-By Warner Todd Huston
I’ve been mulling this all day *today. What should I say about the tenth anniversary of 9/11? I mean, everyone expects a blogger to have something to say, right?
Many people have written me to let me know that they feel I am “a good writer.” Of course, I thank them for this compliment, but sitting here all day looking at an empty word document sitting ready to be filled with my 9/11 remembrance, I certainly feel that my little reputation is unearned. I’ve just found it so hard to start this piece.
But sometime about 6PM on Sept. 10 I realized why it is so hard for me to start this piece. I am still furious. Feelings are still too raw, I still well up when I see video of the towers falling, my heart still stops when I see that heart-wrenching image of bodies falling from windows hundreds of feet in the air. I still get that dark feeling in the pit of my stomach, the same one I felt that morning in 2001.
It’s all still too emotional to write a mere memorial. My words fail me.
I sat there wondering why it was that 10 years on I still feel this anger, these emotions of loss?
I mean, let’s face it, we’ve come a long way from those terrible days of vulnerability on Sept. 11, 2001. We’ve killed many hundreds of al Qaeda’s operatives — including the evil bin Laden. We’ve seriously hurt that enemy.
We’ve had a healthy dose of revenge on al Qaeda so that should go a long way toward easing the emotions of 9/11.
But that isn’t the problem. The problem is that a large number of Americans still have not learned the lesson that 9/11 should have so easily taught us.
We are now mired in idiotic, Politically correct arguments about whether or not Christian ministers will be allowed at the 10th Anniversary memorial event in New York, we are told that our intelligence officials are being forced to attend Islamic services at mosques so that they can prove we “care” about Muslims. Worse, we still see a large sector of the American political arena saying Tea Partiers and Christians, our own citizens, are somehow “just like” or “just as bad” as the Islamist monsters that cut off people’s heads and throw acid on young girls that supposedly break Islamic traditions.
We have not learned that this enemy is not going to be swayed by our pitiful attempts to show them that we “like” them. They aren’t mad because we don’t like them. They are mad because they don’t rule us and their goal is to either kill us all or subjugate us. There is no black and white here, but too many of our own are fooling themselves into believing that we can “lead from behind” with “soft power.”
It is so bad, in fact, that ten year on we still haven’t been able to come together long enough to build a memorial to the attack or anything else for that matter at Ground Zero. Various governments and groups are still arguing over it all even after a decade. Ground Zero is still a barely-started construction site.
Consequently I find it hard to write a mere memorial as if this is an event long in our past. It is not. Worse, our own people are making sure that we cannot put this behind us because they are not allowing us to beat this enemy.
So, even ten years out the wounds are still raw, the enemy still strong, and traitors in our midst are lending them succor.
These words don’t come easily. Nor do they come with relief. They are hard, cold facts. We are still in danger. We can’t “forget,” nor can we start mere memorials as if it is all long over.
It isn’t over.
*This was written on Sept. 10th.
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In the meantime, here is an excellent video by the folks at the Daily Caller.
Photo Credit: Richard Drew, AP
Other 9/11 Posts
- Infamy– Atlas Shrugs, Pamela Geller
- 9/11: I Am Overcome– Alexa Shrugged
- 10th Anniversary of 9/11: Remembering Flight 11 Passenger Mildred Rose Naiman– Alexa Shrugged
- 9/11: I Never Want To Forget– Alexa Shrugged
- The Luckiest – How 9/11 Saved My Life– BigPeace.com, Rusty Weiss
- What I Learned from 9/11-Blue Collar Muse
- Obama and Bloomberg cannot put 9/11 in a box– Canada Free Press, Judi McLeod
- 9/11: No, America Is Not Over It Yet– Dr. Melissa Clouthier
- Never Forget– Cranky Hermit, Michael Chamberlain
- Count Me Out of the 9/11 Perspectives, Thank You– Datechguy’s Blog
- In memory of Joe Angelini, Jr, and his dad, Joe Sr.– Faustablog
- 9/11, The Documentary– Faustablog
- 9/11 – One man’s recollections– GraniteGrok
- Remembering 9/11 – Never Quit– The Heritage Foundation
- – Hoosier Access, Josh Gillespie
- Remember 9/11: Never Quit– The Jersey-Texan
- A Mighty Fortress Is My God– Letters from Glome
- 9/11: For Our Enemies, the Target Will Always Be Us– NW Daily Marker
- Arguably The Best Thing Written On The Subject Of 9/11– The Other McCain
- Memories and Thoughts of 9/11– RightPundits, Andrew Zarowny
- 9/11: The Dreams That Fly Away– Doug Ross Journal
- A day for remembering – September 11, 2011– Dan Spencer
- Space station commander remembers 9/11– Dan Spencer
- Jason Dahl– StixBlog
- In memory of MARY JANE (MJ) BOOTH– StixBlog
- Sept. 11, 2001 – American Innocence Lost– Texas Fred Blog
- The Horror of 9/11, I Remember… But Too Many Others Forget– Yid With Lid, Jeff Dunetz
____________
“The only end of writing is to enable the reader b
etter to enjoy life, or better to endure it.”
–Samuel Johnson
Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer. He has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and before that he wrote articles on U.S. history for several small American magazines. His political columns are featured on many websites such as Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com, BigHollywood.com, and BigJournalism.com, as well as RightWingNews.com, RightPundits.com, CanadaFreePress.com, StoptheACLU.com, AmericanDaily.com, among many, many others. Mr. Huston is also endlessly amused that one of his articles formed the basis of an article in Germany’s Der Spiegel Magazine in 2008.
For a full bio, please CLICK HERE.
I am certain that on that September day there were angels among us, and I would imagine that they too wept…
I’m a big strong guy, but I am not the least bit bothered to tell you, I wept, from anger, from compassion, from a feeling of total helplessness, and yes, even fear, not fear for myself, but fear for my family and their immediate…
I was 1,500 miles from home that day and all I could think of was getting home to my wife and making sure my children were safe, and I couldn’t do that…
None of us knew what the future held, we still don’t, but I hope with all my heart that these same angels are with us now…
I can’t speak for all Americans, but I know that I am still hurting, every day that goes by I remember 9-11, and I don’t know if a *healing* will ever take place in me, but I pray for the lives of those affected in an even more direct fashion, I pray for our firefighters, police officer and our troops… I pray that ALL of America will wake up to the dangers around us and unite in an effort to defeat the evils that threaten our lives and freedoms.
No matter where that evil comes from!
I will NEVER forgive and I will NEVER forget!