The good news is, I am back from vacation. The bad news is, MAN-COLD. And, as Any Fule Kno, man-colds are the most devastating of all, because they are about 20x worse than mere regular colds. This is what tends to happen when you go from 36 degrees (Celsius, for all you heathens who insist on using that ridiculous Imperial system), to 18 degrees (and then 11) in the space of 24 hours.

Nonetheless, seeing as it is September 11th, it is worth taking a moment to write about what this day means, and why we need to remind ourselves of the tragedy that took place this day, 23 years ago.

As I have said every year that I have written about it, every single one of us who was alive that day, and was over the age of reason, remembers exactly where we were the moment we heard aircraft had struck the first of the Twin Towers. It is seared into our memories, and we can never rid ourselves of the horrors we saw that day.

Many of us, self included, were foolish enough to think that things would eventually get “back to normal” again. But I can never forget what my father told me that evening, as we sat in front of the TV and tried to process what we were watching. He told me, “We had hoped we would be able to spare you and your sister this kind of world – we wanted you to grow up in a world of peace and prosperity”.

He did not know at the time just how true his words were. September 11 marked the end of that 1990s era of peace and plenty, where America seemed to be the world’s ultimate hyperpower, unchecked and unrestrained, capable of doing anything at any time.

The 23 years that have passed since, have shown just how severe the limits of American power are, especially relative to the unrestrained hubris of American ambitions. Today, with the benefit of a generation’s worth of hindsight, we can look back and comprehend the colossal scale of the mistakes America, and by extension the Western world, made in the days, weeks, and years following 9/11.

The invasion of Afghanistan was merely the start. Many of us have forgotten, or chosen to forget, that at the time, the Taliban was willing to cooperate with the Bush Administration and boot Osama bin Laden out of their country, in exchange for simply being left the hell ALONE. The neoclowns refused – they wanted a war, and invaded anyway. Twenty years later, Amerikhastan abandoned Afghanistan in ignominious disgrace and failure – the images and videos from the 2021 evacuation of Kabul were uncomfortably and disturbingly reminiscent of the Fall of Saigon in 1975, and with good reason.

The invasion of Iraq, a few years later, was even more idiotic. Today, the Iraqi government has told America in no uncertain terms to GET OUT. Indeed, America should have gotten out many years ago – it should never have invaded in the first place, actually, given we now know Gulf War II was launched on completely false pretences and outright lies.

Looking back across the sum and substance of American foreign and domestic policy decisions since 9/11 – and for many years before – it is difficult today not to weep.

America had the potential to be the greatest country in the WORLD. And it threw all of that away, running overseas to find imaginary daemons to slay, while letting ACTUAL daemons take up residence in the halls of power.

Many of my readers are aware that I had to leave the US, after I lost my job there, a bit over 6 years ago. It took me about 3 years before I could even contemplate going back to the US – the pain was simply too great before then, due to the losses I had suffered. (With time came perspective, and a sense of peace, and today, I am actually thankful for many of the trials I endured.)

There is one trial, however, for which I am unprepared. And that is the possibility of returning to the US, even if only for a visit to see my friends and family members again. I do not want to see what it has become, because I can scarcely believe it, even from a distance. And I cannot bear to witness it for myself.

The America i lived in, even during those years when it went completely astray, was a land of peace, plenty, decency, and dignity. Things were getting pretty bad by 2016, when we saw the start of the blessed reign of the God-Emperor, and they started improving shortly thereafter, to some degree, but then they began to collapse again, very quickly, in 2020.

Today, I no longer recognise the country I left. Nothing about it makes sense anymore. It isn’t even a country of its own. It is instead occupied territory. The American nation has become subsumed and consumed by the American Empire. And that Empire is profoundly evil.

That evil took root long before 9/11. The tragedy of that day injected it with steroids on steroids, topped off with HGH. Look at what it has become today – an all-consuming blight upon the American soul that stains the American people with debt-slavery, war, and unending misery.

The war with Russia – and that is precisely what it is, an American war against Russia, rather than a war between Russia and Ukraine – is yet another man-made disaster in service of that evil. Because that evil is both stupid and incompetent, it is incapable of recognising that it is being defeated, and badly, by the Russians, for whom the Banderastan War has long been nothing less than a sacred Crusade. It will not take much more to collapse the Empire completely – but the suffering and terror that will unleash, will be terrible indeed.

America went from a nation that prided itself on its integrity, honour, decency, and fundamental senses of hard work and fair play, to a nation of materialism, greed, and profound jealousy that someone – ANYONE – might think differently from their own political elites. Those elites sucked dry America’s industry and economy, and mismanaged its military to enforce their will upon the rest of the world at gunpoint and with financial sanctions.

The rest of the world is sick and tired of this stupidity and these games, and it is not difficult to see this.

Yahweh has blessed me abundantly with opportunities to travel, to see the rest of the world, and to serve – rather incompetently, in my own estimation of myself – as a bridge between the West and the rest. And what I see of the rest of the world is something most Americans cannot understand, because they are deeply parochial in nature.

The rest of the world LOATHES America. It HATES what America has become, as I do. And it is horrified to watch the decline of the once-great, once-proud, and once-free country that America used to be.

There was a time when America was the envy of the world. I remember. I lived there during that time. Back then, foreigners yearned to go to America for a better life, for economic opportunity, and for the freedoms and rule of law that life in America gave them – things which, believe it or not, are actually pretty rare in the rest of the world.

Today, though, America is no better than a banana republic – and considerably worse, in many ways – thanks in no small part to the misbegotten and foolish misadventures of the past 23 years. Those mistakes are far beyond correction at this point. All we can do is wait for the inevitable and complete end of the New Evil Empire, and hope and pray that whatever comes out of it, will be less insane, less corrupt, and more humane than what preceded it.

In this, there is reason for hope. The old Soviet Union was repressive, nihilistic, brutal, and yet incredibly silly, all at the same time. Its largest and most powerful successor state, Russia, has shown what can happen to a country when its fundamental character and culture are untouched by the ravages of an evil and literally insane economic and political ideology. If those roots can survive, then the nation that results from the shattering of an empire can thrive and become great again.

Russia of the modern day is not perfect – far from it. The country has major problems and issues. But compared to what the USSR was, today’s Russia is a land of laws, governed by men and women who believe strongly in their own people and national identity. It is also a nation where you can, in fact, be free, to a degree that some Americans might recognise existed only in the 1950s in their own country.

If at least some of the nations that spin out of the coming American imperial collapse can follow that same example, then there is reason to hope that America will indeed one day be great again – and will do so by becoming a humble and sensible nation that embraces national identity, maritime trade, diplomacy, and peace, over endless foreign wars and sanctions.