- A year has passed, but not the shadow cast by the insanity
of your act.
-
- A year has passed, and we have seen the magnitude of
the pain that you caused the family members and the friends of the 3,000
slain.
-
- A year has passed, but in that time, we have seen no
evidence that you have ever comprehended the gravity of your crime.
-
- Therefore, I have some questions to ask you -- all of
you.
-
- These questions persist, like the fires that burned within
the twisted debris that was once the surpassing glory of the Twin Towers,
taken down a year ago today by your twisted plot.
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- *
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- Tell me...
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- When you attacked one nation, did you not attack all
nations?
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- When you attacked one nation, under God, did you not
do so in the name of God?
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- When you attacked one nation, indivisible, did you think
that you would divide that nation, indivisible?
-
- When you attacked one nation, with liberty and justice
for all, did you think that you would diminish the dedication of that nation
to liberty, and justice, for all?
-
- When you advanced your agenda of assassination, and sent
your associates, and others, to a senseless, fiery death, did you think
that you would be achieving anything?
-
- When you slit the throats of the beautiful stewardesses,
did you champion the cause of equality among all persons, especially women?
-
- When you killed the talented pilots, those brave captains
of the air, upon whom the lives of hundreds of people depended, including
innocent children, did you remember that you, too, were once a child, and
did you remember the fears that that child once felt?
-
- When you perpetrated these heinous acts of air piracy,
these crimes against humanity, did you intend to show us the grandeur of
your theory of civilization?
-
- When you stole the airplanes, from people more accomplished
than you, and more creative, and more productive, and more tolerant, and
more devoted to the goodly works that uplift humanity, and then used those
planes to knock down the world's two greatest buildings, had you not already
shouted from the mountaintop how unaccomplished, and uncreative, and destructive,
and intolerant, and pitiful, and small you are?
-
- When you destroyed the World Trade Center, those two
sleek towers reaching upward toward the heavens, citadels to the idea of
how big humanity can be, and murdered the citizens of 80 nations, as they
peaceably went about their lives in pursuit of an interdependent planet,
did you understand that you were attacking the entire world, a world that
now stands in solidarity with the survivors left with the gaping holes
in their hearts, a world that has concluded that you, and all who share
your methods, are evil?
-
- *
-
- A year has passed, and it might as well have been a thousand
years, for a year after your wicked deeds were waged against the most generous
people on Earth, and the buildings fell, and the innocents were killed,
and the heroes died, and the smoke rose with the men, the clear light of
morning finds you on the wrong side of history.
-
- I ask you, my friends, did you think that the people
of a nation that stood shoulder-to-shoulder with George Washington at Valley
Forge; that fought a bloody Civil War so that all of its citizens could
be free; that settled an unsettled continent; that passed through Ellis
Island provisioned only with dreams; that braved the trenches at Verdun
and the Nazi gun emplacements at Normandy; and then landed men on the desolate
face of the Moon, on behalf of all humanity, would somehow tremble, or
give personal security a second thought, as they were deployed to the surface
of your inhospitable desert?
-
- Did you not learn, upon seeing the courage of the hundreds
of firefighters, police, and others who rushed into the towers, saving
95% of those inside, only to sacrifice their lives saving people that they
did not even know, that we are the sons and daughters of that historical
legacy, and as such, are fierce, and fearless, and invincible, and bold?
-
- Did you find any individuals of that caliber -- of that
heroic stature -- among the common people of your homeland?
-
- Did you fail to see, in your spiritual blindness, that
we would remain vigilant, and at the same time protect one another?
-
- Did you not know that we have always shown a willingness
to bear any burden when the fundamental values of liberty and democracy
are at stake?
-
- Did you believe that you had something revelatory to
teach the most religious people on Earth about the nature of God, or faith,
or morality?
-
- Did you hold fast to some conceited notion that you had
a message for the most cooperative nation on Earth about unity, or social
equity, or common purpose?
-
- Did you imagine that you had something about tolerance
to teach a nation that could conceive of, and then implement, a doctrine
as tolerant as affirmative action?
-
- Have not the young people of your race and your religion,
not vied, vigorously, for decades, to find places in the ivied halls of
our universities, and jobs in the alabaster towers of our cities, and a
new future in the freest and the fairest nation on Earth?
-
- Did you wish to instruct the most esteemed political
system on Earth about liberty, or justice, or the superiority of your peculiar
beliefs?
-
- Did you forget the fact that the practitioners of terror
are the common enemies of humanity, and will come to ruin, because like
all of the tyrants and madmen before them, they are the enemies of peace,
and morality, and common decency?
-
- Did you fail to learn the lesson, taught by all the wars
that humanity has ever fought, and written in the tears and the blood of
history, that all human beings are created in the divine image and likeness
of their Creator, and as such, should be treated with love, and respect,
and dignity?
-
- Did you comprehend that we would prefer not to pursue
you, but would instead prefer to honor that divine nature within you, but
are now, instead, forced, against our will, to hunt you down like the wanton
criminals that you are, and kill you, like brute beasts?
-
- Did you foresee that that was how you were going to die,
as villains, and as cowards, and that you chose that fate for yourselves?
-
- Did you appreciate the fact that, ultimately, we will
get you, and destroy you, not so much so that you can be taken to a paradise
where virgins reside, but, rather, the dung-heap of history, so that your
remains can rot in repose with all those who have opposed America, and
everything that she represents, and stands for, and defends?
-
- Did you find it in your hearts to oppose life, and liberty,
and the pursuit of happiness?
-
- Did you harden your hearts to the truth that America
has lifted a lamp, and held it to the future, so that the world could see
the future, a future in which the blessings of liberty are now, for the
first time in human history, within the vital reach of all human beings?
-
- Did you comprehend that because of this fact, America
cannot, and will not, and shall not be defeated; that she will not only
survive, but prevail; that despite your best efforts, government of the
people, and by the people, and for the people, shall not perish from this
Earth, but shall someday come to pass for all the world?
-
- *
-
- A year has passed, and these questions linger in the
air like fragments of a nightmare, your psychotic dream, while the divine
light that has guided America over the centuries still shines, transcendent,
and terrible, and triumphant, across the field of time.
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- Andrew D. Basiago is an American lawyer, journalist,
and publisher
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