The Last Day

Experience suggests that if men cannot struggle on behalf of a just cause because that just cause was victorious in an earlier generation, then they will struggle against the just cause. They will struggle for the sake of struggle. They will struggle, in other words, out of a certain boredom: for they cannot imagine living in a world without struggle. And if the greater part of the world in which they live is characterized by peaceful and prosperous liberal democracy, then they will struggle against that peace and prosperity, and against democracy.~Francis Fukuyama
America's last normal day, 18 years later.

Granted, for some of us it wasn't all that normal. I'd been going through a fairly nasty divorce for a good seven months by that time. But for such times, I remember that day as being fairly calm.

But, as I may have mentioned, the next morning dawned infamously bright and blue and clear and it was during a Yahoo Messenger argument with my ex-wife early the next morning that I learned that a plane had hit the World Trade Center...and I turned on my TV, set to CNN out of habit...just in time to see the second plane crash into the other tower.

But when I went to bed, fairly late on the night of September 10th, 2001 I had no idea that the world would change not quite eight hours later. I figured I'd have class that next morning and had done my homework accordingly, most of it during the slow part of my shift in the Cafeteria across the sidewalk from the Dorm, where I was a cook and very often did the boss's job for him in closing at 10 P.M. That would see me promoted to shift lead less than a month later...though I never actually had a shift. The boss just didn't like having to balance the till in the morning.

I'd smoked a couple of cigarettes with my friend Ali, a Saudi international student, flirted with the chubby nerd girl behind the residence hall desk as I walked in, and turned left and headed right down the hall to my room, checked my E-mail and Yahoo Messenger...and then went to bed.

Though I was well on my way out of Christianity thanks to my divorce, I was still a conservative, a Republican. I hadn't just voted for Bush the year before, I'd been an enthusiastic supporter and volunteered for his campaign, door-knocking for the Cheboygan County (MI) Republican Party. 

I actively paid attention to what was going on in the world, heavily skewed in both a Christian and conservative perspective. I followed and had donated to Voice Of The Martyrs.

And one of the countries I followed the news from was Afghanistan. It was a side-effect of life experience, and of my spiritual nature...because even then I understood the beliefs of groups like the Taliban to be nothing more and nothing less than a perversion of Islam.

And despite...perhaps even because of...my conservative Christianity I'd never had any problem with Islam or Muslims.

But perhaps because of that very fact, to me, the Taliban were nothing more than tribal barbarians, abusers of boys and women, religious fanatics who...though many of them cannot read...professed to know all Truth. Men who, valuing piety and dedication to harsh philosophies of violence for their own sake and ignoring the spirit of the message in the Koran for a perversion of its laws...still very often used drugs such as Hashish, Heroin and Opium despite the fact that such are Haraam (Forbidden) in Islamic practice.

Then, as now, I believed that the only way to deal with such people was by the muzzle of the rifle, by air-dropped precision-guided munitions and 30mm GAU-8 Cannon rounds.

Fuck those motherfuckers, I thought.

All things considered, it was a normal day.

It has, in fact, been a long-ass 18 years. I'm not going to bore you with the specifics, but it's been a long damn 18 years.

If you'd told me, on September 10th, 2001 that the President of the United States...and in particular, a Republican President of the United States would ever even consider inviting the Taliban...the fucking Taliban...people who in all probability could not find the United States on a map but are fanatical in their hatred of it just the same. Barbarians, people who by their own shitty behaviors reinforce the bullshit stereotypes that people like I used to be have of the world. The ultimate in These Fucking People...invited them to Camp David for some supposed peace negotiation? Camp David, the place where peace between Egypt and Israel was negotiated, the personal getaway of the President of the United States?

The Taliban would not have been judged fit to hold Anwar Sadat's hat while he took a leak.

If you would have told me that a Republican U.S. President would even secretly consider inviting the Taliban to Camp David...and then brag about it live on social media...I'd have punched you in the mouth.

And Trump just fired John Bolton from his position as National Security Advisor. That Guy, the War Mustache himself.

Think on that.

And think on the fact that we have people, Americans, right here at home who'd fit right in with the goddamned Taliban, if only the Taliban worshiped Donald Trump.

Ever get the feeling that Trump could shout Allah Akbar while shooting somebody on Fifth Avenue with an old AK-47 and not lose any of his cultists voters?

Fuck it, I need to find me a time machine.

Lo! Those who believe (in that which is revealed unto thee, Muhammad), and those who are Jews, and Christians, and Sabaeans - whoever believeth in Allah and the Last Day and doeth right - surely their reward is with their Lord, and there shall no fear come upon them neither shall they grieve. ~The Koran, Sura 2:62