The picture above is from the 9/11 Memorial in the Boston Public Garden. While the events of 20 years ago today are strongly associated with New York City, it must be remembered that the two planes which crashed into the Twin Towers (American Airlines Flight 11 and United Airlines Flight 175) took off from Boston's Logan Airport. Among the nearly 3,000 Americans killed that day, 206 hailed from Massachusetts.
I learned of the attacks while in Lynn, Massachusetts - just north of Boston. It was my fourth day on a job with a non-profit organization assisting people with mental health and developmental difficulties find employment. That same day a company picnic had been scheduled at its headquarters in nearby Beverly. I remember hearing Peter Jennings on the radio recounting the morning's awful events. What ought to have been a joyful occasion was anything but.
Following the picnic, I remained in Beverly and walked by the beach. It was a beautiful sunny day and I remember gazing upon an equally beautiful woman in bikini soaking in the sun without a care in the world. I wonder if she knew what had happened. Yet the peace and beauty of the day could not obscure the fact there was evil in the world.
That evening, I walked from my apartment in the Fenway to Harvard Square in Cambridge to recite poetry at the Open Mic night at Club Passim. Understandably, the crowd was sparse and somber. But I wanted to be there to try to maintain some semblance of normalcy. While many of the poets expressed sympathy for those who died there were those who were quick to condemn the United States even suggesting that it might have been an inside job. This disgusted me and I had the opportunity to reflect on that disgust on the 10th anniversary of 9/11. Conspiracy theories are a poor and lazy substitute for honest reflection and inquisitive thinking. They also have the effect of minimizing the culpability of those who bore the responsibility of planning and executing the murder of nearly 3,000 American civilians.
There are those among us who try to avoid the politics of 9/11 and I understand their reasons. Yet this is something I cannot do because the events of the day profoundly changed my political outlook. The events of September 11, 2001 gradually turned me from a Canadian democratic socialist to an American neo-conservative.
I was appalled when then NDP leader Alexa McDonough condemned the United States and al Qaeda in equal measure and was unwilling to support U.S. airstrikes in Afghanistan and disavowed my association with the party right then and there. I say this because the events of September 11, 2001 gradually turned me from a Canadian democratic socialist to an American neo-conservative. I was dismayed by The Left's moral equivalence, unwillingness to acknowledge radical Islamic terrorism and their vilification of Israel. I'll never forget the Palestinians who stood and cheered the destruction of the World Trade Center. By 2003, I was writing columns for online conservative websites and beginning in 2009 I became a regular contributor to The American Spectator. In one of my columns, I wrote about my Dad and I visiting the 9/11 Memorial & Museum on Memorial Day Weekend in 2014. I remember my Dad telling me he could smell the dust from the WTC when we passed the FDNY Ladder 3 truck on display.
It has now been more than 5 years since I last wrote for The American Spectator. Along came Donald Trump, his candidacy, his presidency, COVID-19 and the deaths of 650,000 Americans and counting. These events drove me back leftward though not all the way back to my earlier socialist beliefs. But enough to vote for Joe Biden and subsequently vote for Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock while I was in Atlanta albeit with reservations about Warnock.
This isn't to say that I have disregarded what happened on September 11, 2001 nor have I disregarded the risks of radical Islamic terrorism. The recent withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan will the Taliban resuming power put this into sharp focus. President Biden has been subject to withering criticism some of it justified. But it was former President Trump who saw fit to negotiate with the Taliban instead of the democratically elected Afghan government and was going to meet with Taliban leaders at Camp David two years ago until a backlash forced him to cancel his plans. This embarrassing spectacle did not prevent the Doha Agreement which was largely left to Biden to implement. As I recently argued, however awful the Taliban is Biden has made the calculation they won't aid and abet terrorists who launch large scale attacks in the United States. Of course, should this happen under his watch then his presidency is over.
While we remember September 11th today, we will still have to deal with COVID-19 tomorrow. In March 2020, when it became clear the pandemic was going to change our lives as we knew it, I made this comparison between 9/11 and the Coronavirus:
Although the Coronavirus became a global public health concern at the end of January, it has only been over the past week or so that I every time I walk out into the streets of New York City nearly every conversation I hear is about the Coronavirus. The only other I ever experienced something like this was in the days following the September 11th attacks when I lived in Boston (no doubt those conversations in NYC were a thousand fold). The difference is that those conversations in 2001 concerned an event which had already occurred whereas with the Coronavirus conversations the discussion revolves around an event where the worst is yet to come.
Indeed, this country is currently experiencing 1 million new cases every week, hospitalizations in the six figures and a 9/11 death toll nearly every day. To make matters worse, we have several vaccines which can grind this virus to a halt and yet a critical mass of Americans refuse to take the vaccine (let alone wear a mask) in the name of freedom. One can only hope President Biden's vaccine mandate will help but it could be too little, too late.
In the context of this resistance to vaccines and the refusal to accept that Donald Trump isn't President any more, I am sorry to say that I fear a large segment of my fellow Americans more than I fear foreign born Islamic terrorists. While January 6, 2021 resulted in far fewer deaths than September 11, 2001 the events of 8 months ago to prevent the peaceful transfer of power has left a wound on American democracy that has not healed. The United States is more likely to crumble from within and given the current conditions I have wondered if America will cease to be by its 250th anniversary in less than 5 years from now.
Despite our present pandemic troubles, we must still remember September 11, 2001. We must remember those who were killed and we must also remember why they were killed.
