I’ve taken time to ponder all the serious consequences of 9/11. Our country’s War on Terror has worsened political instability in a Middle East that in past times demonstrated peaceful co-existence between Christians, Jews, and Muslims. Then there’s the human toll, and the economic drain of all the wasted U.S. military operations that have cost us over $6,000 billion dollars, including benefits to our wounded warriors. Precious human lives and resources could have been otherwise spent repairing decaying infrastructure, improving health, education and welfare, and promoting enterprise.

The lives of the American people have been seriously affected by worsened ethnic and religious profiling, Orwellian censorship of free speech, increased homegrown copycat terrorism in our schools and churches, and even by our tedious airport security. Our younger generation has lost faith in its future. My own nephew accidentally killed himself from a heroin overdose ― from poppies grown and processed in the Middle East and smuggled here to stupefy and destroy America’s future generations.

The Federal Reserve’s easy-money policies have helped develop a nasty socio-political polarization, widening the abyss between the rich who own stocks and the poor who do not, between the landlords and their slaves, between Alt-Righters and the Antifa. Our so-called democracy ― once governed of, by, and for the people― is fast turning into an oligarchy that caters only to the wealthy.

It grieves me to realize America became a debtor nation in 1985, printing worthless money ever since to keep up its fading economic image of world dominance. The U.S. now owes some $22 trillion, a third of that for financing the War on Terror. America has now essentially become a bankrupt nation chugging along on the confidence-fumes of a strong US dollar. But we’re globally considered a failing superpower without the moral backbone to survive much longer and Make America Great Again.

What will happen to old-timers like me when the stock market bubble bursts and pensions like Social Security dry up? When trillions in equity disappear, the U.S. will enter the next Great Depression for another Dust Bowl decade. Terrorists like bin Laden will have won their long war of slow attrition, having bled us dry from military expenditures overseas and defensive measures for Homeland Security.

Estimates say by 2040 Islam will be the second largest religion in the U.S. Meanwhile, Catholic churches and parochial schools are closing. In Syracuse, New York, the Holy Trinity Church has become a mosque—its crosses cut down and painted over. The same thing has been happening in the U.K. and France as Muslim practitioners outnumber Christians. I recently read that Dieringer School District near Seattle has ordered a preference for Islamic practices. No Christian crosses are allowed but Muslim prayer rugs are okay. One nation no longer under God, but Allah.

Christianity has lost its moral edge as its bishops bow to Mammon. I believe that secularized America is feeling the wrath of God for its 46 million ‘legal’ abortions over the past 40 years. Our so-called Catholic politicians turn a blind eye to the brutal sacrifice of innocents murdered in blind worship to Convenience (otherwise known in ancient times as the false god, Baal).

Osama bin Laden delivered a revealing letter in 2002 stating he planned the 9/11 attack not only for revenge but as punishment for our rampant immorality, our “fornication, homosexuality, intoxicants, gambling, and usury.” His brand of strict moral teachings instilled an unshakeable conviction in the 19 young jihadis martyred while enacting his version of divine justice. They shouted “Allahu Akbar” (Allah is Great) as their jet airliners crashed.

God gives his warning in Jesus’ words: “All those who take up the sword shall perish by the sword” (Matthew 26:52).