George Matsumoto is an architect of Japan’s postwar economic miracle.
On September 9, 2001, the night before the hijacked aircraft struck the Pentagon, he stood in his office at the National Academy of Design in Los Angeles and described to staff the story he and other architects had been writing about al Qaeda’s alleged role in using high explosives in a devastating attack in New York City in 1993. “This was what we had told other countries and the Arab community a couple of years ago, and we had all said that this was the worst thing we had ever seen,” he said. “It was so brutal, and then we were told this and this and this.”
He was correct, but he was also right. The terrorist attacks in September 2001 did not achieve the sweeping, “totalitarian” vision that the architects of the new millennium had in mind. They did not destroy the United States, and they did not wipe out the Middle East. Al Qaeda, on the other hand, did destroy the Middle East—and it came at a cost.
On Wednesday morning, President Obama spoke of the lessons we must learn from September 11, which has not been lost on an audience of roughly 1.5 million Americans. He recalled in somber words, “They are lessons that we will be living with for a long time to come.
“I think about those planes hitting the World Trade Center, about those soldiers who were wounded, those children killed. There was a moment of celebration in Arlington National Cemetery,” he said. “But we’ve been through a war before. So we understand better than some what those moments are like,” he said. “And I think there is always a lesson to be drawn from that tragedy.”
The lessons from September 11 are clear. We have to ask ourselves carefully how we will continue to achieve America’s promise to those who serve in our military and to those who have served our homeland, and that the wars of the 21st century must not result in more pain.
In 2002, after 9/11, I met with several dozen military officers. One officer, who I like and respect greatly, said that he did not expect to retire and asked me to tell him some of the lessons he should learn from 9/11.
He told me that when I asked about the United States’ commitment to the Persian Gulf, the officer said, “They weren’t really trying to bring them in.”