I hear people saying "we don't need this war."
I say there's some things worth fighting for.
What about our freedom and this piece of ground?
We didn't get to keep 'em by backing down.
They say we don't realize the mess we're getting in.
Before you start your preaching,
Let me ask you this my friend.
Have you forgotten, how it felt that day,
To see your homeland under fire and her people blown away?
-Darryl Worley

"Our war on terror begins with al Qaeda, but it does not end there. It will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped and defeated."
-George W. Bush, "State of the Union Address" 20 Sep, 2001.

Once It Was Us

To any of my countrymen reading this, this is a somber day, a day that is burned into the minds of all those of us old enough to remember it. Try to remember this date, 22 years ago. Remember the feeling of waking up to find your country under unprovoked attack by an enemy who openly declared his desire to see you wiped out. Do you remember it?
Well I do.
I remember being on the bus, on the way to school my senior year, and hearing over the driver's radio "they had some kind of explosion at the World Trade Center," and thinking it was just another bombing attempt like the one back in '93. I remember walking from first period to second period and passing by two teachers (both military vets) muttering in the hallway, and overhearing one say "two planes? One in each tower? That's no accident. It's terrorism," and connecting it to the radio message, thus realizing for the first time that something was up. I remember an announcement over the intercom in second period instructing all teachers to turn on the TV so the students could see what was happening, and seeing for the first time the smoke pouring from both towers. I remember as we discussed it afterwards, hearing the teacher say "we don't know who it was yet, and shouting out "I'm telling you, it's that guy who bombed the Cole; Uh... Oxo... Oxama Ba-Laden or something."
And I remember the very next day, walking from C.E. Byrd High School straight to an Army recruitment station, finding a line stretching out the door and down the sidewalk for half a block, and being told that no recruiter could see me that day and I'd have to wait for an appointment because they were booked for the rest of the month. Because there wasn't a military-age man anywhere in America who wasn't out looking for payback.

Let's imagine something for a moment. Imagine, dear reader, if you heard someone say to you a few months after the attack, "America brought it on themselves by persecuting Muslims and not allowing the Arabic language," or "we salute the Taliban for striking back at the west," or "Israel is using America in a proxy war against the Middle East."(1) Or maybe, imagine if you'd heard "the US should just concede Manhattan Island to Al Qaeda for the sake of peace." Tell me, dear reader, how ridiculous such statements would have sounded.
Imagine also, if you'd heard someone say "it's not acceptable for you to attack targets where civilians might be killed. Limit your attacks to targets inside the US. Don't violate the territory of Afghanistan," or if NATO had said "we'll send supplies and a few weapons here and there, but we don't want to get troops involved because it might lead to World War 3," or if you'd heard some of your own countrymen complain about the war against Al-Qaeda driving up the price of oil and saying we should negotiate with them so the price would go back down. Tell me, dear reader, how quickly would you have leapt upon the one who asked the question, and torn him limb from limb?
Restraint? "Measured" response? Dialogue with the terrorists? Screw that. We're America! Jihadis demolished two buildings, so we demolished two countries. Jihadis killed 3,000 of our people, so we killed 300,000 of theirs. Jihadis made us live in fear for a day, so we made them live in fear for a generation. Fair is fair, right?
And if we had it to do again, we'd do the same thing.

Now It's Ukraine

Now then, imagine that instead of a pair of landmarks in a pair of cities, it's your entire country under attack. Then, imagine that instead of being a superpower under attack by some third world hooligans, you're a nation with roughly the land area of Texas, the GDP of Virginia, and just over the population of California, and the nation attacking you is (or claims to be) "the second strongest army in the world."
And now, instead of a day of terror, imagine that feeling lasting for 564 days (and counting).

That, dear reader, is the current reality of the people of Ukraine. And every single "imagine if" statement above, has been put forward by Russia-apologists right here in America.

• "Ukraine brought it on themselves by persecuting Russians and not allowing the Russian language," (which, by the way, never happened).
• "We salute Russia and Wagner for striking back against NATO expansion," (by attacking a country that has never been in NATO) .
• "America is using Ukraine in a proxy war against the Russia," (which Russia started).
• "Ukraine should concede Crimea and Donbas to Russia for the sake of peace," (because history shows that conceding territory to an invader always stops the next invasion, right?).
• "It's not acceptable for you to attack targets where civilians might be killed. Limit your attacks to targets inside Ukraine. Don't violate the territory of Russia," (because it's one thing for them to attack your country but don't dare attack theirs).
• "We'll send supplies and a few weapons here and there, but we don't want to get troops involved because it might lead to World War 3," (because staying out of the war worked so well in the late 1930's, right?).
• "These sanctions against Russia are driving energy costs up! Why am I paying so much extra at the pump just to defend Ukraine?"

When we were attacked, once, we swore that the might of the US would be fully committed to the cause of eliminating the scourge of terrorism from this planet. We called ourselves "a country awakened to danger and called to defend freedom." Does anyone remember that? Allow me to revisit some of our own president's words from after that attack, with a few names changed to reflect the current world.

[Ukrainians] are asking, why do they hate us? They hate what we see right here in this chamber -- a democratically elected government. Their leaders are self-appointed. They hate our freedoms -- our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, our freedom to vote and assemble and disagree with each other...
These terrorists kill not merely to end lives, but to disrupt and end a way of life. With every atrocity, they hope that [Ukraine] grows fearful, retreating from the world and forsaking our [identity]. They stand against us, because we stand in their way.
We are not deceived by their pretenses to piety. We have seen their kind before. They are the heirs of all the murderous ideologies of the 20th century. By sacrificing human life to serve their radical visions -- by abandoning every value except the will to power -- they follow in the path of fascism, and Nazism, and totalitarianism. And they will follow that path all the way, to where it ends: in history's unmarked grave of discarded lies.

Well, ladies and gentlemen, that work of confronting terrorism is, at best, a long way from finished. Terrorism thrives today. It is being carried out daily, on a scale Al-Qaeda could only dream of, by a terrorist organization larger in manpower and money than Al-Qaeda could ever have become, against an entire population, while Americans who lived through 9/11 and swore "never again," give apologies for the terrorists. That terrorist organization is known as the Russian Federation, and it has sworn to continue on until they have carried their brutality to all of Europe, and then America. And while some of my countrymen are asking "why is my money going to Ukraine," I want to know why our troops aren't going to Ukraine!

We swore we would stand against terrorism anywhere, any time.

Well, the world is waiting for us to back those words up with actions.

(1) It occurs to me, ex posto facto, that I actually DID hear every single one of these arguments made, and they sounded as ignorant then as they do today about Ukraine.