This month marks the 24th anniversary of 9/11 – the most savage attack on America in its 249-year history. Even Pearl Harbor pales in comparison, because the attack on 9/11 targeted civilians. It’s sole objective was to murder as many innocent men, women, and children, as possible. It had no objective other than hatred, and it changed how I, and many others, view the world. Speaking for myself, it also changed how I view politics.
Everybody remembers where they were on that fateful Tuesday. For me, the day was a sunny, cool, almost-fall day in Minnesota. I was hosting a presentation for about 500 employees in the company auditorium. Midway through the presentation, I was interrupted by a friend who handed me a note. The south tower of the World Trade Center had been hit by an airliner.
We stopped the presentation, and tuned the projection screen to the news. The entire room watched as the tower burned and emergency services scrambled to save as many lives as possible. We knew that they couldn’t save everyone.
We felt a connection to the people in the tower. They were no different than us. They had gone to work that day, wishing malice on nobody, intent on supporting their families for another day. I could tell people in the conference room were saying silent prayers for those New York City office workers.
When the north tower was hit by another aircraft, there was a collective gasp in the room … and then total silence. Everyone suddenly knew that we weren’t watching an accident. Our country was under attack.
When we saw our fellow citizens jumping to their deaths, to avoid being burned alive, the silence was broken by sobs.
When the news reported another attack on the Pentagon and a plane crash in Pennsylvania, we were shocked at the enormity of the operation.
After the towers fell, we saw what looked like ghosts of the dead walking out of the dust cloud. Soon we realized that these were the survivors, now sharing only one skin tone, the gray of ground concrete. As we saw those apparitions staggering towards the remaining first responders, we knew that America had changed forever.
The day after the attack, the country was awash in American flags, in what appeared to be a reborn sense of patriotism. The display supplemented our grief with pride.
In the following days we learned that the attack had been orchestrated by a Saudi Arabian named Osama Bin Laden, a militant Islamist. We were aghast. Hadn’t we recently defended Muslims in Somalia, Bosnia, and Kuwait? Why were Islamic extremists now slaughtering our fellow Americans?
Our sorrow turned into rage.
President Bush promised us justice, and his polling surged into the 90s. In a rare moment of Congressional bipartisanship, Democrats joined with Republicans to authorize a military response. Young adults flooded the recruiting offices, as they always do when America is in need.
We had such clarity. We were the good guys, facing pure murderous evil. Our cause was righteous. Nobody was asking us to contextualize the actions of the terrorists, nor suggesting mercy of any kind.
We swore we would never forget 9/11, and then got on with the business of delivering consequences to the guilty. With the help of allies, we quickly toppled two governments which were shielding or sponsoring the terrorists: Iraq and Afghanistan.
But after the collapse of those governments, the war devolved into an insurgency – a different kind of struggle which was a crisis the Democrats had no intention of wasting. That’s when I realized that our “unity” had only been a façade, maintained by our domestic enemies, only as long as it suited them politically.
When the war became difficult, as all wars do, the Democrats dropped their masks and used the war’s setbacks to undermine our efforts. The very people who had authorized a military response, betrayed our fellow citizens in uniform, by undermining their mission.
Within months, Democrats had declared the war unwinnable, which encouraged the terrorists to keep fighting.
Presidential candidate John Kerry proudly announced that he was now against the war he had previously been for. He promised that if elected he would end the war on our enemy’s terms, which encouraged the terrorists to keep fighting.
The Democrats relentlessly chanted “Bush lied, people died” in a craven attempt to cast President Bush as a war criminal, which encouraged the terrorists to keep fighting.
Finally, the President who had said, “We will not waver; we will not tire; we will not falter; and we will not fail” … faltered. President Bush refused to defend himself, those who had supported him, and our righteous cause. He failed as a leader, allowing the narrative of the Democrats to change the national sentiment from determination to defeat.
By 2008, enough Americans had accepted the narrative that they voted for “fundamental transformation” rather than “American exceptionalism.” The war would drag on for another 12 years and Osama Bin Laden would eventually be killed, but we had already lost by the time Barack Obama took office. The war on global terrorism had been lost the same way the Vietnam war had been – through a failure of national unity and will.
We will never know if the war on global terrorism might have ended differently had we presented a united front to our enemies, because we had only united long enough to engage in war, not to win it.
In the two decades since 9/11
- President Obama funded the sponsors of terrorism (Iran nuclear deal),
- President Biden armed the terrorists (Afghanistan surrender),
- Radical Islamists have gained representation in Congress (Ellison, Carson, Omar, Tlaib, and Simon), and
- Federal judges are protecting terrorists (Tren de Aragua).
We have a new tower now, in place of those destroyed by Osama Bin Laden. It opened in 2014 and was named the “Freedom Tower” – even as Barack Obama and Joe Biden worked behind the scenes to attack our freedom and undermine our elections.
We didn’t lose the war on terrorism because jihadis managed to murder thousands of our countrymen. We lost it because our own domestic traitors used a corrupt political party, and a compliant media to radicalize our institutions and defeat us from within – giving Bin Laden what he wanted most, a broken America.
But America isn’t finished yet. The last 24 years have been a strategic setback for sure, but it has also exposed the subversives which have been working like termites to destroy the “shining city on the hill.” Those termites think MAGA is a political movement, but they’re wrong. It is a counter revolution, working to excise the radicals from every institution they have infiltrated: industry, government, academia, science, and media.
I remember the moral clarity of 9/11, and weep about the moral confusion which has followed. That is the legacy of the Democrats, who traded their patriotism for political advantage. In the past I always voted Republican for policy reasons. But 9/11 showed me how truly vile the Democrat party is. Now I vote Republican for moral reasons. I don’t wish to be called to explain to the Almighty someday why I voted for a party that claims the murder of innocents is something to be “contextualized.”
Only time will tell if Americans will choose exceptionalism over shame. The choices we make over the next two decades will determine if we remain a free and prosperous country, or if we will go the way of Great Britain. On this 9/11 I pray that we remember what happened on that fateful day, but also pray that we remember what that sunny day exposed about those who side with murderers, even as they swear an oath to our Constitution.
Author Bio: John Green is a retired engineer and political refugee from Minnesota, now residing in Idaho. He spent his career designing complex defense systems, developing high performance organizations, and doing corporate strategic planning. He is a contributor to American Thinker, The American Spectator, and the American Free News Network. He can be reached at greenjeg@gmail.com.
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