant to unite us -- the event that did unite us, if ever so briefly -- has instead served mainly as a politicized flash point that separates Americans... often along party lines.

How you feel about the response to Sept. 11 -- a bungled war in Afghanistan, a couple trillion dollars and thousands of lives spent to messily redo Iraq, a ten-year manhunt for bin Laden that ended in a somewhat less than satisfying way -- how you feel about our last decade as a nation is bound to color how you commemorate it. And for half of us, we look at the last decade as an embarrassment, a missed opportunity, a stretch of history we'd rather forget quickly than relive annually. And then, for the other half of us, our military achievements of the last ten years have been giant foreign policy victories that have strengthened American hegemony, made us safer here at home, and crushed Al Qaeda like an unwanted insect.

Yeah, that's not the makings of a national holiday. Not even close.

OK, fine, maybe we can all agree on honoring first responders, firefighters, police officers, and ordinary heroes among us. I still get emotional thinking about what those folks accomplished that day. The bravery exhibited still floors me. When I put myself in their shoes...

But, like half the nation, I am shamed by the unconscionable actions we took between Sept. 12, 2001 and today. Such a colossal waste of life, money and such a wasted opportunity.

I'm not going to say that means the terrorists win. As comedian John Oliver likes to say, the terrorists are morons.

(Thank goodness, that means something too.)

But I think that in a way, America loses, until we figure out how to disassociate the date itself from the tragic, obscene, shameful acts of terrorism we perpetrated on innocent civilians, using that near-holy day of September 11, 2001 as a pretext.

So, no, not Happy September 11. Maybe someday. Or someday, Solemn September 11. Or Selfless September 11.

Can't wait until we get there, but like so many others these days, I am not hopeful.

Libya vs. Iraq: Return on Investment / 9-8-11

After seven months of fighting: the outcome is certain: Libyan rebels, assisted by coalition forces, have executed a successful coup against one of the most despotic despots of the last century.

Only four towns, shown here in green, are controlled by forces loyal to Dictator-For-Life-But-Not-Too-Much-Longer Muammar Gaddafi. That's as of today. Feel free to check back in next week.

As you might have noticed, a certain anniversary is coming up. Sunday will mark ten years. Like a marriage, sometimes the past decade has felt like an entire lifetime, and sometimes it's felt like only weeks have passed.

With that on my mind, that's probably why I started comparing outcomes between what happened in Iraq since Sept. 11, 2001 and what has transpired in Libya this year.

U.S. military casualties in Iraq: 4,474.

In Libya: Zero.

Cost of military operations in Iraq, 2002-2011: between $2 and $3 trillion (estimate)

In Libya: about $1 billion (estimate)

(That's "billion," with a "b." Do the math -- no, let me do it, you're lazy: Libya's running about 0.04 percent of Iraq's cost so far. Or 0.08 percent. Or 0.01 percent. Somewhere in there, way after the decimal point.)

Oil in Iraq: Lots. It's the 12th-highest oil-producing country.

Oil in Libya: Hell yes. Libyans are 18th highest on the list.

(The U.S. is third. Huh. You learn something new every day.)

Apples and oranges, you're free to say. You should say! The objectives and methods employed by our forces in Iraq and Libya were dissimilar, to say the least. In Libya, the NATO-led coalition performed airstrikes to achieve its military goals; in Iraq, there was that ground invasion the media mentioned once or twice. In Iraq, no rebel force rose up against Saddam; in Libya, that's how the whole war started.

Yes, but let's compare results in the last two wars of choice initiated by our leaders.

Iraq: Saddam gone, fledgling democracy in gear, $2,500,000,000,000 invested.

Libya: Gaddafi gone, fledgling democracy awaits, $1,000,000,000 invested.

Look at those zeroes. Again, I say, Huh.