Je Suis un Parisien Aujourd'hui

I am a Parisian today.  Yesterday as I was leaving work, headed for a well deserved dinner with my family after a long week I glanced a headline flashing across my Bloomberg.

18 DEAD AFTER EXPLOSION IN PARIS.

I admit, I immediately thought "Islamic terrorism," then chided myself for jumping to conclusions.

You don't know its Muslim terrorists
There have been plenty of Christian terrorists too.
Let's wait for all the details to come out before drawing conclusions.

I tried listening to XM Fantasy Sports to take my mind off it, trying to heed the advice of family and friends that I'm taking on too much stress by worrying about things I can't control.  I was enjoying hearing that my best player, Steelers RB DeAngelo Williams practiced and was probable to play on Sunday.  The Browns are a pretty weak run defense and the host continued to impress upon us how imperative it was to get him in our lineups until he was handed a different piece of news to read on air.  The death toll had risen to 26.  I checked the dial to make sure I was on the right station.  Because the attacks took place near a stadium where the French and Germans were playing an international soccer friendly it, was now a sports story too.  It'd be so "first world" to complain about news events interrupting my sports but in this case it impressed upon me just how widespread this attack was.  The President of France, Francois Hollande was attending the game and had to be evacuated to a safe location.  The sports world, the one place many of us use to escape for a few hours a day had now been touched, no, infected by this cowardly attack.  Again, I tried to put it out of my mind as I got home and prepared to go to dinner.  I couldn't let this ruin the evening.  Unfortunately, I couldn't resist turning on CNN before we left.

60 DEAD IN MULTIPLE EXPLOSIONS IN PARIS

I was now getting angry because I realized this day was starting to feel sickeningly familiar.  The confusion, the body count, the inconceivable savagery, and the cowardice of attacking unsuspecting civilians in multiple locations.  Anyone who's reading this who lived in Washington, D.C. or the New York/New Jersey area 14 years ago knows exactly what I'm referring to.  I enjoyed dinner the best I could but the phone updates from the AP, CNN, and even theScore were relentless.  To resist the urge to keep checking, I put it in my coat so I couldn't feel it vibrate.  When we finally left, I pulled it out to check the time and on my lock screen was update after morbid update.

Team Stream
Breaking: Authorities Confirm 3 killed Outside Stadium during France-Germany Game...
AP
French President says he will declare state of emergency and close borders
AP
French police confirm 2 suicide attacks 1 bombing near Paris stadium
AP
Automatic gunfire heard from outside Paris concert hall.
CNN
French security forces are storming the Barclan theater
AP
At least 100 people killed inside Paris concert hall...

I truncated them for my sanity but my local ABC affiliate, Bleacher Report, and theScore all drove the point home that this attack was so savage, so brutal, and so disgusting that there was no escaping it.

Train bombings in Madrid, the bombing of a Bali nightclub, the 7/7 London train bombings, yesterdays savagery in Paris, and countless other attacks keep driving the point home that sometimes, the propaganda is right.  ISIS has proven themselves to be savage, bloodthirsty, heartless, sadistic murderers with no regard for any human life that doesn't abide by their twisted version of Islam.  Some make the argument that they're representative of true Islam, a claim I vehemently reject as much as I reject the claim that the Klu Klux Klan, anti-abortion extremists, or the IRA are representative of "true" Christianity.  I have seen good works and know too many good people to count them among the monsters coming from Syria.  ISIS and their allies need to be put down and the ideology that spawned them needs to be dealt with.  The former clearly needs to be accomplished militarily and economically.  The latter needs to be accomplished through a Marshall Plan-like initiative that would help move these countries out of the lawlessness and poverty they've been mired in and pull them into the 21st century.  Give their young people something to look forward to besides "killing apostates" or living in fear of a dictatorial government  or the bloody cycle will continue for another millennium.  We spent a decade hunting down and finally killing Osama Bin Laden, only for a man even more savage, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi to take his place.  What will we unleash on the world if we continue pursing a purely militaristic solution?

