One Place News
(RNS) — Twenty-five years ago, when I saw the smoke coming from the first of the Twin Towers in New York City, my first response was confusion and disbelief. I could not understand what I was seeing. How could an airplane crash into the tower? No flight path would take a large airplane near the building.
When the second plane hit the other tower, I realized with the rest of the nation it was no accident. Someone had deliberately planned and executed this attack on America.
Today, everyone over 30 years of age knows where they were when they heard about the attack on New York City, just as earlier generations remembered the attack on Pearl Harbor or the assassination of John F. Kennedy. The world would never be the same.
At the time, I was editor of America magazine and living in New York City, so the attack was personal and professional. One side of my brain — knowing we would have to publish an editorial — was asking, “What happened? What are we going to say about it?”
The other side was worrying about our staff. “Are they safe? Will they be able to get home tonight? Would there be bombs in the subways?” We eventually decided to let anyone stay overnight in the Jesuit residence if they wanted.
We also had to think beyond our little magazine. Jim Martin, a Jesuit and associate editor, asked me if he could go minister to the survivors. He soon found there were few survivors, so he began ministering to the emergency responders.
The nation quickly united in mourning for those killed. Everyone wanted to help their families as well as to catch and punish those responsible. Eventually we did hunt down and kill Osama bin Laden. Unlike my pacifist friends, I thought that was justified, although I fantasized about having bin Laden tried and punished by a Shariah court.
But the nation’s thirst for vengeance, under the George W. Bush administration, was twisted to support a war with Iraq, which had nothing to do with the attack. Neocon ideologues with little military expertise and even less understanding of Iraq got us into a war using lies about weapons of mass destruction as an excuse.
While the U.S. military easily defeated the Iraqi army, we had no idea what to do once we took over the country. Even those who supported the overthrow of Saddam Hussein soon turned against us. Our invasion and incompetence set the stage for the rise of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.
As one who came of age during the Vietnam War, I could not understand how we could get into such a war again. The same foolishness continued with the war in Afghanistan, which kept going under President Barack Obama and the first administration of President Donald Trump.
Now, Trump, despite his campaign promises, has done the same thing by going to war with Iran. These are four stupid wars where we have expended human life and treasure and killed thousands of noncombatants. Although our soldiers fought bravely, every time we ended up worse off than when the war began.
We never learn!
And during the same period, the economy has been mismanaged while Americans have been paying for these wars.
We have not had a federal budget surplus since Bill Clinton was president. The national debt — which reached $40 trillion last month — is growing faster than the economy. According to the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, “As a share of federal revenues, federal interest payments rose to 18.5 percent by the end of last year, exceeding the previous high set in 1991. They would reach 25.8 percent by 2036.”
Inflation is getting worse, and interest rates will go higher. Meanwhile, the rich are getting richer, the middle class has lost hope in the American dream and the poor are being abandoned. Weather-related disasters multiply, but little is being done about global warming.
No wonder voters are turning against the elites in both parties. When government fails in both war and the economy, it is time for change. America needs to get its act together.
American leaders need to focus on the common good.
The common good, as affirmed by the Second Vatican Council and explained by Pope Leo XIV, consists of “the sum total of social conditions which allow people, either as groups or as individuals, to reach their fulfillment more fully and more easily.”
This means working for reconciliation and peace through diplomacy — not war. It requires focusing on affordable health care, housing, education and good jobs for all. It means protecting the weak from powerful economic interests. And it means those who have the most must contribute much more to the common good through their taxes.
For 25 years, we have been on the wrong track. It is time to change.
