The Great Smoky Mountain Journal

Staff Reports

Posted: Sunday, January 21, 2018 03:51 PM

OUR VIEW: 16 Years Later May We Never Forget The Lessons Of 9-11-2001

One lady in particular was just sobbing, screaming "the Pentagon has been hit, the Pentagon has been hit." Other men joined in the screams running to their cars. When I walked back into the hotel the young desk clerk had tears in her eyes with a pale look on her face. She and I just shook our heads at each other together as the tears rolled down my face as well.

And let us also not forget the brave souls on United 93 who very well may have saved the White House.

If not for those brave souls, who had they not acted and crashed the plane themselves fighting the terrorists on board, yet another building in DC- perhaps the U.S. Capitol or White House would have been hit next. Shanksville, PA. officials deserve a big salute for establishing a new memorial in 2015 for those fallen heroes.

There is nothing to describe the feeling in the air that morning with people being scared, not knowing what was coming next, and for me personally being 900 miles from home at the time was not the best of feelings. It will be memories etched in my mine for all eternity.

I was in New York again in 2014 driving through the city 13 years after the fact and those memories washed over me a fresh. I saw the Yankees play for the first time ever in my life at Yankee Stadium on 9-11-2014 and thought to myself how lucky I was to be alive but then sadly wondered if those packed in a park watching a baseball game understood the gravity of the day and what took place 13 years ago. I wonder even more in 2017.

According to a story related to this editorial, concern among Americans about Islamic fundamentalism is at its highest level since just after the 9/11 attacks, as seven in 10 fear a terrorist attack again on our homeland according to a poll taken by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs.

The study is troubling to me on so many levels in that it found that concerns about terrorist attacks from Islamic fundamentalists have surged past worries about fears of Iran's nuclear program, computer hacking, and international terrorism.

Without knowing exactly how the poll was worded let me be clear that the Islamic threat involves all of those issues - ISIS, IRAN, computer hacking, AND international terrorism. They are all related. It's the same root with many evil branches.

Yet so many in our nation, especially those on the left, are either willfully ignorant of that or just don't care. We're arguing about statutes when our enemies continue to plot our destruction from afar.

We're bickering over what our President says and the semantics of his words while North Korea test fires ICBM missiles into the Pacific Ocean that will have America's name on them eventually if we don't act. Even scarier is this mad man dictator who would love nothing more than to pass one of those missiles with a nuclear nuclear warhead to the same people who attacked us on 9-11.
 

The next attack may not come as two planes flying into towers, the next attack may be a plume of mushroom smoke.

The fact is our fundamental enemies have not changed even though the players on the stage may have 16 years later. The threat of Islamic terrorism is still just as dangerous in 2017 as it was then.
In addressing the future, we must first address the past a bit here so bear with me as I regress as to what has taken place since 9-11-2001.

The wicked administration of Barrack Obama tried to hide the true nature of our enemies and was not willing to label who they were and identify their ideology or motives.
Mr. Obama and his protagonists tried to trick the American psyche into believing that his foreign policy had made the world safe and sound because now we were not being so mean to those awful misunderstood Jihadists.

The thing is though when you see ISIS butchering and raping women, crucifying newborns and children, then beheading and executing men in mass graves, along with the flood of Syrian refugees into Europe as they flee the Islamic State, it's sort of hard to believe that the world was a safer place under Barrack Obama. It's not much safer under President Trump but at least we have a leader now who recognizes that fact and is willing to at least call them out by name!

Americans need to continue to recognize the danger to the homeland and be aware that as we honor the 2996 victims killed in the attacks of 9-11 we must never forget the fundamental face of those behind it.

The left has never understood this. In 2015 Mr. Obama and his administration handed one of the greatest exporters of world Islamic fundamentalism and terrorism 150 billion dollars to finance their jihad and nuclear ambitions, ambitions that include the destruction of Israel and America through any means necessary.

Barrack Obama was always mocked as being stupid or naive by those on the right. This was a mistake. I remember hearing so many pundits claim he was "in over his head" or "he is just weak," in trying to figure out why he did the things he did with our foreign policy in light of the 9-11 terrorist attacks.

They were dead wrong.

I firmly believe that the removal of our defenses during the Obama years were calculated and in step with his Islamic-friendly agenda. People ask all the time was he a Muslim? What does it matter at this point as his former Secretary of State arrogantly asked a year ago about the death of four murdered Americans in Benghazi. The damage has been done.

