Eagles we were, eagles we will be again

In fact, no, I do not prove him correct, for I am not arguing that we provoked 9/11. I am arguing that the American government has engaged in a secretive, imperialistic, war-mongering foreign policy for over 20 years before 9/11 occurred at the cost of the peoples of both the United States and the Middle East.

Our government took a region that was already a hornet’s nest and threw rocks at it, hoping to be able to control the angry inhabitants that would inevitably emerge. I mourn every day for the innocent people that died in the World Trade Center on 9/11, but I equally mourn for the men, women, and children of the Middle East who have endured horrible fates due to what Qualtere refers to as “the Good War of a new century,” a war of aggression being cleverly disguised as a war of defense.

Tell me, Mr. Qualtere, if an American bomb meant to target terrorists dropped on your home, killing everyone you love, and the next day an extremist recruiter attempted to capitalize on your situation by handing you a gun and giving you the chance for revenge, would you not be tempted take it? Are you that blind to the fact that the people you simplify as the “bad guys” share your desire to defend your home, family, and country?

Finally, Mr. Qualtere, if you truly care for the soldiers who you attempt to honor, then I implore you to take a second look at the foreign policy you advocate. Through a series of misconceptions, false presuppositions, and missed history lessons, you are signing the death warrants of thousands of American soldiers and residents of the Middle East, both dead and still to die.

You state that the “9/11 generation” needs to “fully embrace and defend the role that history has bestowed upon us and wear our hawk feathers more proudly than ever.”

Well, Mr. Qualtere, I respectfully disagree. I do not define our generation by our greatest national disaster, but by our greatest national hope – liberty. And where you have hope that the 9/11 generation will wear its hawk feathers proudly, I have hope that the liberty generation will wear the eagle feathers of our founders, and remember that the greatest enemies of our freedom are not hiding in caves overseas, but sitting in decadent halls right here at home.

Our war will be a war of words, and unlike your perpetual cycle of violence in the Middle East, our war will be won.

Elliot Engstrom is a senior French major at Wake Forest University, and aside from his schoolwork blogs for Young Americans for Liberty and writes at his own Web site, Rethinking the State. This article originally ran here.