Twenty-Five Years Later, 9/11 Ended American Naivety | Jason Whitlock Harmony

Jason Whitlock (0:00)

25 years ago, America felt united. I remember it a little bit differently though. America felt naive. 25 years ago, I thought, just like everyone else, I sat in front of the television with tears in my eyes. I bought the flag. I sang the anthem louder. I believe the firemen running up the stairs proved who we were. I believe the passengers fighting over Pennsylvania proved who we were. I believe the enemy lived in caves halfway around the world. I believed our leaders would tell the truth because the moment was too big to lie.

That last belief died hard. The grief was real. Three thousand dead, towers turned to dust, a hole in the Pentagon, a field in Shanksville. That pain united us for a season. The aftermath destroyed that unity. We rallied around a lie and called it patriotism. Time exposed the con. Grief-holding hands with blind trust cannot hold a country together. This is that fire. Grab your Bible.

Iraq allegedly had weapons of mass destruction. That was the pivot. That was the cell. General Colin Powell went before the United Nations with satellite photos, intercepted calls, diagrams and absolute certainty. A respected man, four stars. He held up a small vial for the cameras and sold a war. Congress nodded. The network saluted. We launched a war on that lie. Kids from Texas and Ohio and Georgia died on that lie. Mothers buried sons on that lie. Fathers buried daughters on that lie. Trillions of dollars vanished on that lie. Defense contractors got rich on that lie. Politicians got reelected on that lie. Follow the transaction. War is business. Fear is leverage. Death is inventory. Once the weapons never showed up, the story changed. Then it was democracy.

Then it was stability.

Then it was honor. There is no unity in rallying around a lie. There is just fog, the fog of war. Fog hides movement. Fog hides theft. Fog hides failure. In fog, you follow the voice shouting the loudest. In fog, you shoot at shadows and call it defense. Washington loves fog. Fog lets defeat get rebranded as progress. Fog lets a lie live for 20 years while the bodies come home in silence.

I will never forget watching Loose Change. The documentary came out in 2005 No studio, no budget, no permission. Just the internet timelines, news clips and questions the networks refused to ask. It had dramatic impact on my worldview. It forced me to reexamine everything. Once you watch the timeline broken down frame by frame, once you hear firefighters describe secondary explosions, once you see the Pentagon footage that shows nothing matching the story, doubt takes root.

I've never been able to wrap my mind around Building 7 collapsing. No plane hit Building 7 Fires burned on a few floors. Then at 520 in the afternoon, a 47-story steel skyscraper dropped straight down in its own footprint at near freefall speed.

That does not happen from office fires. Steel does not melt into symmetry because a couch burned on Floor 12

That looked like controlled demolition. That looked like planning. Physics does not bend for press conferences. I will never forget.

December 19, 2004

This is a different memory. It was when Slim Charles from my TV show The Wire told Avon Barksdale, if it's a lie, we fight on that lie. The Wire, my favorite show of all time, Season 3

Used warring drug dealers to analogize the Bush administration. Stringer Bell tried to play business man. Avon Barksdale wanted the corners. The police invented stats. The politicians invented narratives. Everybody protected the lie because the lie kept money moving and reputations intact. My mind was blown.

An HBO drama about Baltimore explained Washington DC better than Washington ever explained itself.

That line became doctrine. If it is a lie, we fight on that lie. No weapons found, so the mission became democracy. No democracy built, so the mission became stability. No stability achieved, so the mission became withdrawal with honor. Same war, new labels, same product, same men cashing checks while coffins came home, draped in the flag, they betrayed.

The aftermath of 9-11 made me reexamine American history. I rewatched Oliver Stone's 1991 movie, JFK.

I read books about JFK's assassination I once dismissed as paranoia. A president shot in broad daylight in Dallas, a magic bullet sold as science, files sealed for decades, witnesses dead or silenced. After 9-11, Dallas stopped looking like ancient history. Dallas looked like a pattern. It sparked a cynicism about American government that has never left me. Once you accept they would lie to start a war in Iraq, you have to ask, what else have they lied to start?

You have to ask what else they sealed, redacted and mocked you for questioning. Cynicism was not my natural state. Trust was. 9-11 killed trust and replaced it with verification. I stopped giving men in suits the benefit of the doubt. Suits lie with better grammar. Stars on shoulders do not equal truth in mouths. That lesson cost us thousands of lives. The terrorists won. They killed thousands, but the deeper victory was psychological. They infected the American mind with permanent suspicion. They made me ask, who are the terrorists? And are they headquartered in our government? Are the people in our government their business partners?