A 9.11 Tribute: Six Years Later

As an alder, a member of the city’s Transit and Parking Commission, and a dedicated supporter (and user) of Madison Metro, I was honored to attend a press conference today at the UW Arboretum, announcing the addition of five hybrid buses to the Metro fleet. There were a lot of speeches and praise offered by numerous dignitaries and partners, but sadly the most important statement went unsaid.

The United States consumes 21 million barrels of oil. Daily. Only 5 million of these barrels are produced domestically; another 5 million are produced in and imported from the Middle East.

And while one can’t blame the entirety of forty years of failed mid-east policy on our insatiable appetite for mid-east oil, it is certainly the leading factor. And regardless of what one believes about September 11, 2001, I think we can all agree that were it not for four decades of intervention in the Middle East, September 11, 2001 may not have happened.

So while everyone was admiring our attractive new buses today, I was saddened by the fact that no one made the connection; that no one mentioned the horrific tragedy that we all experienced six years ago today nor the fact that today’s rollout of five hybrid buses does more than help the environment.

It honors the victims, the heroes, the still sick and forever wounded, of 9/11. It honors them because today, on the sixth anniversary of this horrific event, we took a bold step to reduce our dependence on mid-east oil. A small step that, if replicated a hundred times a day throughout this country, would demonstrate a far greater commitment to their sacrifice than our counterfeit and counterproductive war on terror. On this day, it was the most important thing we did and it was left unspoken.