Why Exactly Do We 'Need Another 9/11' in Order to 'Save America?'

By Lee Russ

Tuesday, August 21, 2007 at 08:16 PM

Stu Bykovsky, a columnist for the Philadelphia Daily News recently wrote a column on the fractured state of the U.S. today. After lamenting our divisions, he offers up this, in a column titled "To save America, we need another 9/11."

Here's what he said:

Turn back to 9/11.

Remember the community of outrage and national resolve? America had not been so united since the first Day of Infamy - 12/7/41.

We knew who the enemy was then.

We knew who the enemy was shortly after 9/11.

Because we have mislaid 9/11, we have endless sideshow squabbles about whether the surge is working, if we are "safer" now, whether the FBI should listen in on foreign phone calls, whether cops should detain odd-acting "flying imams," whether those plotting alleged attacks on Fort Dix or Kennedy airport are serious threats or amateur bumblers. We bicker over the trees while the forest is ablaze.

America's fabric is pulling apart like a cheap sweater.

What would sew us back together?

Another 9/11 attack.

The Golden Gate Bridge. Mount Rushmore. Chicago's Wrigley Field. The Philadelphia subway system. The U.S. is a target-rich environment for al Qaeda.

Is there any doubt they are planning to hit us again?

If it is to be, then let it be. It will take another attack on the homeland to quell the chattering of chipmunks and to restore America's righteous rage and singular purpose to prevail.

The unity brought by such an attack sadly won't last forever.

The first 9/11 proved that. *

I don't want to belabor the point about "wanting" another 9/11--that's obviously not something he sees as a "good" thing in any real sense--but I find it interesting that his view is remarkably similar to the view of the Project for a New American Century before 9/11 occurred.

My real point is, how absurd, and how dangerous is it to have educated, often influential people running around thinking that horrific disasters are the only thing that force America to go where we "need to be?"

Are they really completely bereft of all hope that something less drastic--like a good old case of political leadership--can unite the country behind reasonable values? If so, why the hell is that? Is it an indication that propaganda has so permeated the political landscape that nothing can grow there until some act of immense violence burns off all the poison in the soil?

I think so. And I don't think Bykovsky's alone. In another venue, someone responded to the substance of Bykovsky's article by saying "Let's face it, if the people who are in Congress now had been in Congress in 1942, we'd be speaking in German or Japanese."

But then what should we expect when Karl Rove of all people is now going around the country saying that Democrats have divided the country for the last seven years. Divided it how? Essentially by not going along with everything that Bush & Rove wanted to do.

You can't beat that kind of egocentric perspective on life. And when someone has such an ego that they can view national politics purely from a selfish perspective, well, you've gone beyond that fine line between selfishness and pathology. So...with that kind of pathology at the very top of the government, employing every opportunity and every media outlet to keep the public debate mired in incoherence, what more can we expect from Mr. Bykovsky? Or anyone else?