Written in response to "Why Fort Hood Really Happened" out of the The Wall Street Journal.
In his article “Why Fort Hood Really Happened,” Daniel Henninger opines the current administration is so busy degrading the policies set in place by the Bush administration that government agencies have forgotten why those policies came to be in the first place. I agree with Henninger that the Obama administration is too busy pointing fingers at the past and too slow in making decisions. This has caused agencies to be confused on how to put into force the policies set forth by the previous administration. I believe that the general population and government officials have quickly forgotten how they felt on the morning of 11 September 2001, that is why it has become easy to blame the Bush administration for hasty policies.
I find it interesting that Obama, a president known for dragging his heels when it comes to making hard decisions, spoke on the consequences of inaction at Ft. Hood shortly after the massacre. He has spent the last two years pointing his finger at the previous administration and calling attention to the things he deems faulty. Yet he seems to have not done much to fix what he finds faulty. Could it be that policies put in place after the tragedies of 11 September 2001 are not faulty? Perhaps the complacency we have seen in recent years has begun to deteriorate the policies as intended.
We are a society that lives in the moment; we forget the past quickly. I refuse to forget how it felt to wait hours to gain access to the base we were living on that September day in 2001. I cannot forget the agony I have felt every time I kiss my husband good-bye when sending him to fight in the war on terror. Nor can I forget the fear that he may not return from war, the fear that he will become a casualty. However, I believe the general population and our elected officials have forgotten because it is not a part of their everyday life. Forgetting the fear, agony, and anger of the days immediately following the attacks on our country has led to complacency—a sense of contentment and security. This has sparked an immature blame game among our elected officials and a loss of the fervent patriotism we saw in the days immediately after the attacks in 2001.
Since the right hand is oblivious to what the left hand is doing and the brain cannot make up its mind, we have experienced yet another tragedy in our country. U.S. electronic surveillance recorded Major Hasan telephoning “an al Queda-loving imam [sic] in Yemen” (Henninger, par. 1). Yet due to confusion within the current administration and its interpretation of policies, those who listened to these conversations did not know how to respond to them. Complacency led to the tragedy on Ft. Hood.
I feel that we need to hold on to the feelings we felt after being attacked in 2001. Only then can we maintain the sense of urgency needed to prevent further tragedies against American citizens on our own soil. When we forget it leads to a sense of security. This is exactly what the terrorists want. It is easier to strike fear when those you attack have an attitude of contentment. President Bush told us the war on terror would be a long, arduous war. “In war, uncertainty gets you killed. It just did” (Henninger, par. 14).
Works Cited
Henninger, Daniel. “Why Fort Hood Really Happened.” The Wall Street Journal
12 Nov. 2009. Web. 12 Nov. 2009.
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