The gloom has been as hard as ever to bear on this twentieth anniversary, given recent events. I’ve said this, and meant it, many times before, but I’ve never felt it with greater alarm or grief than now: We are in some bad, bad shape as a culture, and serious consequences are coming down the pipe that we’re going to have to reckon with over the course of many years to come.
Whatever one may think about the 20-year-long US & allied operation in Afghanistan that the Taliban’s harboring of 9/11’s al Qaeda Jihadists and their training camps kicked off — including valid disagreement over reasonable strategic aims, realistic goals, rules of engagement, and conditions for success and exit (and there is plenty of room for sane discussion and debate on these matters) — the shape and form of our needlessly bungled exit from Afghanistan has been an unmitigated disaster that we will pay the price for for decades to come. From the profoundly foolish, premature abandonment of the essential and well-defended Bagram Air Base, to the surrender of massive combat assets and a “kill list” to our Taliban adversaries, to the stranding of vulnerable American and allied personnel behind enemy lines that left many to find their own ways out with no help from the US government, and the others left behind and in ongoing peril — it’s hard for me to imagine a worse execution or worse result. This was an unforced error and a colossal failure that will cost us dearly. It has both armed and emboldened those who seek to cause us harm, broken the trust of those we’ve asked to take great risks with us, and given costly weight to the claim that we are but a paper tiger, weak and easily frightened, that can be worn down, demoralized, and defeated with sustained effort. The result of this will be lives lost when we are not taken seriously in future battles. We can count on it.
No less severe, I expect, will be the domestic consequences of this self-inflicted catastrophe. A resurgence of Jihadist attacks on our own soil seems entirely likely, given the weakness of resolve and gross incompetence of leadership we’ve demonstrated — not to mention the act of abjectly surrendering territory from which the prior attacks were planned and staged, and that can easily be used again for the same purpose. (I would love nothing more than for the coming decades to prove me wrong in this expectation.) Moreover, those among us who ardently seek a weakened USA that is unwilling and unable to stand up for itself have been given another example of defeat and dishonor that they are sure to employ with enthusiasm toward their ends for decades to come. Those of us who saw the despicable way our prior withdrawal from Vietnam was used these past two decades, as a cudgel to convince the public of both dishonorable intentions and inevitable failure, know this to be true.
All of this was unnecessary and could have been avoided, and it kills me to see it. Nothing short of a toxic mindset bent on cultural suicide seems adequate to explain it. I do not understand how one can be anything less than livid about this. It grieves me to see it, and I can only begin to imagine how this disastrous turn of events is being felt by our servicemen and women — people for whom I hold a deep and abiding love and respect. Their chain of command all the way up to Commander-in-Chief has utterly failed them and betrayed their honorable sacrifices, and the look of things thus far is that no one who’s been responsible for this massive failure in judgment will actually be held accountable in any significant way — either by law, electorally, or by a supine press that maybe finally got the failure it’s been ghoulishly cheering for all these years.
I don’t know what to do with this situation but take issue with those who’ve cheered for our demise while laboring to weaken, demean, and demoralize us. I will not forget this betrayal or what it has revealed to me. With my children now old enough to have awareness of and questions about the 9/11 attacks and the years since, I feel as strongly as ever the determination I felt on that September day twenty years ago, when so many of us pledged to ourselves that we would not forget what we had witnessed, nor falter in standing for the land we love.
It’s a dramatically different world this year, in myriad ways that seem at once both obvious to all of us who have been muddling through them and too numerous to list. If there is any silver lining, perhaps it’s that large-scale foreign terrorism seems to have taken a pause, but only to be replaced by being terrorized by our fellow citizens in suspiciously coordinated violent and destructive rampages through our cities, while we simultaneously endure the combined threats of a viral pandemic, draconian lockdowns and ensuing economic hardships, and partly well-intentioned but nonetheless destructive abridgments of our freedom, autonomy, and ability to plan for the future.
I would not have remotely anticipated this new set of circumstances a year ago, nor I think could anyone. The world has given us an entirely new set of challenges to deal with, leaving prior battles that had seemed monumental and urgently important momentarily in the rearview mirror — on hiatus for now, I think, but not fundamentally solved nor gone. “2020” has come to eclipse “2001” in notoriety for the both sudden and sustained havoc it has wreaked, causing that former year of infamy to recede quietly into the past while our preoccupied minds have been mostly unaware it was happening.
It would be easy in this dramatically different time to forget what now seems like another era, disconnected from our present reality. But I will not, nor I think can we afford to. We have serious, unresolved issues related to the 9/11 attacks and the relative strength or weakness, unity or disunity of our resolve and response to them, that I expect will remain to be dealt with at some future date. Our cultural confidence and sense of self is being tested in different but not entirely unrelated ways for now, and the outcome of those present struggles is sure to have significant implications for our near-term future. While I remain resolved that we have worthwhile and important work to do rebuilding our cultural foundations in the here and now, my focus has of necessity also been on the larger long-term question of where we — as a frontier culture in need of new frontiers — will go from here. I have much more work to do on that, that’s been especially hard to make time for lately, but I have hope that determination and persistence will unite to make the necessary possible in the long run.
On this day, let us remember and honor the loved ones and fellow citizens we lost on that eerily clear September morning, as well as the “sheepdogs” and everyday heroes among us who ran toward danger and risked everything when called — on that day and in the days, weeks, months, and years that followed. Let us think on the resolve that is needed to maintain this Civilization of ours — this engine of well-being and sanctuary for people of good will — against persistent, determined forces that demand its submission, surrender, and subservience. May these hard times produce the resilient men and women we need, and may their efforts avert the self-inflicted decline that is, in the final sum, a greater danger than that any foreign enemy can hope to pose us. It’s going to take steady exertion and long-term dedication to the task, but I do believe a happy, resilient future waits to be claimed beyond this moment of gloom.
