Sixty-seven years ago, a date that still lives in infamy. And this year, it too falls on a Sunday. Will September 11th be remembered as long? It seems that, despite the recent attacks in India, many have forgotten that we are at war with an ideology just as (if not more) dangerous than the ones we fought then.
Randy Barnett happened to be visiting Honolulu, coincidentally, and describes the memorials. I was there a couple years ago, and though not on the anniversary (it was a few weeks earlier), it was a somber and interesting experience.
Having spent many a Sunday morning quietly eating breakfast on Navy mess decks, December 7th takes me back every year.
Having never been under actual fire, I cannot imagine what it must have been like to have your ship shot out from under you.
Your ship is your friend, your enemy, part of your family, it’s your home town. It is your home. If someone attacks that home, and kills one of your friends, or your brothers, it’s a double shot that it happened in your home.
I can’t even imagine.
My thanks go out to all the veterans here, not just the squids.
Shift colors, underway.
THere wasn’t a domestic political party with a massive political and social investment in making sure that December 7th was forgotten as quickly as possible.
September 11th, on the other hand…
All right, if we’re supposed to remember the enemy, let’s get down to brass tacks. You don’t win a war just with Sunday sermons.
First, it’s very important to accept Bush’s words from his radio address yesterday:
Bush at least deserves credit for being completely clear. He has signed an agreement to send US troops home from Iraq, all of the troops, by the end of 2011. The agreement is unconditional; it does not say that we will only send the troops home if progress continues to be made.
Second, juxtapose that with this account from Michael Totten:
Again, Totten deserves credit for being completely clear (and generally telling the truth, even though he doesn’t like to tell the whole truth). Iraq is dysfunctional even compared to other Arab countries. That is what the US is withdrawing from.
I was talking about the war, not Iraq, but Jim Harris the troll has to change the subject to his own hobby horse, as usual.
Actually, the agreed upon terms can be modified at any time, by mutual consent of the two governments…
The “trainers” could transition to “shooters” under such circumstances.
I was talking about the war, not Iraq
Yes, you were talking about apples, not Granny Smiths.
Iraq is still 80% of the war that Bush is fighting.
Actually, the agreed upon terms can be modified at any time, by mutual consent of the two governments
Sure, but Iraqi consent isn’t going to happen, because Nouri al-Maliki — or anyone who might plausibly replace him — is no more our friend than Vladimir Putin is. That’s why Maliki told us to get the hell out and put the promise in writing. In fact, the Iraqis didn’t even want to sign the agreement because they didn’t think that the US would keep its word, until Obama was elected.
I wasn’t talking about the “war that Bush was fighting.” I was talking about the war. Unlike you, I’m not deranged by George Bush, and am capable of thinking about broader issues than George Bush and Iraq.
But the war that Bush is fighting IS the war until January 20.
It’s not about being “deranged” by Bush. I’m quoting what Bush wanted all Americans to hear yesterday, and I’m saying that Bush is telling the truth. In the war, he just signed a retreat from Iraq, which has been the main battlefield for most of the war so far. It’s important to know what he’s doing, in his words — he’s still Commander in Chief in the war for another month and a half. If you care about the war at all, you shouldn’t just pretend that the Commander in Chief and his chosen main battlefield aren’t there.
Now if you had in mind the war under Obama, you have a point in that he plans to remove Iraq from the war as fast as possible. But that’s for the future.
People were looking for ways to forget 9/11 almost immediately. Organs of the left – like the LA Times – published editorials stating that they wouldn’t use terms like “terrorist” because it was inflammatory and because “some people” couldn’t tell the difference between a suicide bomber and George Washington.
Since 9/11 I have noticed that “militants” can:
– Seize a school and murder children
– Train frightened children to be suicide bombers
– Strap bombs to teenage girls with Down syndrome and send them into a crowded market
– Crucify the children of people who side with a government they do not approve of
The poor, dimwitted morons cannot bring themselves to say the word enemy. They only refer to terrorists as “enemies” as if irony were insight. As if the inability to site the difference between George Washington and a terrorist is sign of seeing some hidden, fundamental similarity and not simply child-like stupidity.
When they say foolish things to help us forget 9/11, they do it with pride. They’ve embedded their idiocy into a philosophy. It’s derived idiocy. Axiomatically deduced stupidity.
9/11 will be forgotten and then repeated many times and the empty headed imbeciles will still psychoanalyze terrorists. Always looking for that one final magic phrase that will somehow turn them into our friends. I think they understand that the phrase exists and they want to say it but they know it will hurt their cause to say it out loud. At least at the moment.
And this magic phase? “I surrender.”
In fact, the Iraqis didn’t even want to sign the agreement because they didn’t think that the US would keep its word, until Obama was elected.
Jim, does stupid that profound hurt? It must, the human body and mind was not ment to tolerate that minimal level of cranial blood flow.
The comparison between Pearl Harbor — an attack by a great power — with 9/11 is ridiculous. You give terrorists far too much credit by putting them in the same category. The only way that terrorists can pose the kind of threat that was posed by Imperial Japan is if we overreact to them and do the damage ourselves.
For those of you who’d like to help, the Arizona Memorial Museum Association would certainly appreciate a donation of any size to help build a new museum and visitor center to replace the current one, which has been outgrown and is suffering from old age. Plans for the new center can be viewed at the web page of the AMMA at http://www.arizonamemorial.org. I attended the recent ground-breaking ceremony just a few weeks ago and it was quite an inspiring event. The Arizona memorial itself is truly magnificent. The memorial site to the sinking of the USS Utah is less accessible to the public and marked by just a small monument and sign, unfortunately.
