It’s 25 years since that fateful day when a whole new reality crashed in on our world and set civilisation on a trajectory it is still reeling from today.
It’s been 25 years, and a whole generation has come of age that has never known the convenience of travelling through an airport and onto a plane without passing through X-ray machines, detector wands, and endless security. Yes, there was once a time when getting on a plane was not a lot different to getting on a bus. And there was once a time when the mass security state and the extraordinary powers of things like the Patriot Act would have been considered unthinkable.
And 25 years have now passed since the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001 on the World Trade Centre in New York, the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, and United Airlines Flight 93 near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, turned our way of life upside down.
On that day, peace was shattered, and a generation of Australians went to war.
By the time the Biden administration orchestrated the shambolic end of the 20-year campaign in Afghanistan, a campaign that began as a clear mission to destroy the capabilities of Al Qaeda, only to morph into an endless war with the Taliban, more than 35,000 Australians had served in Afghanistan-related operations, 41 had lost their lives, and 261 were wounded. We owe them, and every family who bore the cost, a debt that does not lapse with the passing of years.
We remember them.
Through the dust and the blood of 20 years of war, you could almost be forgiven today for wondering who and what really caused this to happen.
Those of us whose lives came to a standstill as we watched these shocking events unfold in real time know the truth. Before weak governments panicked and quashed any criticism of the ideology that led to this, and to the numerous other attacks on the US and her allies, we understood who was responsible.
Like a bizarre Trojan Horse foisted onto our civilisation, so many of our political and intellectual elites went on to welcome those who hold the very ideologies that would gladly see the end of our nations and freedom as we know it.
And a whole generation of Westerners has been made to grow up feeling like they are the ones who caused everything wrong in the world today. We are told that to even name the tenets of political Islam is intolerance.
I say the opposite.
The truly suicidal course is to import millions of adherents of an ideology while suppressing any honest discussion of what that ideology truly teaches.
Remembering September 11 means refusing that silence.
On Tuesday, 15 September, I tabled a Motion on Notice in the Western Australian Parliament, marking 25 years since the attacks, so that this Parliament remembers not only the day, but the truth of it.
Lest we forget.
Phil Twiss is a Liberal Member of the Western Australian Legislative Council. He served in the Royal Australian Navy before working in engineering, resources and small business, and is currently Deputy Chair of the Standing Committee on Environment and Public Affairs.
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