9/11 + 18 & Never Forgetting

As the anniversary of the September 11 attacks on the United States approached this year, my thoughts of a post were more along the lines of a recollection of what happened that day as many tend to share.

Then Sunday, the 8th came along, and the feeling of what 9/11 meant to me rushed right back to the forefront. It was through the news, and how certain people were reacting to it.

On Sunday, while tooling around town I was engaged in one of my Twitter discussions with acronym-filled named people. One of the stories that came up for comment was the pronouncement by President Trump that he had cancelled a secret meeting with the Afghan Government and the rebel Taliban.

For a little background, the meeting was supposed to finalize a peace treaty between the United States and the Taliban to allow American troops to eventually leave Afghanistan and end the longest war in American history.

Now if this were any other time of the year, and I mean any other, I would have been incredulous to the whole thing. But President Trump made it a point to have the Taliban – a group that provided shelter and help to Al Qaida in times before and after 9/11 – come to Washington DC in the same week as we remember the 2,700 + who died that day.

In a Tweet, a poster wrote “<expletive> wouldn’t it be nice if the president reached a peace pack (sp on them) with those bastards the week of 9/11??? But all you can do is see the negative. Ppl are still scared over that <expletive>. Maybe you should stop and see what this man is trying to do.”

I responded with something that came from way deep inside my soul: “You’ve just desecrated the memories of over 2,000 people who died on 9/11 and the 4,000 soldiers that died in the line of duty trying to put the Taliban, Al Qaida and the others who wanted to kill every American at that time.”

So in recapping, a purported defender of the President of the United States literally told me that his efforts in bringing in the same group that supported the killing of Americans, was a good thing and that we should take the opportunity and not be so scared.

Seriously, what?

There is no explanation that can be told to me that makes a visit by the Taliban to the United States, on the week of 9/11, a good thing. And what frightened me more about this exchange is that this person was not alone in backing up this idea.

Let me be clear, we must never forget what people and entities did to this country 18 years ago and never allow them the chance to re-write that history by having some sort of peace agreement be made. I don’t care if the deal was the best deal (it wasn’t by a long shot), we must never forget the souls of those who were taken away from us on that day. It’s even more important for me now to continue to inform, remind and sometimes argue for the remembering of their souls.

We must remember because the forces who want to rewrite and forget are on the move. Never forget.