[We] Kept Us Safe

On this last weekend of George W Bush's administration—after a week of hearing the man and his surrogates bleat that he kept us safe—I rewatched United 93.

This was only my second time through the film. It's not an easy one. On September 11th, one of my friends and co-workers in Baltimore, lost both her parents on American Airlines flight 77. Shortly after that, one of my classmates from our very small middle school, trapped, was killed on one of the top floors of the WTC towers.

Whether you're reading the 9/11 Commission report's account, or watching this remarkable film, the best contrast for our era plays out for you. In the film, the air traffic controllers, the military officers, the professionals in the film, are generally played by the actual people in those roles on that day. They do their jobs, and do them well—piecing together the horrifying truth from the snippets available to them with startiling skill and deftness. They know what to do, the best next step; they are prevented from doing it.

So much power, just a vast amount of power, is concentrated into the hands of the incompetent few—the unitary executive, the vortex of incompetence, the duet of Bush and Cheney.

The orders to activate the military force against the hijacked jets never came. The order to ground all flights never came. In the latter case, the decision was simply made. Bush and Cheney were too busy in their cowardice to do their duty. These men and women did. As thanks, for the duration of this administration, civil servants were deeply, profoundly and criminally disrespected by these petty fools.

And then, it came down to that more-or-less random collection of forty of your fellow citizens. They made the decision that Bush and Cheney refused to make. They brought their own jet down, based on gleaned details of what was happening.

They were rational, cool and successful in all the ways that Bush was incoherent, panicky and incompetent. If you want to give credit to anyone for the lack of further attacks, for no more airliners being hijacked, thank these passengers, who demonstrated that Americans are made of sterner stuff than Al-Queda or Bush would like you to believe.

We didn't need to be kept safe. We kept ourselves safe. We'll keep ourselves safe. It's our republic. It's our bravery and freedom, not yours to claim, President Bush.