One reflection on 9/11

Shalom!

Bill Moyers interviewed (PBS, Friday, Sept. 7) Jack Goldsmith, author of THE TERROR PRESIDENCY and a recent lawyer in the administration. Goldsmith says of Vice President Cheney's longtime legal counsel and current Chief of Staff:

“David Addington once said to me, he was the Vice President's counsel, when I advised that I didn't think something they wanted to do was lawful, he once said to me, ‘If you rule that way, then you will have the blood of 100,000 people who die in the next attack on your hands.’”

One point Goldsmith was making, it seemed to me, was that the present Bush administration reacted to the terrorist act of 9/11/2001 with fear. It feared more deaths in the United States, and that fear pushed forward what many of us regard as unwarranted and counter-productive measures leading to the war in Iraq and numerous infringements on constitutional rights in our own nation.

Was/Is that fear justified? I don’t think so. Even as we mark today the terrible event that seems to us so invasive and irresponsible, we recognize that innocent persons die each month in many places around the globe. Our government is responsible for many of those deaths.

It seems to me that we need to be about the task of grieving death and despair wherever it arises in our world. We need to be acting out of hope and compassion, not fear and anger. If I understand Goldsmith’s point correctly—and if he is right, then our supposedly Christian nation and born-again President have been acting in most un-Christian-like ways characterized by fear, force, and faithlessness. We need to lift up the premises of religious expressions: that the Divine is “pure, unbounded love” inviting us to mature, to grow in grace, and to grow into the likeness of Christ.

Shalom!
dave