9/11 and the disturbing side of the mantra “Never Forget”

Every year at this time there is great focus that is paid to the tragedy that occurred on September 11, 2001. The World Trade Center was attacked by 19 foreign terrorists protesting U.S. political and military involvement in the Middle East for decades, sanctions against Iraq that killed countless citizens, and overall American disrespect for the sovereignty of predominantly Muslim countries in the region. It was arguably the first time America as a country has been attacked since Pearl Harbor in 1941. It wasn't an invasion but a pointed strike of airplanes at two U.S. landmarks that killed approximately 2,977 people. It was both terrifying and shocking to witness. After all, America isn't used to being attacked; we have giant landmass allies to our north and south and great oceans to our east and west. The U.S. mainland hadn't been attacked since the war of 1812. Americans couldn't accept it and we certainly didn't connect it to our intrusive and deadly foreign policy in the Middle East that is well documented and unprovoked.
9/11 unified the country. The mantra ever since in annual 9/11 memorials is "never forget". These were fellow Americans. We could feel the loss personally. I get it.

Why is it though that Americans see the death of Americans as being reprehensible, tragic, and demanding pell mell retaliation yet they don't feel any similar empathy and responsibility for the human lives that the U.S. government has so ruthlessly taken over the last six or so decades. We think only American lives have value and that American property has value and American sovereignty is sacred but we don't feel the same about the lives and sovereignty of other countries. We think that only American parents love their children, etc., Does the average American even know how much death and destruction in foreign countries we have authored? It would stun us all. We aren't told and we don't want to know. We think only of Americans. The word for that is extreme nationalism.

After 9/11 most thinking people concede that we were duped by our government into invading a country on a totally false premise that had zero to do with the 9/11 attacks. We needed a scapegoat and in America if you appeal to patriotism you can literally get away with murder. We wanted to create a reason to invade Iraq and Afghanistan so we tried to link it to 9/11. It was a total lie. Over 3.5 million innocent Iraqis and Afghanis, Yemenites and Syrians were killed by the U.S. after we invaded those sovereign countries; countries we bombed and killed and terrorized for about a dozen years. We were strongly coerced by Israel as are virtually all of our actions in the Middle East.

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4500 American soldiers were killed and tens of thousands were left disabled, missing limbs, scarred and traumatized for life. Two members of Congress are missing both legs after fighting in those horribly unjust wars that accomplished NOTHING. It created work for gravediggers and prosthetic limb manufacturers and defense contractors. ISIS was created as a result of the vacuum that was left after we overthrew those governments. We don't yet understand that when you kill a foreign leader things will usually backfire tenfold. It takes ignorance not to know that by this time. Do you remember all the beheadings by ISIS that the actions of the United States ushered in? The U.S. just goes in and invades or bombs countries on a regular basis for no national defense reasons of any kind. They do it routinely, with impunity. We can propagandize many devious and diabolical lies but the facts don't lie.

Does anyone in America care a speck about the millions of thousands of people we've killed in the Middle East over the last 25 years with zero provocation? I'm not talking about 2977 lives that were taken by a small group of terrorists. We invaded Vietnam 60 years ago with no justification. In 1964 we landed on the beaches of that sovereign country that was fighting their own civil war and we killed 2-3 million of their people, mostly civilian Vietnamese and Cambodians who were just trying to live peacefully. We burned their huts and villages, raped their women and dropped napalm on their children. Who were we to do this to a sovereign country? Imagine if the U.S. had been invaded by Japan during our civil war in 1861 and they had killed 2-3 million American citizens in the process?

We are very much like the Israelis whose response to a terrorist attack by Hamas that killed 1400 people 3 years ago has triggered a bombing and killing of everything they can see and smell in Gaza and Lebanon: children, babies, journalists, hospital and relief workers, women, mothers, fathers, aid workers. It's a daily slaughter 24/7 in what is clearly a hands down genocide.
"Never forget" how you felt when those American planes flew into the World Trade center on 9/11. Ok, Now imagine being invaded by a foreign country every day for 3 years, or for 12 years like we did in Iraq and Afghanistan, or 9 years like we did in Vietnam. Imagine if your American children were killed in your own backyard by a foreign country that invaded your borders with no provocation. Imagine how outraged you would be and how much hate you would have for that country and how much "not forgetting" you would experience. The U.S. must seem like the Nazis invading countries in WWII.

"The amount of murder and mayhem we have created all over the world is just unbelievable".

Lancet, a scientific journal did an independent study in November 2025 that you can access on the internet where it asked what were the consequences of the sanctions we imposed on other countries between 1971 and 2021. These were sanctions against countries like Iran, Cuba, Venezuela and many others. The findings of the study were that the U.S. had killed over 38 million people due to their sanctions alone aimed at punishing countries that don't overthrow their leaders. The amount of havoc we have imposed on the middle east in recent years is just stunning. If a country has something we want we just bomb them and take it. Trump in Venezuela is a perfect example. We invaded that sovereign country for zero reason and kidnapped their leader and his family and killed many in the process so we could take their oil among other things. Trump is the first president ever to bomb 8 countries in one year and we are only 8 months into 2026. He likes all kinds of ways including moronic trade wars. We put on the Stars and Stripes and celebrate the 250 anniversary and we wear blue suits with red ties and we wave the flag and watch the B1 bombers fly at the Super Bowl and gaze blindly, victims to the nationalist propaganda.

