We all remember where we were that day, 19 years ago, when we were attacked on our own soil for the first time since 1941. The attackers, hiding in caves in nations that owed their survival to foreign aid paid for by our taxes, unwilling to go toe-to-toe with a military force they knew could crush them (as we proved afterward) felt that an assault on civilians, including women and children, was the best way to demonstrate what they laughably called "courage."
And in response, we rallied. We pulled together, and as soon as we finished burying our dead, we started burying theirs. Their weapons of choice were made by Boeing. So were ours. They killed three thousand of ours, so we killed three hundred thousand of theirs. They demolished two buildings, so we demolished two countries.
Then we called it even.
We were, for once in my lifetime, the UNITED States in more than just name. Our resolve to hunt down and crush the ones responsible, crossed all dividing lines in America; racial, political, and career differences were laid aside. We were one. We were Americans. And one did not carry out something like this against our countrymen with impunity. There would be a price to pay, and we would exact it in blood.
My, how 19 years have changed us.
I often wonder what would happen if something like 9/11 happened to America today, and I shudder at the thought. Not the thought of the attack, but the thought of how my country would respond. I have pondered it at length, and here is what would be likely to happen.
Antifa would hold rallies praising the courage of the hijackers and calling for (and in a few cases carrying out) more attacks.
BLM would praise the hijackers for "having the courage to stand up for black and brown people against the white man."
NFL players would wear the names of the hijackers on their helmets.
"The Squad" would give speeches hailing the bravery of the hijackers and wear symbolic ribbons honoring not the victims, but the "sacrifice" made by the "freedom fighters" of Al-Qaeda.
Flag-waving rallies in support of the military men and women who were preparing to retaliate, would be lambasted on CNN as "white supremacist rallies."
Social media would come alive with debates over whether the attacks were the fault of 1) climate change, 2) white privilege, or 3) Donald Trump.
Facebook would ban any criticism of the attacks as "hate speech."
Universities across America would present farcical "studies" proving that the attacks were not carried out by Al-Qaeda but were by Americans.
And of course...
A presidential candidate with known and obvious ties to Al-Qaeda would run on the Democrat ticket, saying we should "stop provoking them," and of course this would be riddled with heavy implications that "the ones claiming the attack was by Muslims are Russian bots."
People will say "that's impossible. We wouldn't be that blind after an attack that killed 3,000 of our countrymen."
Oh really?
A biological attack by China has, at the time of this post, killed 192,000 of our countrymen.
...Do we look united?