Muslim or not, he did everything possible to protect the Muslim world at the expense of our American democracy at every turn. So whatever it says on his identity card at this point is sadly moot.

It doesn’t take a Harvard graduate to see when your President has a middle name of Hussein, it sort of goes without saying that he has ties outside America. Those ties were never addressed by the media which is the same media so concerned with whether President Trump's middle name is "Comrade."

Amazing if a President is Islamic-friendly he's good, if he's pro-Russia he's bad. Both issues are bad but the hypocrisy just makes you shake your head and say what the hell.

The world never respected Barrack Obama no matter who it was. When China repeatedly sailed their subs off the California coast and Russia her subs off the Georgia coast the same day it was apparent they did not fear or respect Barrack Obama.

That was in contrast to 16 years ago right after the attacks in 2001 those responsible for the terror immediately went into hiding in the hills of Afghanistan when they realized a strong leader named George W. Bush was not going to let stand the travesty that had taken place.

I may have my issues with President Bush on many levels for many things but on this issue, I have never been wavering in my respect for the former president and his leadership during that time. He deserves a lot of praise for how he handled things even though many in the left have done nothing through the years but continue to claim he lied about WMD in Iraq.

For that reason alone, I will always have deep respect for Bush 43.

And that is the point of this editorial today. All of us have our 9-11 memory, where we were that morning, what we were doing when we heard the news, how we felt, and how it changed us.

The politically correct morons of the media have tried their best along with godless politicians to change the narrative of 9-11 and get us to forget.

But the fact remains, WE CAN'T FORGET and don't need to. We need to always be vigilant and sober in these hours ahead - yes even 16 years later when despite so much being done since 2001 to stop another 9-11, all our efforts have not stopped new and more dangerous enemies from emerging and seeking new ways to destroy this beautiful land we call home.

The current threat from ISIS, Russia, and all other enemies of the United States foreign and domestic must be dealt with by strong leadership who recognize the enemies we face for who they are and deal strongly not weakly with them.

Sadly on this 9-11-2017, that type leadership is seriously at a premium among those in Washington D.C., and lacking in a dangerously unprecedented way.

I have a lot of faith in President Trump that he will not be as weak as President Obama was in the face of our enemies. But the truth is President Trump is just one man. He must rely on a feckless Congress that is just as much to blame for policies that aided our enemies over the past eight years as President Obama.

But I don't lay the apathy and lack of concern most feel 16 years later about 9-11 at the door of Washington D.C. totally. I lay it at the door of the faces that stare back at us all in the mirror.

WE, the American people, have allowed our leaders to be weak and not hold them accountable and ultimately, we will be the ones who pay that price for their dereliction of duty. We want to be entertained, not informed.

We want to hear about what the Kardashians are wearing; not what terrorists are doing to destroy us.

We want to hear the latest soap boxes on Facebook and Twitter every day without taking the time to keep up with current events and know what is happening around us.

I remember when the Obama White House altered documents about the strength of ISIS in telling the country at press briefings how much ISIS has been weakened. Very little was done to counteract that argument from the media. Most of the American public yawned at the story.

Many conservatives and reason-minded people didn’t yawn. It may not be ISIS per say but there are groups out there like ISIS salivating for 9-11 Round Two. The very nature of Islam is to wait her enemies out and that she is willing to do as our collective public empathy continues to grow.

Yes it's been 16 years since 9-11. Wow. It's hard to even say it and think it's been that long but it has. No matter what our government does or does not say, we need to teach our children, many of whom may not have been born in 2001, about what happened to this nation 16 years ago and instill in them this one basic fact - we as a nation are in danger from an enemy who seeks to destroy us!

And we need to teach our children the roots of that enemy! I encourage everyone to get a copy of the movie "United 93," and watch it with your family - yearly if possible.

Our children need to know what price terrorism took on this nation and who the people were who were behind it. This generation needs to know the face of the enemy that still lurks in the shadows waiting to destroy their future if they cease to remain diligent.

As you go about your business today, say a prayer for the 2977 lives lost and their families. So many of the children of the victims are now adults with children of their own, children who are a new generation that faces it's own peril amidst an abyss of spiritual darkness that America is not just sinking into but falling into as we speak.

Let us NEVER forget 9-11 and may God have mercy on us as a nation this 9-11-2017. We need His mercy right now 10000 times more than His blessing.

For it will only be in His Mercy we will find our protection from those seeking to destroy us.

To that I'll Amen myself.

God's speed.

Christopher McDonald, Publisher, Editor in Charge

Great Smoky Mountain Journal

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