Twenty-five years ago this week, jihadi terrorists hijacked commercial jetliners and weaponized them, murdering thousands of innocent people. The death toll would have been even higher if not for the remarkable courage of the passengers aboard United 93, who fought back and saved innocent lives.
One year ago this week, a hateful, radicalized leftist shot Charlie Kirk in the neck during a public event, killing the young father and husband. The haunting, horrifying images of both attacks stirred revulsion and righteous anger among millions of Americans. They still do.
Amid the grief, there was, and is, anger — justified, white-hot anger. As we approach these anniversaries, it’s important to recall that these acts of unspeakable evil were each direct and deliberate attacks not just against the victims, but also against our way of life itself.
The Islamist fanatics who flew airplanes into buildings in New York and Washington loathed the United States. They sought to instill fear among our people, the literal terror of terrorism, while simultaneously slaughtering as many of us as possible and striking symbolic targets of American power.
Firefighters along with a few military personal drape a large flag over the west wall of the Pentagon a few yards from the area damaged by the attack earlier in the day in Arlington, Va., on September 11, 2001. (John McDonnell / The Washington Post via Getty Images)
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Firefighters along with a few military personal drape a large flag over the west wall of the Pentagon, a few yards from the area damaged by the attack earlier in the day in Arlington, Va., on September 11, 2001. (John McDonnell / The Washington Post via Getty Images)
The twin towers in Lower Manhattan reached into the sky as active monuments to our economic strength. The Pentagon is our dominant military’s central headquarters. The Capitol building, which was reportedly the intended target of the fourth plane, is a majestic hub of our system of government and an iconic temple of democracy.
In seeking to destroy these specific structures, the terrorists devised a heinous plan that was less a show of force than an attempt to expose their mortal enemy’s weakness. In this, they failed.
Our economy remains the envy of the world, even if some try to pretend otherwise. Our capitalistic engine powers our nation and, in many ways, the wider global economy.
Our military remains the finest and most lethal on the planet — and has taken out many thousands of al Qaeda members, allies, and successors. Whatever one thinks of the domestic and foreign policy choices made in the aftermath of 9/11, our intelligence services, military, and law enforcement apparatus have prevented additional large-scale attacks on the homeland over the past quarter-century.
Given the searing hatred and determination of our enemy, this has been no small feat, especially considering how a follow-on massacre was widely feared — if not generally anticipated — by the public in the weeks, months, and years after the 2001 atrocity.
Our form of government has also endured, with Americans participating in a dozen national elections since that dark day. Voters have elected presidents from both major political parties, each of whom has ordered various blows against the cancer of radical Islamist terrorism.
If America is arguably weaker today, in some respects, than it was on 9/11, it is because of internal divisions — yes, often stoked by foreign manipulation — rather than acts inflicted upon us by external forces.
This reality speaks to the second grisly milestone America commemorates this week. Kirk’s assassination didn’t merely rob two young children of their father, a devoted wife of her husband, and a movement of its leader. It also represented a bullet aimed at our pluralistic society, our robust free speech culture, and our sacred value of resolving political differences through nonviolent means.
The accused assassin, against whom there is an Everest of evidence, despised what Kirk said and stood for. He wrote in text messages that Kirk’s supposed “hatred” could not be “negotiated” with, a level of hate-fueled derangement that drove him to pick up a rifle and engage in barbarity.
In cutting down the object of his contempt, Kirk’s alleged killer touched off ghoulish, despicable celebrations in certain quarters, some of which continue to this day.
Amid the aftershocks of 9/11, nearly the entire nation rallied together and embraced a unity of purpose, at least for a while. It’s hard not to wonder how we might collectively act in the face of a similar attack, God forbid, in today’s era of extreme polarization, rising American self-hatred, and algorithmic toxicity.
If the sewer of online bile that gurgled to life after Kirk’s death is any indication, another “United We Stand” moment might very well prove elusive. This may offer a sick sense of encouragement to those who detest our country, both in the darkest corners of the world and, increasingly, here at home.
For Americans of goodwill, this Thursday and Friday are important days. In their own vile ways, the acts of bloodshed associated with Sept. 10 and 11 were assaults against values that we must emphatically and unapologetically defend.
We don’t have to agree on political solutions or policy prescriptions. But we must agree, vocally, that a politics that normalizes or accepts the murder of opponents represents a path into the abyss.
United we must stand in saying “no.” We must shun the murder celebrators and normalizers.
Relatedly, we must rise up in overwhelming rejection of any notion that America somehow deserved or earned what the terrorists did to us two and a half decades ago. This entails redoubling our commitment to the ideas and beliefs that those hijackers tried to shake, as well as teaching younger Americans who lack any living memory of that horrible day what really happened — not with vague slogans, and certainly not with agenda-driven historical revisionism, but with hard, uncomfortable, truthful accounts.
United we must stand in accurate, painful reflection.
MAMDANISM FALTERS IN NEW YORK
Fulfilling the rallying cry of “never forget” requires affirmative effort, not passive and sporadic brow-furrowing. At the very least, we owe that to the victims. And given some of the trends we’re witnessing within our country, we owe it to ourselves.
The violence perpetrated by hateful forces can only be met with clear-eyed determination and proactive, practiced love for the values and principles they tried to tear down.
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[ H/T Washington Examiner ]