We have the audacity and the grotesque self centeredness to say "Never forget" over the loss of 2977 lives lost 25 years ago (as retribution for our destructive and militant treatment of Middle East countries. Someone had the audacity to pushback against American aggression. We can dish it out on innocent countries but we can't take even the slightest act of revenge without killing a few million and raping and occupying that country for over a decade. How would you like to see Chinese military in tanks on the streets where you went to school as a kid. How would you like to see your friend gunned down by a Chinese soldier who had just landed in Miami? How would you like to see your daughter bombed while she was in school by a U.S. airdrone in Iran (totally unprovoked) which killed 159 school girls? We are monsters but we don't want to see it. We are sadistic killing machines. "Bombs bursting in air" is an apropos verse in our national anthem.
Since WWII the United States has bombed 34 countries. We are currently invading at least 3 ongoing. In that same Span the second most militarily aggressive country is Russia who has invaded (5). Since 1979 China has invaded zero counties. They are busy building their infrastructure and educating their citizens and winning the technological battles in the world. Without a doubt the U.S. is the most terroristic country, by far, over the last 80 years, it's not even close and any objective analysis would see it that way. We are the aggressors every time. We aren't to be admired. We will take your oil, invade you, seize Greenland and threaten Canada with becoming a U.S. territory. It's hideous, imperialistic and reminiscent of Ghengis Khan. We are the most violent country in history in terms of deaths caused. "We are an incredibly ruthless country"

In his 2019 Nobel lecture, Jimmy Carter said that the United States had been at war for "all but 16 years of its roughly 242-year history" which was clearly a rhetorical way of emphasizing how frequently the U.S. has been involved in military conflict.

With the exception of Pearl Harbor we are never acting in self defense. No one would be foolish enough to attack us militarily yet we spend more money on defense than the next 26 countries combined. We spend 18 cents of every dollar in our budget on the military, essentially to wage "War".

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense, a theft; a theft from those who hunger and are not fed. those who are cold and who are not clothed." - President Dwight Eisenhower

This quote is not from a left leaning person. This quote is from arguably the greatest general this country has ever produced who was the commander of the allied forces in our battle against Germany in WWII. He authorized the Normandy invasion and went on to two terms as a Republican President.

Just before President Eisenhower left office in 1961 he gave a very profound speech where he warned of the dangers of the "military industrial complex".

Eisenhower was warning that the U.S. could develop a permanent war industry, where the military, defense contractors, and politicians all benefit from more spending, even when it is not good for the public as a whole. Basically, he wanted people to stay alert so that democratic priorities don't get overridden by that economic and political pressure that comes from the defense industry.

So, how come we are so puffed up with ourselves? How come we think we are so great and noble and better than everyone else? How come we don't acknowledge that we wiped out the Indians in a genocide and enslaved and terrorized blacks for 300 years, etc. and killed 38 million people since 1971? Well, there are a few reasons I suppose. For one, we identify as Americans. When (we) kill a million people unjustly we don't even consider it an event. Well, we don't even consider it. Thats what we do. It's as normal as baseball (and racism) to Americans. What is breathtaking is that we can't see it due to all the apple pie we are eating and American flags we are waving (from our cars, even).

In America it's instilled in us that if we want something we just take it and leave dead bodies in our wake. No one holds us accountable. We've left much of the world in a position of "never forgetting". Vietnam will never recover. We didn't even send them flowers when we evacuated in our helicopters in 1973 after killing 2 million of their population. Our identity is like the Nazis in Germany; we will defend our country blindly at every turn. We are blind. We stop thinking critically when we see the flag and the US government knows that all too well. Our minds are bathed in propaganda before every sporting event. It's insidious and brain washing. Our military is not for national defense. No one is going to invade the United States of America. It's almost logistically impossible, and it would bring about probably the end of civilization.

We may have been righteous and justified when we fought to gain our independence from England in a noble and just war or when we defeated the Nazis in a wholly justified and heroic military victory but since then it has been a foreign policy catastrophe. I support the U.S. dropping atomic bombs on Japan in 1945. I think it was a necessary evil but since then all the evil we have wrought has been not only unnecessary but criminal in every sense of the word. We are never prosecuted for war crimes because we don't think we have to listen to the rest of the world or the international bodies that exist to set a civilized standard for all countries. We, the most terroristic country in the last 80 years thinks that (we) are better and more righteous than everyone else. Toxic delusion. We believe that might makes right; the one with all the bombs makes the rules. We have killed way more innocent people than the Nazis did in WWII. We didn't use gas chambers but we killed more.
We see things things through the red, white and blue lens. We advertise the Military on tv and tell them to "be all they can be". Except for a few dozen 100 year old WWII veterans there is no one left in America who has defended our "freedoms". Our freedoms and our constitution was under attack on January 6, 2021 and it was domestic, led by a convicted rapist and 34 time convicted felon. We pardoned all those perpetrators. We have not been attacked by any county since 1941. We will not be attacked. It would be a fool's errand. We are more like the Mafia than the wholesome Lee Greenwood image that we are told to believe. I don't say that as a joke. The United States carries its thuggery on the world the way the mafia did in its heyday. We have a mob boss for a president. We deserve him. we don't think critically or independently in this country. We glorify killing the "enemy". We dehumanize them. we point out that they are not white, not Christian, and lesser than us.
We aren't led by a benevolent and thoughtful general like Dwight Eisenhower but a ruthless thug who dodged the draft himself (5) times.

The last time I was proud to be an American, the last time I was in awe of the United States was when I watched us land someone on the moon in 1969. It wasn't an act of aggression. It wasn't a military effort. No one died. No one was conquered or bombed but it was an amazing display of American ingenuity and determination and collective prowess. That sent me on a course to feel proud to be an American, but it's been all downhill since then…countless wars, corruption, invasions, and constant lies.. I'll "never forget" all those who this country so dismissively killed and maimed. I'll never ever forget Jan 6 when our own Capitol was attacked by a vigilante group of thugs on the instruction of the sitting President. I have national shame. It's long time to put the 38 million we've killed since 1971 alongside the 2,977 who went down with the Towers. It's time to start acknowledging and remembering.