September Elevenths
Too many empty words are being spilled over this fifth anniversary of the attacks on the Twin Towers. So I will try not to significantly deepen the void.
The photo you see was also taken on the morning of September 11th — 1973. Chilean President Salvador Allende and some of his bodyguards are readying to defend the Presidential Palace and a century of democratic rule against a military uprising led by General Augusto Pinochet and encouraged by the Nixon administration.
That defense failed. And for millions of Chileans, September 11th was the last day before 17 years of darkness, dictatorship and death. A collective experience every bit as traumatic, if not more so, than the tragedy suffered at the WTC three decades later.
The point is not to minimize what we experienced in the U.S. Nor is it to compare and contrast atrocities.
Instead, I wish to note only what should be obvious. The nightmare inflicted on us by a group of murderous religious fanatics five years ago confers no special status on America. In our memorialization and rememberances of the tragedy there should be no room for self-indulgence.
What happened five years ago in New York and Washington only makes us more like the rest of the world and not very different at all. Our pain was and remains intense, as it should be. Yet it is no different than the horror experienced by the 3,000 Chilean families who lost a loved one as a result of their own 9/11…nor from the pain felt by those who died under the rockets and bombs in Lebanon and Israel last month. Nor the hundreds of thousands who are being butchered — as we speak — in Darfur.
Such tragedies reveal our shared, global humanity. And inhumanity.
September 11th, 2006 at 5:53 am
The other day, I asked my wife how long her family’s ryokan
http://www.tamaryokan.com
had been in business. Around 60 years ago? 70? She shrugged. “It was before I was born,” she replied. “And besides, right after World War II, there was nothing here anyway–it was all burned down.”
So what should be written on a plaque outside? “Tama Ryokan – Since Tokyo Year Zero”?
“The first such raid on Tokyo was on the night of February 23–24, when 174 B-29s destroyed around one square mile (~2.56 km²) of the city. Following on that effort 334 B-29s took off from the Mariana Islands on the night of March 9–10 heading for Tokyo. After 2 hours of bombardment, Tokyo was engulfed in a firestorm. The fires were so hot they would ignite the clothing on individuals as they were fleeing. What was particularly horrifying was a lot of the women were wearing what were called ‘air-raid turbans’ around their heads and the heat would ignite those turbans like igniting a wick on a candle to start consuming the flame. The aftermath of the incendiary bombings lead to an estimated 100,000 Japanese dead. This may have been the most devasting single raid ever carried out by aircraft in any war including the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Tokyo_in_World_War_II#Firebombing
I still vividly remember a very odd afternoon after reading a story about Curtis LeMay and the Tokyo firebombings in the now-defunct but excellent magazine Tokyo Journal. In 1945, LeMay had been about the age I was when I was reading the article (late 30s). While walking home to my apartment, I passed an old woman who must have been in her 80s. This would have put her in her 30s in 1945. It occurred to me that she might have lost young children in the firebombing, and other relatives as well. At the time I was teaching English to small children (or attempting to, not very successfully.) I was dealing with Japanese children, mothers and doting grandparents almost daily. And I wondered: how does a rational human being order what amounts to the execution of tens of thousands of women, children, old people? And only to spare the lives of some soldiers, and bring a war closer to its end? And it hit me: in swimming through the sea of people in any train station in any major Japanese city, you are continually rubbing shoulders with people who are related to people who were incinerated alive, within living memory.
I got home and sat still for a very long time.
America is an unusual country in many respects (most of which I admire). But the last time it was really turned upside down and shaken hard was the during the Civil War.
September 11th, 2006 at 7:07 am
dear michael,
i’ve just read your post while finishing work in yokohama. i’m about to get on the subway and head home. thank you–i would never have thought to look at things here in quite that way.
September 11th, 2006 at 10:01 am
Serious People Look Back & Offer A Personal Note On Coping With The Day Everything Changed…
Peggy Noonan: You were separated on September 11th. What was it like when you saw each other again?
Mrs. Bush: Well, we just hugged. I think there was a certain amount of security in being with each other than being apart.
