9/11 AD

In 410 A.D., the German king Alaric sacked the city of Rome. Although it was no longer the capitol of the empire, the city held a special political significance from Spain to the Russian steppes and Iran. Saint Augustine of Hippo describes the world's reaction:

[N]ations in the east were bewailing your catastrophe... the greatest cities in the farthest parts of the earth were keeping days of public grief and mourning...

I had arrived in Germany for a year at the University of Dortmund barely a week before the attacks. Dortmund is a medium sized city in the Ruhrgebeit, Germany's "Rust Belt." It has a large Muslim immigrant population, North Africans, Turks and Persians seemed to predominate. I saw no triumphalism from these people; rather, some went out of their way to come over to this english-speaking group, soberly drinking shock away, and inquire, sometimes timidly, "Are you americans? We're so sorry."

Two days later, i caught the train to Aachen, Charlemagne's medieval capitol. The square was filled with flowers and candles, and the guestbook of one of the medieval churches was filled with condolences and prayers for America. Although America was not perfect in the eyes of the world, we had, for a time, the sympathy and support of the world, due to the magnitude of the crime commited by a small band of fanatics. If only our national leaders had risen to the occasion.

Fast forward to 2003:

[Y]ou were... behaving in a much more crazy fashion than before. It was just this corruption, this moral disease, this overthrow of all integrity and decency... You seek security not for the peace of your country but for your own impunity in debauchery. Prosperity depraved you; and adversity could not reform you... You have learned no salutary lession from calamity; you have become the most wretched, and you remain the most worthless, of mankind.

-City of God, I, 33

I realize that some who might read this will believe this places me in the "blame America first" crowd. If that's what your thinking, you need to shut off that wretched reflex and realize that a true friend will tell you when you're acting in a pointlessly stupid, self-destructive manner, rather than keep silent for the sake of your feelings.

This post inspired by Confederate Yankee.