I stand with Paris and the nation of France today not just in spirit but in shared experience.  We know what its like to have your security, comfort, and sense of well being violated by people who don't even know you but have been bred to hate you with every fiber of their being.  The world, like 14 years ago, will be bent on blood lust and revenge.  I know that everyone will be trying to use this tragedy to further their own agenda.  Some already have.  But its important to remember that what IS has done in France repeats the same mistake Al-Qaeda made on 9/11.  Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda found out that their greatest achievement was also the first domino that led to the decimation of their murderous organization and the death of their leader.   For all the differences our countries have at the negotiating table, disgust at the mass murder of innocents is the one thing on which we all agree.  It will not stand unchallenged and will not go unpunished.  There is an old saying that warns that you should be careful what you wish for.  I believe IS is about to find out exactly what that means.

The More Things Change

The New York skyline as it should be.

Where does the time go?  In 2001, the world had just been introduced to the iPod, Google was 3 years away from its IPO, the full scope of Enron's shenanigans had yet to be uncovered, and Mark Zuckerberg was still just a Harvard undergrad with a chip on his shoulder.  The changes since then have come so gradually that you only notice when you stop to think about the last time you didn't need to frantically search for your cellphone just to leave the house, check e-mail, actually hand write a  letter, or use an answering machine for all your messages, or wait until you made a special trip to see how much a baby has grown.  Everyone's phone is a camera granting us so much unprecedented access into each other's lives that being private has become an active choice, not the norm and our cars are on the verge of driving us.  Some us have become parents or uncles or anties or godparents.  We've gained friends, lost friends, changed jobs, changed cities, graduated from school, started businesses, or taken any number of steps toward our personal quest for "happy."  For families of the 9/11 victims, however, time stopped that day.

"Why are we still talking about this?  It was 14 years ago isn't Bin Laden dead?"
Imagine the most painful day of your life was documented on video from every possible angle, dissected by every political pundit and military analyst for the past decade plus, used as a talking point to stoke fear in a nation during elections, and permanently memorialized in 3 states with museums and monuments.  Let's also not forget the conspiracy theorists and armchair engineers, none of whom were here that day, who swear the whole thing was faked by the government for the sole purpose of going to war for oil.  This is clearly the perfect environment for emotional healing and spiritual renewal.  They can't move on because America hasn't moved on.  In truth, America doesn't move on from things like this and never will.  The Boston Massacre was the match that sparked the American Revolution, creating the original 13 states.  Bloody Kansas pushed us into the Civil War, abolishing chattel slavery.  Pearl Harbor dragged us into the Second World War, establishing the USA as a world superpower.  Each of these tragedies fundamentally changed the country and 9/11 will be no different.  It's too soon to get as clear a historical perspective as the over three pivot points I mentioned but a few things about Post 9/11 America are clear.

• America is more aggressive about hunting down terrorists and potential terrorists, even at the cost of privacy and personal freedom
• Modern patriotism seems to have taken on a more legalistic tone.  Self-described Constitutionalists treat the document as a static, infallible set of laws rather than the living malleable document it was designed to be.
• Adherence to ideology has overtaken compassion as an admirable trait

People have lost faith in each other and have developed an even more exaggerated fear of the "other." In that respect, the terrorists achieved their goal.  Life in America isn't the same as it once was, not that its ever static from year to year, but the unity we had as a nation right after the attacks has all but dissipated.  Even our government has lost the ability to compromise.  The simplest issues turn into government shutdowns.  This day shouldn't just remind people of the lives we've lost but a little but of our own humanity as well.  Our politicians, media, opinions, and entertainment all reflect the value we hold dear and we look like xenophobic hate mongers.  A little bit of all of us died that day and it shows.  Perhaps the best way to honor the 9/11 victims and sacrifices made by our military to bring Bin Laden to justice is to get back to being what we were before before that day.  We need to get back to being the country they would recognize.