President Bush: But the day ended on a relatively humorous note. The agents said, “You’ll be sleeping downstairs. Washington’s still a dangerous place.” And I said no, I can’t sleep down there, the bed didn’t look comfortable. I was really tired, Laura was tired, we like our own bed. We like our own routine. You know, kind of a nester. Like the way things are. I knew I had to deal with the issue the next day and provide strength and comfort to the country, and so I needed rest in order to be mentally prepared. So I told the agent we’re going upstairs, and he reluctantly said okay. Laura wears contacts, and she was sound asleep. Barney was there. And the agent comes running up and says, “We’re under attack. We need you downstairs,” and so there we go. I’m in my running shorts and my T-shirt, and I’m barefooted. Got the dog in one hand, Laura had a cat, I’m holding Laura –
Mrs. Bush: I don’t have my contacts in, and I’m in my fuzzy house slippers –
President Bush: And this guy’s out of breath, and we’re heading straight down to the basement because there’s an incoming unidentified airplane, which is coming toward the White House. Then the guy says it’s a friendly airplane. And we hustle all the way back upstairs and go to bed.
Mrs. Bush: [laughs] And we just lay there thinking about the way we must have looked.
Peggy Noonan: So the day starts in tragedy and ends in Marx Brothers.
President Bush: That’s right — we got a laugh out of it.
Clipped from The Ladies Home Journal. (Here’s how the interview starts: “Peggy Noonan: Mr. President, as you went into this presidency, did you have a hunch that you were going to face the big bad history? President Bush: It’s very interesting that you ask that. I remember talking to Dick Cheney and saying, “I need a vice president who will be a good, solid adviser when things go bad.” Not if things go bad. As I recall, I said when things go bad. When things are fine, you walk along. But I need somebody who has been through a lot and will be a steady source of advice. And whether or not I had a premonition, I don’t know. But, nevertheless, I did put the vice presidency in those terms. I fully felt that Dick Cheney would be the perfect person to do that, and history has proven me correct.”)
I’ll never forget when Churchill told that hilarious anecdote about the time they were bombing London and he and Mrs. Churchill… Oh, you’ve already heard that one ? Nevermind. But what’s up with Peggy’s query about “big, bad history”? Are we/she/they twelve years old ? I will give this unusually vapid woman credit for one line attributed to her: “The battle for the mind of Ronald Reagan was like the trench warfare of World War I: never have so many fought so hard for such barren terrainâ€
September 11th, 2006 at 11:08 am
It is entirely normal for individuals in danger to laugh at unusual things, reg. Lincoln and Churchill were noted – and criticised – for their joking during serious events. You are stretching to demonise your opponents.
Marc, despite your leaving out much of the Allende situation, I agree with your overall point. I have sons from Romania and many friends in Eastern Europe – we Americans know little of tragedy on a national scale.
September 11th, 2006 at 11:10 am
“And I wondered: how does a rational human being order what amounts to the execution of tens of thousands of women, children, old people? And only to spare the lives of some soldiers, and bring a war closer to its end?”
The soldiers, whose lives you imply were less valuable, were 19 and 20 year old conscripts, drafted for the duration of a national emergency, most away from home for the first time and terrified of dying in a foriegn country. In short, they were essentially children themselves. And they happened to be the children of the men who ordered the bombing, or the children of their friends and neighbors and constituents. And almost every one of the women, children and old people you were dropping bombs on were spending part of their day working in a factory to make bullets and explosives that would be used to kill YOUR children.
The priority put on sparing the lives of “only … soldiers” was perfectly understandable, especially at a point where a quarter million were dead already.
The reason total war is so ugly is because the choice is not _whether_ to kill children, but _whose_ children you are going to condemn to death.
September 11th, 2006 at 11:17 am
NI PERDON NI OLVIDO..
September 11th, 2006 at 11:45 am
“It is entirely normal for individuals in danger to laugh at unusual things, reg.”
