A New Dawn Rises

Hymn of the Republic

Like tears in the rain…

---

Two decades and its over. There was no fanfare, the end of a Generation’s war.

The original perpetrators are long dead, we were fighting their children and their friends now. Bin Laden died a decade ago, yet the curtain draws only now. Whatever the Western World was there for isn’t there now, and hasn’t been there for some time.

So why did we stay for so long?

America once a land with eyes only for the future, became haunted by the past.

It became obsessed with chasing ghosts.

America froze in time on 9/11.

And it’s never really moved on until Covid.

And in this sense the World froze for nigh two decades, as the hegemon of the World grappled with its black eye. And the rest of the World became trapped in the American Empire’s Eternal September.

American’s always say “Never Forget”. Almost a grudge like monicker. An anger that has both blinded and lead to self destruction of the Nation. With an obsession upon grievance, unhealthy to say the least, and a hallmark of modern culture. Perhaps there’s some causal connection there.

I suspect America and its people believed, as heirs to Rome they too wanted the establish a modern Civis Romanus¹ for their empire.

But as the years dragged on it didn’t look like retaliation, or retribution more so a wounded animal. The longer the war dragged on it showed the Emperor had no Clothes. The War killed over quadruple the civilian casualties on 9/11, and over ten times that number were borne by Western Allies.

A true decimation of blood and treasure.

This idea of the disproportional response, of equal or greater retribution only is viable if it can be enacted. And given the heinous actions, America would need to violate Geneva, something it never was going to do.

So America became bitter and violent with an eye for safety over freedom. “Never Again” they declared. In doing so America, engine of “progress,’ became seized with fear.

And so did the World.

Yet, did the West learn from this? Did America?

I doubt it.

Perhaps it was that one event doesn’t define your life, it’s one of many.

That Fear is just as powerful a motivator, as a blinder.

Or that Life doesn’t have clean beginnings or ends.

I don’t know what the lesson from this tragedy is or will be. Perhaps there is nothing, a mere rationalization of pain.

But we can’t stay in Stasis forever. We Stagnate. Whether we want to or not Time marches on. There are new crisis’ at hand. And we must meet them.

As the new dawn approaches, we won’t forget, we remember.

1. When travelling across the Roman Empire, safety was said to be guaranteed to anyone who declared, "civis romanus sum" (I am a Roman Citizen).