It Got Worse

A few days after the terrorist attacks of September 11th, 2001, I wrote a short essay titled “I Thought It Couldn’t Get Worse.”

Sadly, it seems it has gotten worse. A lot worse. We’re now embroiled in a war that has nothing to do with those attacks, yet those attacks are used to justify this war.

In the dark days after the planes hit the buildings, two things were immediately clear to me, probable to the point of certainty: 1) that the point of the terrorist attacks could only be to provoke war between Islam and the West, and 2) that we would fall for it.

Man, it really sucks to be right sometimes.

September 11th used to be the Day Everything Changed. In New Orleans it no longer feels that way. We’ve got a new day on the calendar for that, sadly enough.

Meanwhile, in the United States, September 11th seems to have turned into National Hate-Mongering Day. I just turned on the radio and got an earful:

They say we can’t stop another attack? I can stop it. Let me unroll the barbed wire. And the very first people going in there are the ACLU lawyers.

I’m not making this up. This wasn’t a caller — this was the host. He wasn’t joking, either. He literally wants concentration camps here in America, with the ACLU as prisoners, in the name of stopping terrorism.

You and I might dismiss such talk as the ranting of an idiot. But you and I don’t have nationally syndicated talk shows.

To the families of the victims, I want to say, “I’m sorry.” I’m sorry we as a nation have perverted the memory of your loss to serve such hateful political ends.