Of course it is, but the course he takes in the context of that interview is more of Bush’s well-documented shallowness. If there’s anything that points to “demonization” rather than hollow “trivialization” in that interview it’s his comment on Cheney, who’s proven to be a disaster if not a “demon”. Incidentally, when Bush does actually make jokes in the context of discussing more serious issues, he’s reveals an adolescent sense of humor. To compare his use of humor to alleviate tensions or buffer tragedy to Churchill’s or Lincoln’s is about as convincing as comparing his statecraft to theirs. Which, of course, the wingers are currently trying to do.
September 11th, 2006 at 11:45 am
Reg -
Bracing stuff, good for the soul. Had no idea about the house slippers. It’s always the little things that make me appreciate this misunderstood “nester” and what he goes through for us — the contact lenses, the running shorts, the fact that through it all he can see the humor and share it. Thank heavens for Peggy Noonan and her sharp, gentle eye and for the Ladies Home Journal. Would never have guessed you were a regular reader, but with pieces like this can see why. Please pass along more when you come across it. Would love to know about his breakfast habits, favorite mouthwash and so on. Sometimes it’s just comforting to know the small stuff, the funny stuff — what goes on when he’s not plowing through Shakespeares or hacking his way through the thickets of foreign policy so that we can sleep securely in our own soft beds.
September 11th, 2006 at 11:57 am
“In our memorialization and rememberances of the tragedy there should be no room for self-indulgence.
What happened five years ago in New York and Washington only makes us more like the rest of the world…”
Excellent observations, MC.
September 11th, 2006 at 12:31 pm
Gracias, Marc.
Si , soy chileno radicado en Estados Unidos desde 1973.
It took me 27 years to fully deal with the scars, or have I? I’ve been reading your blog since its inception, and your other work for many years before.
Thanks again.
Sergio
September 11th, 2006 at 12:56 pm
“In our memorialization and rememberances of the tragedy there should be no room for self-indulgence.
What happened five years ago in New York and Washington only makes us more like the rest of the world…â€
Excellent observations, MC.
I second that reg.
September 11th, 2006 at 1:03 pm
me too.
September 11th, 2006 at 3:08 pm
Fortunately, tender souls who cannot order bombing in a case of self defense tend not to be named Defense Secretary.
Happy Jan Sobieski Day, we Poles repelled the perfidious Turk once from Christendom and it damn well looks like we’re going to have to do it again.
September 11th, 2006 at 3:16 pm
A day or so after the events of 11 Sept 2001 I bumped into colleague at work who was very shaken-up.I realized she was in a minor form of shock and just needed someone to tell her everything would be alright.But,when she asked for 37th time,’why did this happen’,I could not help myself and offered her a brief history of American foreign policy.She,like so many of us was not interested in the harm brought by the USA to far away nations and peoples and could not imagine that any kind of payback might be forthcoming.I hope now that she and all of us can live with the truth that we (and our government) reap what we sow.
September 11th, 2006 at 3:29 pm
Hey, Andy S:
Shut the f$ck up.
September 11th, 2006 at 3:54 pm
Andy S.
Let me try, a bit more politely. American foreign policy did not cause 9-11. That is a rationalization which some in the US buy into because it fits their own ideas of what they don’t like about America.
Were it about America, it wouldn’t have started in the 7th C, and wouldn’t have current eruptions in places like India, Spain, and the Phillipines.
Unless, of course, you buy the argument that women who are wearing short skirts are asking for it?
September 11th, 2006 at 4:03 pm
I think the cause is simple:
Millions of Muslim kids are brainwashed into thinking they have the God-given duty to murder all “infidels” – and by infidel, I mean “anyone who doesn’t abide by fanatic Islam.”
And the problem is, they don’t care about dying. They WANT to die for their cause. And every new generation has an average of 10 kids per parent (a term I use loosely).
So they’re like the mythological Medusa – you kill a few terrorists, and 10 more sprout up in their place.
September 11th, 2006 at 5:12 pm
AVI – your point that Islamic fundamentalism would exist whatever form American foreign policy took is obviously correct. But let me ask you this: do you think that America’s oil- and Israel-driven Middle East policy makes it easier or more difficult for Islamic fundamentalists to recruit adherents who are willing to commit violent acts?
