And We Sit

14 years ago, yesterday.

 The world waited.

Would the United States send some sort of response immediately to points, yet unknown, in the middle east? A response for the acts of aggression taken against this country, it's people, it's culture (indeed the culture of Western Man written large across that particular metropolitan skyline).

 An act of aggression not seen in such scope or scale since nearly 60 years previous.
 That action, at least taken against a uniformed opponent, not aimed almost exclusively at an unarmed and unknowing civilian populace, started an armed conflict stretching across four years, it's ending punctuated with two atomic exclamation points.

 Could this...would this monstrous transgression propel us to the same course of action, up to and including the use of much stronger punctuation at it's end? (Or sooner...much sooner.)

 It did not.

 And so now we sit. Those of us who still chose to remember, seemingly becoming a smaller group, as the years go by. A smaller voice. Where once we were at least given the courtesy, of perhaps having a valid course of action, of remembering what our forefathers did, of what the generation previous to mine did.

That when faced with adversity, the kind which demanded you take no other course of action than of meeting your enemy on the field of battle. That honor demanded....dignity demanded...moral reciprocity towards the Creator who bestowed upon all men such fundamental human rights...demanded, we act accordingly when any or all are called into question.

 Now we are treated ilke an eccentric Uncle ... who after one too many beers ... is relegated to the card table on the back porch, to eat his dinner alone...away from the more "diversified" adults....and far away from impressionable children.

 Now we sit. While an individual who was, at the very least, exposed and indoctrinated, in the very ideology behind the events of 14 years ago, occupies the Oval Office. Who for all we know, based on biased news and government sponsored PR reports, has been aiding and abetting said enemy up to and including giving them the keys to nuclear exploitation.

Now we sit. While untold tens of thousands of the ideology of hate, behind the events of 14 years ago, are allowed to enter this country freely. And as our traditional rule of law crumbles and cracks, eroding away, they seek to impose their own brand of law over any and all who will allow for same.

If we sit much longer, the "war" all but formally started 14 years ago, will have been lost. With little more than regional battles fought in countries who have known little peace since their inception (at the end of WWI) amongst people, tribes, and cultures who have known little, if any, peace in thousands of years.

We have done little to stem the tide. At the very least, cause them to stay "self-contained" in their respective little hell holes of 7th-century sand and ignorance, ensuring they were unwelcome and unwanted in any part of the civilized world. We couldn't, or wouldn't even do that.

And so...14 years after airborne jihad... they have very nearly won, or are well on their way to doing so.

This will have been brought about by their doing the one thing we seem unwilling to do. Having the will to fight...to advance their cause, their beliefs, their will, over any and all who do not believe as they do. And it appears, to do any and everything, in order to achieve their goals.

And we sit.

And we wonder what's next.

And we look to the political landscape pondering who will be next to take the helm of this nation. To direct our affairs nationally and internationally.

And we look at the rest of the world ... Europe is perhaps less than a generation away from existing ... at least as we would have remembered her. Israel perhaps a year away from same. The economies of the world on the brink of collapse.

And perhaps the biggest agent, directly and indirectly behind all of these ills, is allowed to thrive and grow. The same agent which was behind all which transpired on the 11th of September 2001.

In 14 years, it has grown stronger, more virulent.

In 14 years, we have not.

14 years from now...

Will it matter?