It seems to me that we in the United States — and, from what I can tell, the Western world more broadly — never did come to terms with the reality of Jihadist ideology and its clear intentions for us. Media malpractice and a general decline in cultural courage and self-confidence seem substantially to blame for that — themselves downstream of a “long march through the institutions” of toxic ideology that’s quite deliberately designed to weaken us. I don’t know how not to feel disgust for those responsible for it. In any case, this far down the road from the 9/11/2001 Al Qaeda attacks on the USA, I expect we’re pretty firmly settled into our respective conclusions and not much seems likely to change that. With Al Qaeda and ISIS/ISIL largely rendered inoperative, there hasn’t been as much reason to worry about Jihadist violence in recent years, and we’ve moved on as a culture to fearing, doubting, distrusting, and punishing ourselves over other issues. My focus has shifted to understanding the deeper roots underlying the general weakness that afflicts us, and seeking ways to re-energize a culture and civilization that I see as well worth saving. I’ve grown weary of trying to warn people about things they don’t want to be warned about, so writing to try to spread awareness among the less aware has seemed less useful than trying to offer tools and insight to see our ailing state and want to do something to fix it. Time will tell where that goes. I hope I’ll be able to find ways to make a positive difference.
That terrible day seems a lifetime ago now. Revisiting my post from last year, I’m both glad that the short-term resurgence of Jihadist attacks on Western targets I feared likely has not yet manifested, and troubled as much as before by long-term consequences of our colossal show of weakness that we can’t yet hope to see.
Grappling with the implications and fallout of our calamitous Afghanistan withdrawal seems likely to be of central importance to this next phase of our post-9/11 history. Vets Jocko Willink and Darryl Cooper recorded a sobering deep dive into the circumstances of the withdrawal in its immediate aftermath, that remains well worth reviewing and pondering. Tim Kennedy subsequently spoke about his volunteer team’s efforts to evacuate Americans and Afghan allies who the evacuation left behind, on Joe Rogan’s podcast and elsewhere, and I just finished watching “Send Me” — the short-documentary account of his team’s rescue efforts that just went live on Amazon Prime this past month. I highly recommend giving some time to all of these. This clip of Tim on Rogan gives the flavor of it and is a good place to start:
A sobering reflection on the catastrophe of the past many weeks.
I’ve listened to Jocko lots. He’s painstakingly reserved and professional and it’s exceedingly rare for him to cross over into criticizing policy in detail. This sobering talk was much needed. It grieves me to think how this disaster weighs on those who served and sacrificed and lost brothers in arms. Feels like we’re in a dangerous free fall whose cause was inexplicably self-inflicted.
Academy of Ideas has produced some profoundly insightful content. I ran across and re-watched this video in particular recently, and find deep relevance in it for the time and troubling phenomena we’re living through. Especially striking is Jung’s assessment that “psychic disturbances are far more dangerous than epidemics [of physical disease]”.
Much to that point, the following sounds all too familiar:
When it is understood that a flood of negative emotions, in conjunction with a weak and insecure sense of self, can trigger a descent into madness, it becomes clear how a mass psychosis can occur. A population first needs to be induced into a state of intense fear or anxiety by threats real, imagined, or fabricated. And once in a state of panic, the door is opened for either the positive or negative reaction to unfold. If a society is composed of self-reliant, resilient, and inwardly strong individuals, a positive reaction can take place. But if it is composed of mainly weak, insecure, and helpless individuals, a descent into the delusions of a mass psychosis becomes a real possibility.
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.
We must learn from the horrors of the past and never forget what produced and enabled them. We must say “never again” and show in our actions and unwavering defense of human freedom that we mean it.
A stirring reminder from the Los Angeles Holocaust Museum:
Holocaust survivor Paul Kester (Kleinstrass) to future generations: “Be tolerant. Don’t hate. Protect the freedoms that you enjoy. I wish you well.”
I don’t know how clearly more recent generations are getting this message, but I remember well a junior high school field trip to the L.A. Holocaust Museum, the heart-wrenching privilege of getting to meet Holocaust survivors and hear their stories, and ample periodic coverage of the Holocaust from there through high school. It was one thing that L.A. public schools did a decent job of during my time there, and these experiences impressed upon me the vital importance of exercising courage in the face of evil, while leaving me with a sorrowful yearning that we, the U.S. and the rest of the world, had not managed to do more to stop this horrific brutality sooner.
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.
