After so many maximalist essays, we’ll keep this 25th anniversary 9/11 note brief and simple, contrary to so many memorial essays and blog posts I’ve written for years now as a kind of annual ritual.
I wish that 22 years ago, in 2004, I had never made the decision to add political science as a second major and then embark on a career in political journalism, activism, editing, and publishing.
I made that choice because of the Iraq war, which only could have happened because of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. While I had gone to college to learn how to write novels and scripts, soon I found myself learning to craft arguments, investigate controversial claims, and analyze polling data like a political scientist. I thought that earning the political science degree would just serve as a credential to grant credibility to write about political matters. Instead, I actually learned political science as a discipline and then seeing the world through that lens became second nature.
And now I wish that I didn’t have this lens at all, because it has now allowed me to learn so many terrible things which I wish that I could erase from my mind and that have in turn produced a worldview which generally alienates and confuses most “normal” people.
From 2009 through this year, it’s been one nonprofit think tank or a for-profit media company or a Zionist foundation where just about every day has involved talk and work involving how to counter the efforts of Islamist terrorists.
Because of Osama bin Laden and Mohammed Atta, rather than become the novelist which I had intended — and should have become — instead I became a counterterrorism investigative journalist ultimately with a specialty in tracking Muslim Brotherhood front groups in North America, particularly Southern California.
I did this because I wanted to do work that mattered, that made a positive impact, that helped people to genuinely understand the world better.
Especially, though, at the root of this was always a knowledge of the oppressive conditions of so many women, LGBTQ+ persons, and other minorities in so many Middle Eastern and North African countries. I wanted to write and do work to advocate for people whom the Western world so often chooses to ignore. I wanted to work toward peace, toward defeating terrorist groups like the Muslim Brotherhood.
Now, looking back at it all, on the eve of the 25th anniversary of the attacks which psychologically scarred a nation, I can say that this just hasn’t been worth it. Has the work I’ve done made any impact? In some tiny, marginal ways, sort of maybe one could say. But even if the impact of my work had been ten-fold, I’d still say now that this hasn’t been worth it. The personal psychological toll on me has just been too severe.
I wish that I did not know so much about Islamist terrorists.
I wish I did not know so much about Marxism, Communism, and the Cold War.
I wish that I did not know about the private sex lives of the leadership of America’s Muslim Brotherhood front groups.
I wish that I did not know about how much corruption, illegality, fraud, and outright sexual predation there is in the nonprofit world.
I wish that I did not understand so much about American history and our clashing cultures — then I could feel more hope for the future.
I wish that I did not know so much about Shariah, Islamic law, and how states and terrorists enforce it today and throughout history.
I wish that I did not know all the horrors that I learned in three and a half years of reporting on antisemitism every day for JNS and The Algemeiner.
I wish that I did not know so much about both the Democrats and the Republicans that I cannot stand with either.
I wish that I had not learned so much about espionage, spycraft, propaganda, and disinformation.
I wish that I did not know so much about the most evil people in the world.
I wish that I did not feel this moral need to try and do something on behalf of others on the other side of the globe who are suffering and oppressed.
I really really wish that I did not know all the details about the torture and gang rapes of Oct. 7, 2023.
It’s like my mind, heart, and soul have just become this sponge trying to take in and process the global trauma on a daily basis. And now it’s made everything black.
And to what end?
To the same role as Cassandra. To say and warn and scream in sorrow that the world contains so many horrors, and we cannot ignore them.
But people do ignore them.
And it’s ultimately made me feel like all this effort and all this stress just was not worth it. I’ve developed this ultra-dark view of the world like cops working the murder beat.
When you see so much violence, crime, and hate on a daily basis for so long it just changes you.
And the changes haven’t been worth it.
And I wish none of us had to keep talking about any of this, that by now the sheep would've awakened.
You found out that there are people you know, not only casually, but some who share your own DNA who would, if given power and money, would become cruel dictators, and even relish in it.