The 9/11 Problem

Okay, don’t let the title wrankle your nose…don’t bombard me with nasty notes and comments saying that I’m trying to stir trouble. This is not a forum in which I am going to politicize 9/11 in any way, shape, or form.

What I do want to do is try to explain an understanding I reached the other night. It’s an understanding of why some people (you know who you are, liberal democrats) don’t understand the connections between 9/11, the war in Iraq, and the war on terror. It’s also an understanding that not only liberal democrats have this problem, but so do conservative republicans (at least some of them) and any person, for that matter, in their right (correct) mind.

The problem as I see it is this: no one wants to begin to think that we could have ever been attacked on our own soil. All the suicide bombers, car bombs, etc. happened on “that” side of the world (meaning the Middle East) and certainly couldn’t ever (and wouldn’t ever) happen on our own shores, or so we all thought before 9/11.

So, 9/11 happens; the towers fall, the Pentagon is severely damaged, and we lose civilians in flight 93 in a field in Pennsylvania. It is so appalling so heinous that we can’t wrap our brains around it. Yet, in light of the worst, most violent event on American soil, we still cannot fathom it. “How did this happen?” we ask God, ourselves, and others. “Who is so vile, despicable, so thoroughly and completely evil that they would want to do this?” We know, intellectually, that it is the Islamic terrorists, the neo-fascists who are out to destroy our way of life, and yet, what we don’t know is just why, just what it is that makes them so evil that they would want to do this.

Part of the problem is we don’t want to know. Our culture, which ironically can watch horrific images in movies they simply call “scary”, don’t want to see the horrific realities of the world…a world torn apart by people evil to the core, people bent on our destruction, and the annihilation of Israel.

I admit that even I, nearly five years later, have trouble believing what happened that horrible day in September. It took me a long time, too long frankly, to understand that the people who did this, right on up to Osama bin Laden himself, aren’t going to give up, back down, and change their minds about the objective of obliterating America and the American way of life. It took me nearly five years to comprehend that these people need to be stopped. Not with diplomacy, not with negotiations and sanctions, but strong, bold, courageous military might. No, it isn’t a pleasant thought, especially to someone (such as myself) who fancied himself a hippie born way too late, to think that war is so drastically necessary, but it is drastically necessary.

We need to, as a nation, wake up and realize that:
*We have enemies on our own soil as well as middle eastern soil. Enemies whose sole objective is our collective death. These people would gladly strap a bomb to themselves just as their brothers in the cause in the middle east do, and they live in states like California, Washington state, and not places like Iraq, Afghanistan, or Pakistan. They are on OUR soil.
*They will never give up, back down, be negotiated with or whatever. We must step up to the plate and be ready to fight, even if it means going on the offensive. *Remember, to them, our deaths at their hands means glory in heaven for them. Fools have died for much less.
*Because they won’t stop, we can never lull ourselves into thinking that another 9/11 type of attack is not in the works, because it is. The foiled London terrorist plot is proof of that.
*While very valid analogies have been made to Lenin and Hitler, we face a foe much worse in ways. It isn’t just Jews they want to utterly destroy, but we “infidel” Americans as well.

As I write this, my heart breaks. In so many ways, 9/11 was the loss of American innocence, and for me, it was the slow shattering of my rose colored glasses. As long as the Islamic Fascists, the Al Qaeda’s and Bin Laden’s of the world, the Ahmadinejad’s who want nothing more than to destroy us completely, to wipe us out of existence are allowed to walk freely, we will never be safe…ever.