Eighteen years seems an impossible amount of time to have passed. Eighteen years since Al Qaeda Jihadists murdered thousands by flying aircraft full of people into buildings full of people in New York City and Washington D.C. Eighteen years since people trapped on the upper floors of the burning World Trade Center towers leapt to their certain deaths rather than accept the fate their vile killers chose for them. Eighteen years since everyday heroes rose from our ranks aboard Flight 93 and in those burning buildings — risking and sacrificing all, so that others might live. The enduring sting of the memory is such that it hardy seems it could have been that long ago. And yet, here we are.
My thoughts are much the same as on last year’s anniversary. For better or worse, I don’t think I’ve learned anything new or surprising in the past year about the nature of what we’re up against or the state our own culture is in. This is a long war, a relentless grind, and it may be dedicated endurance as much as anything that sees us through. I reflect with resolve and humble gratitude on the fact that I am still here and able to fight for the future of a world that I love.
There is more writing and exploring of ideas that I’d like to do here, at some point. I’ve been investing my time in other endeavors: my work, building a treehouse with my kids and spending a “Dad Camp” week with them, helping out in our Cub Scout pack, and building my mental and physical resilience through regular exercise and Tae Kwon Do training. These are things I cherish and count myself fortunate and grateful to be able to do.
I’ve also taken a more stoic view of things in recent years. As the span of time since that terrible day grows ever longer, the pace of change in our cultural state, or my perception of it, seems to have slowed. Things seem to have settled into a momentary stasis or more viscous flow, and my attention has shifted to the very long term: to where this Civilization of ours may be headed over the coming decades and centuries. The primary question on my mind has become, as I related in some form last year: What happens when a culture that believes fanatically in itself, and in its right to kill, subdue, or enslave unbelievers in its unhesitating quest for dominance, comes into contact with a culture that has been taught to fear, distrust, doubt, and even dislike itself? Where do things go from there?
There is tension in this culture of ours, to be sure: between the forces of submission and surrender, or the impulse to turn away from confrontation with the brutal enemy we face, and the Remnant among us who stand ready to fight with indomitable spirit for the civilization that is near and dear to our hearts. The key question seems to be how that tension will play out. I no longer worry that the strong timbers of this structure will weaken. What seems less certain is how the burden of persistent rot and termite activity will affect the structure as a whole. Are we headed for a schism of some sort in the long run? What happens if the load-bearing timbers get up and walk away?
I remember with clarity, on this day: the brutality of the bastards who attacked us (I see no reason to mince words). The thousands murdered in the World Trade Center towers and aboard Flights 11 and 175 that were crashed deliberately into them with full loads of fuel. The noble heroism of the first responders and everyday citizens who sacrificed to rescue others from the burning inferno of the twin towers. Those who stepped up without being called on, and independently thwarted the plans of the Flight 93 hijackers. The hole in the ground near Shanksville, Pennsylvania where their struggle came to an end. The people who leapt to their deaths from the doomed WTC. The people murdered when Flight 77 was crashed into the Pentagon. The sight of still-smoldering wreckage being cleared from “Ground Zero” two weeks later. And moving forward from there, the slow discovery that all my preconceived expectations about the superficiality and transience of our cultural weaknesses were mistaken. That the intentional undermining of our foundations over decades had put us in much worse shape than I’d ever realized, and that we have much work to do to find our strength again.
I cannot account for things yet unknown to me, for the particulars of where we’re headed and how all of this will be resolved. But I am certain of the strength and resilience in my own heart, determined that we shall stand and find our way again, and grateful for those kindred spirits who I know journey through the storm with me, seeking our way home with indomitable perseverance.
It’s a somewhat different world than it was a year ago. I don’t yet know whether to judge it a much better one.
For all his faults, we now have a president in the U.S. who has had the audacity to candidly name the ideology we are up against — and what is remarkable to me is that doing so takes any audacity at all. Such is the deep denial we’ve slumped into these past 16 years, that anyone finds shocking what should be a foundational part of our shared understanding, whatever our differences may be regarding how best to face and defeat that threat. Had anyone suggested to me in the days following 9/11 that this level of denial would come to exist, or stranger still that it would come from forces within our own culture, I’d have been stunned by the insanity of the thought.
Whether our actions now and in the next few years will produce greater success as a result of leadership that will honestly name our enemy’s motivating ideology has yet to be seen. I have not been generally optimistic about our degree of cultural resolve, which I think is what we need most. The forces of civilizational decline are entrenched and persistent, and this might be but a temporary reversal of a much stronger tide. I still hold out some hope for a genuine and lasting turnaround. But I don’t know what it’s going to take to truly wake us up and get us on our feet and fighting for our future with the strong conviction that will be essential to victory. Europe has experienced numerous grisly Jihadist attacks in recent years, and hardly seems to have deviated from a course of submission, surrender, decline, and suicide. We are witnessing what happens when a culture that believes fanatically in itself comes into contact with a culture hobbled by self-doubt.
For our future to differ, our thoughts and actions must differ. If we can’t start by having the honest, fact-based conversation about radical Islamic violence that Sunni Muslim Raheel Raza calls for in this video, we will lack even the hope of turning things around. I look forward to the candor of our public discussion improving someday.
Freedom is a tremendous and precious inheritance. To develop our potential, thrive in it, and pass it along to each successive generation is our highest calling. I write here to give my thanks, and to seek ways we can cultivate the resilience, independence, courage, and indomitable spirit necessary to sustain a culture that cherishes liberty.
