America's 9/11 Foe Has Infiltrated Our Culture

Islam attacked the United States hard on Sept. 11, 2001. Today, our incoherent immigration system has led to Islam taking over our culture and leadership.

I swore after Sept. 11, 2001, I'd never fly again, but as I write this, an American Airlines flight attendant just offered me Biscoff cookies. I'm headed home on a packed flight, two days before the 25th anniversary, looking down over the resilient American landscape. I do fly—often—although always nervous and never without thinking of the horrific ways 2,977 people were murdered that day.

I've never talked publicly about my experiences on Sept. 11. They strike me as inconsequential, and in any event the story shouldn't revolve around a news person'. But like many of my peers, I will never shake the enormity of Sept. 11. A part of me is still waiting for the next attack, because that day, the attacks kept coming.

Our Shared Experience 

I worked on the morning show at a small Northern New Jersey radio station, just across the Hudson River from New York. Our shift was just ending when the first plane struck the North Tower at the World Trade Center. Our staff gathered around the television. We started talking about it on the air. Thousands of people commute from North Jersey to New York so anything that happens in the city was of interest to our listeners.

We initially thought it was a small plane. We wondered—how did this happen? Is this a terrible accident? We wondered if the people in the building saw the plane coming. As we discussed possible scenarios, the second plane hit. It changed everything. Our television went out because many New York television stations had transmitters and antennas on top of the World Trade Center.

We knew immediately: this was no accident. My gut churned. I thought I might vomit.

This single news story would have been enough to keep us busy for days. But it was only the beginning.

Hijackers used a third jumbo jet to strike the Pentagon. More hijackers took control of Flight 93 before passengers fought back. It slammed into a field in Pennsylvania, killing everyone.

The military scrambled fighter jets. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) grounded all air traffic—thousands of flights across America. Every story impossible to believe and terribly true.

We heard about desperate people trapped in the Twin Towers making their final choice: burn to death, or leap to their death. Some held hands and leapt together. One by one the Twin Towers collapsed, killing everyone who had not been able to get out.

As details emerged, the mood in our office became more sober. Some held back tears, others weren't able to.

Authorities worried more attacks would target the bridges and tunnels between New York and New Jersey. All crossings were closed, trapping many New Jersey residents in the city. Their children waited to be picked up from school.

I grabbed a card for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey from the rolodex on my desk and dialed my contact to get more information on the closures. Cell phones stopped working reliably due to a massive surge in activity, along with the loss of cell towers on the World Trade Center buildings themselves. But land lines worked. The Port Authority didn't answer the phone, it just rang and rang. I figured everyone was calling at the same time.

When they still didn't answer later, I remembered the Port Authority offices had been in the Twin Towers. In the collapse, 84 men and women of the Port Authority died.

I drove to a Red Cross office in New Jersey with a coworker. On our way, we caught our first glimpse of New York's scarred skyline. A thick, black cloud of smoke and dust hung over the city. We tasted and smelled particles in the air. That dust cloud hung over the city for days. At the Red Cross, hundreds of people stood in the parking lot to donate blood. We interviewed the woman in charge about what they needed for victims. She said they were grateful for blood donations, but there were fewer injuries than blood donors because victims either escaped unscathed or crushed when the building floors pancaked down. She feared much of the blood would go to waste because it has a shelf life, whereas normally they are begging people to donate blood.

From Attacks to Infiltration—the New Weapon 

As the day unfolded, we stopped thinking it was over and braced ourselves for the next attack. Many of us stayed like that for the next days, weeks, even years: on alert. In 2002, federal officials put together a color-coded terrorism advisory system to warn the public when the terror threat was high. It was not comforting. Terrorists intentionally create anxiety in survivors and leave us cautiously waiting for the other shoe to drop.

The Sept. 11 sucker punch was impossible to ignore. It was carried out by 19 Islamic terrorists backed by organized training and funding. The last words shouted by one of the Muslim hijackers on Flight 93 was "Allahu Akbar." No one could deny that America had an evil enemy and we needed to fight back. But even then, one faced accusations of Islamophobia when speaking the truth: Muslims want to end our culture.

The enemy never went away. They have changed their strategy to something harder to fight: infiltration. It works in part because it starts subtly, and because subsequent generations do not inherit the psychological trauma from Sept. 11. 

People who don't recall 2001 are not bracing for the next big attack. They don't see a need to fight back. They've been taught unquestioning acceptance of all people, but they have not been taught why their culture is worth fighting for. They don't recognize that Islam has come to take over that culture. This is how Muslims like radical New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani (D) or Minnesota U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar (D) get elected and seed agencies with their like-minded appointees. 

If you've traveled to Patterson, New Jersey, Dearborn, Michigan, parts of Chicago, Minneapolis, Philadelphia and other Islamic enclaves, you understand we have lost those areas permanently. They are not coming back. American culture is dead there—killed by the same people who brought us Sept. 11. 

That's not the kind of thing you can say at a dinner party. It is not Islamophobia for Americans to value our culture as much as Muslims value theirs. 

It is not hatred for one to say, "I object to your culture's attempt to stamp out mine." We stand on the cultural land of our ancestral patriots. Will we fight back or watch another episode of 90 Day Fiancé on TV? 

We are slowly, peacefully, lovingly, tolerating ourselves out of our culture and country. If we continue down this path, soon the United States will be a country the 19 Sept. 11 hijackers would admire. 

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