"Where were you when the world stopped turning, that September day?" Those words from Country singer Allan Jackson have echoed through my head all day today.
I was sharing a room at ISA on September 11, 2001, with Nels Tyring, and was sitting on the bed watching the news as the sketchy reports of the airplane hitting the North Tower of the World Trade Center started to come in. So I was one of several million eyewitnesses to the actual crash of the second airplane into the South Tower. I had just told Nels to come and watch, because they were going to show an animation of the crash...when I realized that this was a second airplane and an actual attack I was watching.
We are enmeshed in a national debate right now, about many things. I'm taking this day, the fifth anniversary of that terrible day, to reflect on the situation.
We are under attack, there is no question about that. All you have to do is to listen to the words of Osama bin Laden, his lieutenants, President Ahmadinejad of Iran, Nasrullah of the Hezbollah, and many, many more. The "we" I am talking about is Western civilization, not the United States.
In the name of God, these people have declared total war against an entire culture, not against nation/states. Ahmadinejad writes letters to heads of state clearly modeled after those the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, sent to the Kaisar-i-Rum, the emperor of Byzantium.
We can only hope and pray and believe that the vast majority of the world's Muslims do NOT believe the way that these men do, and that eventually, we will find them and put them out of power, before they make good on their threats to kill or convert us all.
Let us reflect on this, and pray that we will be better, in our response to this threat, than they are-- those terrorists who have inflicted this war upon us.
