Not Done: 9/11 Still Infuriates

by: warner todd huston | published: 09 12, 2011

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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