Mark Steyn's take on 9/11's aftermath:

https://www.steynonline.com/11682/the-years-we-wasted

The Years We Wasted

For most of the last two decades we have observed the anniversary of 9/11 by re-posting my columns from the first few days of the new era. We ceased to do so after September 11th 2017 when "a president who, on the campaign trail, mocked his predecessor's inability to use the words 'radical Islam' himself eschewed all mention of the I-word" - and a defense secretary laughably hyped as Mad Dog Mattis turned out to be just another dribbler from the Washington Generals and retreated to the madrassah wing of the Pentagon to explain that it was all just a theological misunderstanding.

We shall not resume our anniversary observances today. The war is lost, at home and abroad. On the domestic front, we doubled the rate of Muslim immigration to the west and began assimilating ourselves with Islam's strictures on freedom of expression and the like. The decade-and-a-half since the Danish Mohammed cartoons has been one long remorseless surrender on core western liberties. When a school teacher gets beheaded in the street, there is no outrage at the act, just a mild regret that he should have been foolish enough to provoke his own fate. Even the milder jests from the immediate post-9/11 era - the cartoon of the woman trying on new burqas in the changing room and wondering, "Does my bomb look big in this?" - would not be published today:

In the broader society, our rulers quickly determined that it was easier to punish us than our enemies. The post-9/11 security state surely helped soften up western populations for the Chi-Com-19 lockdowns, in which entire nations have been reduced to TSA-administered airports.

As for the war overseas, it ended with a military that can do everything except win handing the keys to Afghanistan back to the guys who pulled off 9/11 - and apologizing for the two-decade inconvenience by gifting the mullahs with some of the most expensive infrastructure on the planet plus an air force, approximately five assault rifles for every Taliban fighter, and express check-in for the forty-seven per cent of the Afghan population that apparently served as US translators.

The position of the United States is far weaker than it was twenty years ago. Around the planet, the assumption of friends and enemies alike is that the American moment is over and the future belongs elsewhere. They are making their dispositions accordingly. It is not a question of wishing "the post-American world", but of accepting the known facts.

From time to time I still try to imagine what it must have been like on those planes. Twenty years ago I singled out three names from the flight manifest:

Peter Hanson, Massachusetts
Susan Hanson, Massachusetts
Christine Hanson, 2, Massachusetts

I used to think of the young parents, struggling to comfort the little girl sitting between them even as they confront the reality of their own fate. Mr Hanson was able to telephone his father in Connecticut and tell him that a hijacking was underway and that a stewardess had been stabbed. I wondered about the moment when everyone - Mr and Mrs Hanson, the flight attendants, the passengers - realized that the antiquated 1970s hijack procedures did not apply, that these men did not want to negotiate anything (the release of political prisoners, safe passage to Cuba) but wished only to destroy them.

Did those of us not on the planes ever learn that distinction? On the evidence of how the Taliban played the US "negotiators" in Doha, no.

There are honorable ways to lose a war. This was not one of them. We have dishonored the dead of 9/11 and insulted their sacrifice.

^^ So, so very sad

The years we wasted. The treasure we wasted. The blood we wasted. It is a colossal avoidable tragedy. How can anyone ever trust us again?

An excellent thread on the subject, worthy of annual and continuous additional input.

Hardly a day goes by without something reminding me of that awful day. A song, a movie, a TV show, a book or some other external input that brings it all back. I don't focus on it - I just remember. As sometimes I feel like we are circling the drain, I wonder what will come next.

Sadly very little coverage in the news, more about Queen Elizabeth’s coffin. The main Pravda paper the New York Times had nothing on line in the first five articles. Guess it doesn’t fit the goals.

The day started for me like any other. I was on my way to work when I heard on the radio of the first plane. The report I heard didn't day it was an airliner. So I thought it was a single engine plane and probably was an accident. A next door business guy came over later and said another plane had hit the other tower. Oh no this was no accident. We somehow got a television going in the office, and that is when the entire horror hit home, and in the days to follow sharpened into a horrible focus.

This day always brings tears to my eyes, so much loss and pain. I’ve done my best to teach our 11yo daughter about what happened. I always say a prayer, sometimes several throughout the day. My voice feels so small and insignificant, but I do not know what else to offer…

As to actually remembering that early part of the day as things unfolded I have nothing that really stands out...Other than watching the tv news stories as things unfolded... But just a couple days later the local newspaper printed a properly colored American flag of approx.12" x 14" and had placed one in the upper top left corner of the rear glass window of my Jeep Cherokee suv and one in each of the side rear windows.. The kicker to this story was that the flags had been purposidly placed up_side down.. immedately had all kinds of people verbally attacking me for "disrespecting" the flag at which I explained to check their flag history that this was showing a sign of distress that dated back to the days of sailing ships before the use of radio communications as a sign of distress to other ships as well as during WW2 when radio silence was required..................... drill sgt.

Remember the 343, remember all that died that day. Honor them. Never forget.

Somber day. Glad I was off and with my family today but found myself thinking about what I was doing that day many times throughout the course of the day. I as well think about it most other days as it altered the course of my life.

My wife came in a while ago and told me PBS Frontline was running a "reminiscence" that equated the terrorists of 9/11/01 with the "domestic terrorists" of 1/6/21. She was shocked at the dishonesty.

I’m rewatching the Naudet Brothers’ documentary, the French filmmaking duo who was in the midst of shooting a documentary following an FDNY “probie” when the WTC attacks occurred. A sobering retrospective to say the least.

A couple of weeks ago, I found the next books in my stack to read “The Only Plane in the Sky: An Oral History of 9/11” and “First Casualty.” I found the former to be one of the most difficult reads I’ve made to-date. The latter is heartbreaking in its own way, especially in light of how U.S. efforts in Afghanistan concluded last August. Important, difficult reads.

Parade with bagpipes on tv this AM, local fire stations planting small US flags in their green areas, city workers placing US flags along main thoroughfares…all causing that mysterious lump to appear in my throat. And for all of the pain that came afterwards to first responders, service members answering the call to arms, and ALL of the innocent people caught in the conflict.

Too many folks I work with were young or born after 9/11…they will never understand what today means to those who lived to witness or experience that day. A raised glass to those whose light perished that day.

It was the last week at a job I had come to really dislike. My co-workers were great, my boss and department head were useless. So I took a package. I was driving in when I heard a plane had flown into one of the Twin Towers. I assumed it was something small and the pilot had made some massive error. Before I made it to work, I heard the second plane had crashed into the other tower. I knew it was an attack at that point. I called my wife in the Chicago offices of Morgan Stanley to see if she had heard. She told me they were watching the news coverage on the monitors at work. She had friends working for Morgan Stanley in the tower. We would find out later almost all of the M-S people made it out due to the efforts of the hero Rick Rescorla.

I spent the rest of the day listening to the radio, as I had nothing else to do while packing up my desk. We didn’t watch TV that night to spare our 8 year old son from seeing the loops of the planes crashing into the towers and the people jumping to their deaths.

My family was oddly fortunate. My wife was supposed to be in one of the towers that morning at a meeting. The meeting had been rescheduled just the week before, so she was at home. Maybe Rick Rescorla would have gotten her out as well, but I always feel “but there for the grace of God…”.

Of course I have other memories of those days. Sitting outside and seeing no contrails nor hearing planes flying overhead. A group of contractors for the company I used to work for renting a panel van to drive home to Pittsburgh. Taking a flight a month later, walking into an empty O’hare airport.