Birmingham Editorial Board Remembers 9/11

I chose an editorial on the tenth anniversary written by the entirety of the “Birmingham News” editorial board.

The speakers are definitely catering to a patriotic audience—a perfectly reasonable angle for a country that came together under such a traumatic, generation-defining event. “It is a testament to our federal, state and local governments' reaction to 9/11, to step up intelligence gathering, to take the fight to the terrorists overseas to destroy their home base, to make the homeland safer, that there have been no successful terror attacks since 9/11.” Despite how skeptical Americans have been towards our country in the past decade, with approval ratings of George W. Bush dropping to historic lows and a completely divided Congress that has accomplished more screaming than compromise, this editorial board does an excellent job of reasoning that this is a day for celebration of our government, not skepticism. They build up our government to be warriors—“to take the fight…to make the homeland safer.” This extended metaphor carries throughout the piece, with—“That for good to triumph over evil, we must remain vigilant.” We are the good guys banding together to “triumph” terrorism and unethical Middle-Eastern regimes.

This couples with the seeming intention of the piece, not just to remember 9/11 and it’s huge affects on our life but to “remain vigilant.” The editorial is opened with a news bit, stating an al-Qaida car bomb threat made on New York City to mark the anniversary, revealed recently by a credible source. The message the board seems to want to make is, “This past week's threat reminds us that 10 years later, the war on terror is not yet won.” This seems to be the exigence of the article. Their suggestion for how to overcome this still-to-be-won war on terror is to band together as we did on 9/11. “We should remember how we felt, how we reacted, how we united 10 years ago. We should remember not just today, but every day.”

http://blog.al.com/birmingham-news-commentary/2011/09/our_view_remembering_911.html