George W. Bush mourns 9/11, warns of our jihadis within
The president whose fate it was to summon the best of America after al- Qaeda’s murderous attack on us 20 years ago delivered a powerful warning on Saturday about the menace posed by the worst of America.
“We have seen growing evidence,” former President George W. Bush noted at the Shanksville, Pa., memorial to the heroes of United Flight 93, “that the dangers to our country can come not only across borders, but from violence that gathers within. There is little cultural overlap between violent extremists abroad and violent extremists at home, but in their disdain for pluralism, in their disregard for human life, in their determination to befoul national symbols, they are children of the same foul spirit, and it is our continuing duty to confront them.”
The marking of the 20th anniversary of 9/11 was a painful, apt moment seized by Bush to speak pointedly about the peril in which some of our own countrymen have placed our country, a peril every bit as real as that which we face from enemies overseas.
Indeed, many of them are themselves jihadis of a fashion: insurrectionists, white supremacists, ultra-right-wing fanatics and just plain nut cases. A tiny fraction of their number stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, bent on overthrowing a democratic election and keeping an American Mussolini in power. But they are supported or embraced by millions of our fellow citizens.
The leaders of both political parties readily agreed that the catastrophe of Sept. 11, 2001, required a bipartisan investigation into the circumstances surrounding the attack, but America has changed a great deal in the 20 years since both parties sought answers to questions about an assault on our homeland.
The rise of the same kind of domestic extremism that we have watched consume other countries threatens to consume ours. So it is that a bipartisan investigation into the
Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol was blocked by an overwhelming majority of Congressional Republicans, many who also supported nullifying the election.
Just hours before we commemorated 9/11, the information requested by the House Committee appointed to investigate Jan. 6 began to arrive on Capitol Hill. A political party that cared about American values would want the answers. The Republican Party, however, isn’t and doesn’t.
Bush’s speech in Shanksville will no doubt stoke the hatred of the American jihadis that he warned us about. But honoring the heroism of those who did America proud on Sept. 11 was just the moment to remind us that we face not only grave external threats, but also grave domestic ones.