16.8 Forgetting the Lessons of September 11 2001
Alan Jackson wrote a song in which he said what we need is love. Others have pointed out that hatred and anger is important, hatred toward the countries that made it possible for Muslim terrorists to kill so many Americans that day. Lance Morrow wrote about that in an article for Time Magazine titled ""The Case for Rage and Retribution". He wrote:
For once, lets have no "Grief counselors" standing by with banal consolations, as if the purpose, in the midst of all this, were merely to make everyone feel better as quickly as possible. We shouldn't feel better...
A day cannot live in infamy without the nourishment of rage. Lets have rage.
What's needed is a unified, unifying, Pearl Harbor sort of purple American fury--a ruthless indignation that doesn't leak away in a week or two.. America needs to relearn a lost discipline, self confident relentlessness, and to relearn why human nature has equipped us with a weapon (abhorred in decent peacetime societies) called hatred... As the bodies are counted, into the thousands and thousands, hatred will not, I think, be a difficult emotion to summon. Is the medicine too strong? Call it rather a wholesome and intelligent emnity-the sort that impels even such a prosperous, messily tolerant organism as America to act.
There were others who agreed.
Neil Kressel, in an article titled "Getting Mad: Not Just Healthy, But Vital (New York Post 10/26/01) wrote:
In the end, the biggest danger to our present war effort is not overreaction, but underreaction. With the citizenry angry as hell, the government is more likely to err in the right direction.
A year later Eric Fettman in an OpEd called Where's the Anger (New York Post 8/29/02) wrote:
...what has happened to our anger?
The acute rage, the white-hot fury that nearly all Americans felt in the immediate aftermath of the horrifying murders of 3,000 people seems to have dissipated.
And, with it, the resolve that saw Americans united on the need to utterly demolish international terrorism...
I'm sorry, but I don't want to see mournful processions and bagpipes playing "Amazing Grace" over and over. I want to see a rekindling of the unrestrained anger we once felt...
Yes, taking drastic action on the basis of unrestrained emotion can be dangerous. More often than not, it's necessary to step back a bit and gain some perspective.
But it's just as dangerous when the pendulum of emotion swings to the opposite extreme - and we forget what and why we are fighting.
Darryl Worley wrote a song called "Have You Forgotten?". I've included the song below.
The attacks of September 11 were carried out by Al Qaeda a Muslim terrorist group organized by Osama bin Laden. They were carried out after the United States had retreated in response to previous terrorist attacks. After September 11, America finally woke up and understood what to do. George Bush gave the Taliban of Afghanistan an ultimatum to turn over the Al Qaeda terrorists to the United States. The Taliban refused and the United States attacked Afghanistan. The way to deal with terrorism, is not to retreat but to attack and to attack not only the terrorists but the nations that shelter and sponsor them.
Unfortunately on the 22nd anniversary of September 11, the Biden administration announced that it made a deal with Iran in which it would swap 5 imprisoned Iranians for 5 imprisoned American hostages and release $6,000,000,000 in Iranian assets to the Iranian government. This of course will encourage Iran to take more hostages. Not only that but Iran, which is a state sponsor of terrorists, will use it to sponsor more terrorism.
Senator Cotton posted on X:
First Joe Biden used 9/11 as an excuse to flee Afghanistan. Now he desecrates this day by paying ransom to the world’s worst state sponsor of terrorism. Shameful.
It's not only shameful, it's dangerous.
America has forgotten. Unfortunately it will be reminded soon.
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