Well actually know if you think of 9/11 as a proxy attack by the Wahhabi Ulema (religious establishment) not unlike their attack against Karbala & Najaf Iraq in the early 19th Century, and Ilkwan raids in the early 20th century it fits. Add to thar, the overwhelming Ilkwan composition of past and former Gitmo detainees,
‘martyrs’ in Iraq, Afghanistan & Chechnya; it’s really not that big an analogy to consider.
Jim,
The Japanese had an ideology of perfect obedience to the Emperor and Japanese racial superiority. It was that ideology that propelled them into WWII. It was that ideology we had to change after we had defeated them militarily.
The fact that the Jihadis aren’t bound to a single nation or Emperor doesn’t mean cut to Rand’s point. There is an ideology behind their actions making them do what they do, and even after they are defeated in Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan the ideology must be defeated. The Jihadi ideology is even more dangerous than the Japanese one because Jihad is a -personal- obligation, and there’s no Emperor that can require the Jihadis to surrender. That’s why killing Osama Bin Laden is nice but not as essential as capturing the Emperor or killing Hitler.
in 1941, FDR thought winning the war was important enough
that he increased taxes, shut down large parts of the domestic
economy, limited salaries, rationed consumer goods, Hired George
C Marshall, imposed
a draft, and defeated japan in about 3 years and had them
occupied in 4.
in 2001, GWB thought cutting taxes and firing Shinseki , was the way to victory. So here we are with massive deficits and still deeply
involved in combat operations.
Jack’s right. Bush should’ve done what Roosevelt did.
He should’ve wrecked the economy (in a way that wasn’t fixed until ten years later), ended all civil liberties “for the duration of the conflict’, interned all Americans of Muslim origins in concentreation camps, totally destroyed at least two Afghani, Iranian, or Iraqi cities with mass fire raids, nuked another two, and allowed Barbara to write the charter for an organization dedicated to allowing thugs and tyrants the greatest free reign possible to massacre their own people.
jack wouldn’t have objected… he would’ve been drafted, and if he had mouthed off at that point the way is mouthing off here… woe for jack.
But that wouyld’ve been okay by jack, because a Liberal Democrat would have been doing it.
Jim Harris says:
“But the war that Bush is fighting IS the war until January 20.”
But I though the left has been continually insisting that Iraq has nothing to do with the war against militant Islam — something about oil or some-such. Now all of a sudden it IS the war?
_______________________________
Jim Says:
“The only way that terrorists can pose the kind of threat that was posed by Imperial Japan is if we overreact to them and do the damage ourselves.”
There are several people that have tried to repaint history and make the imperial Japanese out to be the sympathetic victims of the WWII outcome. That it was U.S. policies that goaded the Japanese into attacking us so that we would have an excuse to enter the war in Europe. These conspirators say the Japanese were clearly out matched by the U.S. war machine and of no real or persistent threat. The same type of people painted the Soviets with the same brush: The Cold War was an excuse of the American Military Industrial Complex to flex their economic muscle. They claim the Soviets were clearly outmatched in every possible category and should have just as well been left alone.
I see the Libtards are once again trying to characterize our enemies as the victims of an overbearing U.S. thugocracy.
DaveP
If you are going to fight, fight to win.
You don’t fight to be stupid, you don’t fight stupidly,
FDR did what he thought was best, defeated the Nazi’s and
Imperial Japan and laid the groundwork for the UN and NATO.
Did he make mistakes? Sure. But he made fewer then
Adolf, or Hirohito or Stalin did.
More importantly, FDR didn’t decide to invade china
because of “Asian Terrorism” he fought a focused, specific
war against Japan. He didn’t fight Franco to fight “Fascism”
he fought Hitler and Mussolini, because they were
aggressive, expansionists. Italy was invading north africa,
Germany was invading Europe.
FDR and Truman even left Franco alone after the war, until
his death.
It’s about fighting smart. We cant fight every Muslim,
we can’t fight every Arab, We can’t fight everyone in the
middle east.
And had I been drafted in WW2, i’d have been a bad fit.
I’m not a good soldier. I’d have volunteered to be one
of FDR’s bright young men, working as a civilian
on the manhattan project, or designing jet fighters, or
computers for the enigma project in england.
You know, all that cutting edge new stuff they built
for the War.
But I though the left has been continually insisting that Iraq has nothing to do with the war against militant Islam
That’s the whole point. Iraq wasn’t NATURALLY part of “the war”, but you guys have done everything you can to shoehorn it in. So it would be a big step forward if you accepted that the war in Iraq, which is still fought as more than 80% of “the war”, is officially ending in retreat. Bush is giving up the fort. If you think that Iraq will really be our ally when we’re gone, forget it. The Shiites might well enjoy wiping out the Sunnis in Iraq, but other than that they aren’t on the same page at all.
Again, since we’re supposed to remember “the war”, let’s get down to brass tacks. The outgoing Commander in Chief has handed the incoming Commander in Chief a war that has unravelled back to square one. Think of it like the Dow. The Dow today is at a number that it first reached in spring 1998. Likewise “the war” is back to where it was on September 12, 2001, if not worse.