9-11

One decade.

There will be millions of words written about the 10-year anniversary of 9-11. As the writers should, they’ll praise the heroism of the FDNY, the NYPD, the passengers on Flight 93, and the thousands of others who stepped-up when it was needed.

They’ll recount the tragic events of that day and only peripherally discuss why so many Americans suffered the tragedy. They’ll tiptoe around the cause of the tragic events—a cowardly act of war against an office building complex filled with civilians, perpetrated by Islamic extremists who by their own admission, celebrate death as much as we celebrate life.

They’ll worry about why it happened, and some, at least, will place the blame on us. Instead, they might ask why over the past decade the worldwide Islamic community has done relatively little to condemn the fanatics who committed this act of war and virtually nothing to rid their religion of those who support the Islamists.

The MSM will be full of live broadcasts of memorial events in NYC and at other sites. But only a few will wonder why political correctness, hyper-sensitivity, and bureaucratic inertia has caused some of these memorial sites to remain incomplete 10 years after the event.

The media will recount the very personal and moving stories of the heroes and the families who lost loved ones. But few will ask why the anger we felt as a nation has dissipated into an amorphous feeling of ennui.

Immediately after 9-11, those on the Left who would normally decry any attempt at retribution, remained silent, shocked by the enormity of this heinous attack. That changed, and today, it’s not at all hard to find some in the media, the arts, and the body-politic who suggest that 9-11 was somehow our fault—that our hegemony, capitalism, and greed drove the Islamists to do what they did.

In our schools 9-11 will be discussed gently, with an emphasis on diversity, cultural acceptance, and understanding. That’s as it should be. But it would be okay for children too young to remember to be reminded that the world is full of many things—some good, and some evil. And no matter how much we’d like it to be so, the evil will not be eradicated by a better understanding of others or their culture.

But in this post modern world, evil is such a subjective concept, isn’t it? Then again, if 9-11 wasn't evil, if watching innocents leap to their death from 100 stories in the air wasn’t the result of evil, if flying airliners into tall buildings with hundreds on board—men,women, and children—wasn’t evil, please tell me what is.