Post the Ninth: My thoughts on 9/11

This post is going to make any Tea Party readers I have call me a fascist communist socialist terrorist Liberal, any Texan readers I have chase me with deer hunting rifles, and any New Yorkers stare at me with hatred and loathing.
As I explained on that account, though, this wasn't written to make friends. None of my rants were.
They were written to make people think. To poke fun at how messed up society is, while simultaneously slapping the heck out of the reader and ask why they were perpetuating the things that make society messed up.
I'm losing readers from this post. I don't care. It needs to be repeated over and over until someone hears the message.
On with the rant.

So. It's September 11th, the 9-year anniversary of when some maniacs crashed a couple of planes into two of America's tallest towers. Buildings that had once been symbols of capitalistic spirit and free enterprise were reduced to rubble, hundreds of lives were lost. We responded with war.
A war I have never supported, will not support, and can't bring myself to support any time in the future.
Our country can't seem to keep its noses clean; we've never known that elusive thing called 'peacetime'. Korea. Vietnam. WW1. WW2. Desert Storm. Even more that are eluding me at this present moment in time.
I remember an activity in high school, where the teacher was trying to gauge where we stood on certain issues. He had one end of the classroom assigned as 'yes' and the other, 'no'. When we were asked about if we thought we should be in Iraq,  I was the only one standing on the 'no' end.
I couldn't believe it. Out of a class of, what, 30 students? I was the only one who thought the whole affair was ridiculous? Our excuse for going into Iraq had nothing to do with Osama Bin Laden. Why weren't we chasing the man who ordered the towers crushed? He was the one who started the so-called War on Terror, why weren't we making him a higher priority? On top of that, why couldn't we seem to stay out of trouble, or keep our noses out of foreign wars?
Regardless of that, I still netted a few very dirty looks from my peers. After all, anybody who didn't support the war on terror must support the terrorists, themselves, right? I think the teacher was the only one who actually got what I was saying.
I'm not a patriot. I lost that when we started into this ridiculous thing.
I remember getting chided by my middle-school teachers for refusing to do the Pledge of Allegiance- That was my way of protesting this thing, this conflict, we didn't belong in. A silent, peaceful protest. No picket signs or yelling, no running rampant through the streets with an AK-47 in one hand and a Molotov cocktail in the other, just simple hardheaded refusal. They finally compromised with me and said that I didn't have to recite or anything, I simply had to stand with the rest of the class while it was going on. I didn't believe from the start of it that we'd found WMD's in Iraq. I couldn't explain it. It felt fake. It felt wrong. And I was prepared to make myself a social outcast for as long as the war was going to last.
We're still there, what the hell.
I want to see the troops home. We've killed enough, we've been killed enough. At this point we're only making a nuisance of ourselves. I may not support this war, but I won't blame our soldiers for fighting in it. I'm standing for my beliefs. They're standing for theirs. Our beliefs may not be the same, but the hell if I'm not going to respect them for putting their lives on the line. They are far braver men and women than I. I know one of them personally. He's a good guy.
I want to see peace. Or some semblance thereof. This whole affair has made me feel as if we've been strung along the entire time. There was so much misinformation from the Bush administration flying around ("WMDs" included) that it's almost as if he wanted to find a reason to start a war. I cannot, will not, support that kind of blood-lusting behavior. Not from a fellow member of the human race, and especially not from the leader of an entire nation.
I remember when people's idea of dealing with the problem was simply to "Nuke them Iraqi's!", to get rid of the lot of 'em. My brother had a friend of Middle-Eastern descent at this time, and was appalled and offended by this mentality. I was too, honestly. I'd met the friend. I doubt he'd be capable of much more than swatting a fly.
I don't believe that where someone is from dictates how they think. I think that their experiences make them who they are. A boy who has lived in New York all of his life isn't going to grow up to become either a mugger or a stockbroker, one or the other. If his family is poor, he may consider becoming a stockbroker to help them recover, or if he was abused, he might become a mugger to take out his frustrations... but those two aren't his only options. Likewise, somebody who grew up in Iraq or Afghanistan isn't necessarily going to grow up to become a terrorist, and it's horribly wrong of us to assume they will. It's a one-dimensional, racist mentality, and it pisses me off.
Nine years ago, we were a swarming beehive of loathing and fury. How DARE they do this to us? And you know what, I was one of them. But I got very tired of it very quickly, took one look around the hive, and saw that no good could come of this.
It promoted racism.
It promoted mass slaughter.
It was not for the good of this country.
It was not for the good of the people.
It never has been.
Hate begets hate, evil begets evil, destruction begets destruction. It has never changed and it never will. There is nothing to be gained by the slaughter of millions. We've royally screwed everything up, and we can't stop sticking our noses where they don't belong. We have never known peace for more than two years at a time, and THAT is why I cannot, WILL not, support this war.
September 11th is a touchy subject for me. I feel sorry for the families who lost members to the terrorist attack, to the war, to the complete and utter SNAFU that has been our country since September of 2001. I feel sorry for the soldiers who have to go out there knowing that one misstep, one moment where they aren't on guard, and they could lose their lives to a bomb or a sniper or whatever else. But dammit, enough is enough. And I'm tired of it. I've been of the opinion, for a few years now, that what's past is past and that we need to let it go. By making it a big thing every year, we're only reopening the wounds of those families, who have lost fathers and sons and mothers and daughters. Yes, we need to remember. But we also need to make it a quiet ceremony, a silent memorial for the lost. It's only then that they can recover, that they can move on and move forward, to better and brighter days.
I think we could all use a few of those.