Operation AXIOM

Twelve years ago to the day, 11 September 2001, over three thousand Americans were murdered by nineteen al-Qaeda terrorists who hijacked four airliners & crashed those aeroplanes into the World Trade Center in New York City, felling the iconic twin towers; the Pentagon, outside Washington, D.C.; & a field in Pennsylvania. The fourth flight, United 93, was thought to be bound for the District of Columbia, to be crashed into the Capitol or the White House, but fell short of its objective when the passengers fought back against their captors, sacrificing their lives so that others might live under the instantly famous battle cry, "Let's roll!" For a fleeting moment in time after that awful "day of fire," when it seemed as if the sky was falling, the American body politic was united as never before in my lifetime. As the world kept spinning & it was realized that 9/11 had been a profound national tragedy & collective trauma, but not the end of the world, we resumed the squabbling that is so often dismissed as petty, when in fact it is the hallmark of a deliberative republic, of popular sovereignty. But all of that—the "death of satire," the "Patriot Act" & color-coded terror warnings, Tora Bora, Guantanamo Bay, the Iraq War, I.E.D.s, "the Surge," the death of Osama bin Laden, 11 September 2012—all of that was yet to come. On 9/11 there was only horror & terror, fear & dread (all discrete sensations), heroism & compassion, anger & loss, fire & smoke. Aeroplanes smashed into the twin towers of the W.T.C., the worst ever act of terrorism on American soil, a dozen years ago to-day.



The Rebel Black Dot Song of Patriot Day
Aaron Tippen, "Where the Stars and Stripes and the Eagle Fly" from the Where the Stars and Stripes and the Eagle Fly E.P. (T.L.A.M.)