Opaque Lucidity

On Some Idle Tuesday

Hugh Hewitt played some audio from the morning of 9/11 on his Weekend Journal show this weekend. There are so many characteristics of that day I had forgotten: the confusion, the difficult silences when no one, not even professional radio people, had anything to say. I forgot my shock and how, since I worked second shift, I sat in one position on our couch all day, unable to move. I was on the house phone and my cell phone making sure my brothers, one in Washington, DC and one in Chicago that day, were OK. Peter's cousin was in downtown Manhattan, so I was receiving updates about him as well. Howard Stern stayed on late and did a better job of reporting than anyone else I heard that morning; I turned down the TV audio and listened to him. He was a different person.

One thing we have lost from that day is the moral clarity that existed for that short time. When the second plane hit the towers, most of us knew we were under attack. We were all New Yorkers that day because we are all Americans---attack one of us and you attack all of us. Evil had acted against this nation, and we all knew what would come next. When Kelli came home from lunch, we talked about Pearl Harbor. There was going to be a war. We didn't know where, but evil beings would be made to pay for this. It seemed like we had a moral obligation to avenge so many innocent deaths.

Five years on, I still believe in that obligation. Unfortunately, it didn't take long for many people in the United States to begin to lose their resolve. About a month after 9/11, a friend of ours came into town and his first comment about the tragedy was, "We need to learn why these people hate us so much." I didn't disagree with him because I wasn't sure where to begin. The statement makes the assumption that our society, collectively, has done something not only worthy of hate, but worthy of such a cowardly act against innocents. But among those on the Left who secretly hate this country, that question remains first in their minds.

Unfortunately, this line of thought has merged with a group that has always existed: conspiracy theorists. They believe that a secret cabal killed Kennedy, we never went to the moon, Elvis never died, city water is being treated with chemicals designed to keep us docile, etc. For about the first six months after 9/11, no one in his right mind dared introduce the idea of a hidden agenda behind 9/11. After all, the facts of the case had been witnessed by millions of people.

But then Afghanistan happened and, soon after that, Iraq. The Left, lead by the likes of Howard Dean and Michael Moore, introduced a new idea into the American psyche: we need to hate George Bush more than we hate terrorists. When this meme began to spread like wildfire, it was only a matter of time until the tinfoil looneys met the looneys from the Left. It was a match made in heaven.

The theories started with Osama Bin Laden. The CIA created him. The CIA funded him. Both of these statements are false, and obviously so to anyone smart enough to do a little reading about what happened in Afghanistan during the 1980's. The US funded the Muhjahdin, which was a completely separate group from the foreign fighters Bin Laden helped to supply. Same mission, different lines of reasoning. Of course, it doesn't matter to those who get their info from 10 second sound bytes: the CIA sent money to some brown-skinned folks over yonder, so they created the bad men.

Now, years later, the theories run from the merely crazy to the dangerous and seditious. A passenger plane did not crash into the Pentagon. All the Israelis working in the Twin Towers stayed home on 9/11. The White House knew the exact day the attacks were going to take place and did nothing. The attack was planned by Bush to take us into war so he could have himself declared President for Life.

I'm going to put this as simply as I can: if you believe any of the above craziness, you are either an idiot or a faux elitist pawn. None of these theories would have ever seen the light of day were it not for the hatred of George Bush that exists among many Democrats and Leftists. But now, because of this twisted co-joining, 35% of Americans believe that what we know about 9/11 is some sort of lie. Thirty-five percent.

There are some simple things that need to happen in this country, but at the top of the list is our need to win the war. As long as our enemy knows that there are so many useful idiots in our society, they will continue to be emboldened because, after all, much of their war is propaganda-based. So if you believe that 9/11 is the work of Bush, Cheney, Rove and Company as part of a plan to drive up oil prices, please shut the hell up for the good of your nation.

I know that I will hear the Moore-like statement, "But asking questions is a very American thing to do." Yes, it is, when those questions are honest and seek the truth. But the questions many on the Left are asking only exist to plant fear, uncertainty and doubt in the mind of Americans with the hope of gaining some political favor. It is sick and (yes, I'm going to say it) un-American.