Whatever one thinks of the attacks that took place Sept. 11, it is impossible to deny Osama Bin Laden’s colossal act of destruction created a delicious ideological pie.

Socialists and libertarians claim it was the result of an invasive foreign policy bent on domination. Republicans, ironically enough, claim it was an incipient hatred of freedom that triggered the attacks. Democrats, meanwhile, are busy exclaiming masturbatory high fives over the fact that they retook Congress in 2006, two years ago.

But perhaps no one has taken greater advantage of the events on Sept. 11 than University of Wisconsin-La Crosse’s own College Republicans. Using their exclusive monopoly on patriotism to appoint themselves the hosts of this year’s commemorative ceremonies, La Crosse’s CRs planted — Surprise! — 3,000 flags on a campus field.

But knowing that a host of other organizations had presumably done the same, they decided to innovate — by making some of the flags into the shape of a cross.

In doing so, the College Republicans of La Crosse did several things. Most visibly, they sparked the bureaucratic ire of the university, whose student coordinator asked the group to rearrange the cross in response to a number of complaints from students on campus.

But the gravest side-effect of their move stemmed from an implicit denial that individuals of any faith other than Christianity had died in the attacks.

Andy Matz, chair of La Crosse’s College Republicans, argued the flags were “a memorial to the nearly 3,000 Americans who were murdered that day.” He added, “We weren’t trying to promote Christianity.”

From the organization that seems to be the most concerned with reminding the nation of the historical and moral significance of the attacks, it is an astounding lapse of historical understanding to omit that the sole premise behind the attacks was centered on religion.

And therein lies the appalling specter of self-interest for the College Republicans. Sept.11 has been packaged repeatedly for different political causes, and egregious manipulation has turned the event into a modernized Remember the Alamo, accompanied by all the attendant rejection of moderate appeals to understand its historical relevance or, for that matter, an objective interpretation of the events themselves. And the placing of a bunch of flags — each of which was intended to represent a dead American — to resemble a cross is no different. It would be intuitively counterproductive for the Republicans to arrange the flags into a Star of David or a Crescent Moon — not because innocent Jews, Muslims and Hindus did not die in the collapse of the twin towers, but because they are not the individuals who compose either the vast majority of the Republican Party’s membership or the segment of the population to which its most fervent appeals are directed.

Etched into my memories of Sept. 11 are the speeches I heard from a number of people I had been conditioned to respect in this country, praying that from the rubble of a dream undone, we could forget our differences — or at least put them in perspective. But that’s obviously much too inconvenient for the College Republicans at La Crosse. It’s much easier to create memorials that, on a fundamental level, deny that difference even exists. After all — there were the Christians who died, and then there was everybody else.

Next year, if students at La Crosse decide that a visible reminder of the very brutal toll taken by the attacks is desirable, I encourage other, less reprehensible organizations to throw themselves into the annual menagerie of patriotic showmanship. Perhaps they do not believe such a display is essential to their respect for the thousands who died on that day, but they should do it anyway — if not out of a genuine desire to “prove” they remember, then out of an acceptance that “sharing” our anguish is the only way to prevent its perversion.

Sam Clegg ([email protected]) is a sophomore majoring in economics and French.