Ten Years On

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

Ten years on from 9/11--what have we learned?  There are pluses and minuses--which is to be expected in a fallen world.  To our mind, here are some of them:

1. There is now much more unease amongst Islamic people over the nature of their religion.  It is evident to many that Al Qaeda and its affiliates have killed many more Islamic "brethren" than infidels.  This has led to revulsion and disgust at the religion of "peace" amongst Islamic people.  The true face of Islam has been on display; the mask has been removed to a degree.  The peace of Islam is the "peace" of a submission to absolutist human authorities claiming authority over every part of the human anatomy.  The impotence of the false Islamic god, Allah to change and transform sinful human beings is now more evident than it was before 9/11 and its aftermath.  Islam is a religion of hate: one has to deny Islam, one has to lapse in one's observance in order to become willing to live in peace with all men and be an enemy of none.  
2. Al Qaeda is a spent force.  This is not to say there will be no more terrorist attacks in Western countries.  Nor is to say that vigilance can be relaxed.  Far from it.  But Al Qaeda as a force with the prime objective of "purifying" Islam in the Middle East has gone.  Bin Laden's goal was always the overthrow of the house of Saud in Saudi Arabia; his "adventures" in Afghanistan and his attacks upon the West were always a means to that end.  His railings against the West were always intended to stir up Arabian hatred for the Western aligned house of Saud in his native land.  
3. The West has made remarkable progress in intelligence and intelligence gathering since 9/11.  We recall that at the time of the tragedy there was open acknowledgement that intelligence "assets" were very thin on the ground--if existent at all.  It took years and years for Western people to learn to speak Arabic fluently, we were told.  However, these obstacles have been overcome; the levels of (international) intelligence sharing have risen exponentially.  Whilst some terrorist attacks have got through many many more have been thwarted and rendered null. 
4. The "big" responses have all proved problematic; the consequences will be bad, and will linger for decades, if not generations, we presume.  Whilst going after Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan was defensible, nation-building in Afghanistan was and is not.  Invading Iraq on the false threat of weapons of mass destruction buttressed by spurious intelligence was (in hindsight) a dumb move.  To believe that Saddam Hussein, horrible man though he was, would trustfully co-operate with Al Qaeda extremists and be part of an Axis of Evil was preposterous.  Equally preposterous was the same notion with respect to the House of Saud and Al Qaeda.  
5. We have still to learn that Islam is not uniform or united.  The biggest threat to Islam is its pervasive sectarianism; it is a house of Unbelief that will tear eventually itself apart from the inside.  Shia, Sufi, Sunni, Salafi, Wahhabism cannot coincide without ideologically fatal internal compromise.  As always, God brings judgement upon Unbelief by allowing it to ascend and succeed to its own destruction. One of the wisest and more enlightened responses to Islam would be to leave it to its own devices.   
6. The bureaucratic border and travel controls imposed in the West, coupled with the implacable refusal to screen by profiling suspects on the grounds that it is discriminatory and a violation of universal human rights, is both risible and pathetic.  It stands as a monument to the ideological and spiritual blindness of the West.  It exposes how anaemic and frayed Western culture and civilization has become.  
7. The supine Quislingesque response of the media and Western intellectual elites to "cease and desist" Islamic threats of death and terror has exposed the cowardice that lies at the heart of secular humanism.  Thoroughly laced with evolutionism, the educated in the West fear death above all else; self-survival of its own species at all costs is the prevailing noisome issue of its putrefying heart.  Standing for nothing except its own continuance, it will immediately capitulate in the face of any mortal threat. 
8. We remain sickened and offended at the wicked idolatry of "American Exceptionalism": it does great harm to the world--most of all to the United States itself.  It weakens the United States.  It remains a terrible, odious secular perversion of the Christian faith.