But it’s probably a waste of time even posing the question. Most Americans, I find, simply cannot conceive of how their country is viewed by non-Americans.
Part of it is insularity, and part of it is that they simply don’t know what their government has done around the world in their name.
September 11th, 2006 at 5:37 pm
If American foreign policy is not connected to 9/11, how come the Bush Administration heavily promoted an argument – particularly in the run-up to Iraq – that the way to win the “War on Terror” was to turn from the pragmatism of the “realists” which had historically put the U.S. in bed with dictators and alienated many Muslims in favor of aggressively promoting democracy, which would dry up the terrorist swamps and remove the basis for so much alienation and discontent on the Arab “street” ????
Also, virtually the only people in the U.S. who believe that “women in short skirts are asking for it” are right-wingers like Dinesh D’Souza and, of course, the fundamentalist freaks like Robertson and Falwell who form the hard-core of the GOP base. The thesis of National Review editor D’Souza’s latest tome – The Enemy At Home: The Cultural Left and 9/11″ is that the degenerate culture of American liberalism alienates the pious, decent God-fearing people of the Middle East and drives them into the arms the jihadists. No kidding. The “Hate America Right” is alive and well. Ramsey Clark is a piker compared to these NRO and “Christian” types who have access to tons of media, including the mainstream to sell their poison. The creepy little clown D’Souza is not a fringe figure on the margins of the nutty Ultra-Right – he routinely gets invited onto the PBS Newshour as an opinion-monger. He’s definitely part of the nutty GOP “intellectual” mainstream.
From the Random House website promoting D’Souza’s book:
“D’Souza shows that liberals—people like Hillary Clinton, Ted Kennedy, Barney Frank, Bill Moyers, and Michael Moore—are responsible for fostering a culture that angers and repulses not just Muslim countries but also traditional and religious societies around the world…
He argues that it is not our exercise of freedom that enrages our enemies, but our abuse of that freedom—from the sexual liberty of women to the support of gay marriage, birth control, and no-fault divorce, to the aggressive exportation of our vulgar, licentious popular culture.”
Sick little anti-American fuck.
And yes, that’s “Random House” not “Regnery”.
September 11th, 2006 at 5:38 pm
If you don’t believe me, here’s the site link.
http://www.randomhouse.com/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9780385510127
September 11th, 2006 at 5:50 pm
I have to add that the notion that Bill Moyers “angers and repulses” religous people is one of the funniest things I’ve seen yet from these morons. No one in the public sphere – certainly in the media – has done more to promote serious discussion of the deep spiritual questions than Bill Moyers.
I guess the “questions” part is the problem. He incenses wacko fundamentalists who follow the bin Ladenist epistemology and believe that religion is nothing proselytizing with a set of prescriptive dogmas transcribed from a given text and that it’s heresy to ask the big questions or acknowledge any cosmic mystery.
September 11th, 2006 at 6:30 pm
I’m going to also stick my neck out and state that anyone who thinks that al Qaeda and extremist Islam poses an existential threat to “The West” (as Bush will argue tonight in his “war for civilization speech) is a chickenshit punk who lacks anything approaching balls – with little or no abiding belief in our way of life or any real confidence in our culture and our people. They pose a real danger, but this isn’t what world wars look like or a “war for civilization”. As James Fallows argues in a very smart article in the current Atlantic, the biggest danger posed to the U.S., as the primary power in the West, is by foolish and opportunistic leaders who over-react and get us drawn into regional wars we can’t win and that sap our power rather than reinforce it. Sound familiar.
“Soft power”, intelligence, police work, discrete special operations, smart diplomacy and effective security measures are the key, not engaging numerous countries in the Middle East in overt warfare. That is the path of dangerous lunatics – our own – who can, in fact, by their megalomania, paranoia and strategic incompetence doom us to a form of warfare that we will, if not lose, not be able to bring to an outcome that anyone in their right mind would consider a “win”.
I do, in fact, believe that Bush and his ilk have proven themselves a greater, de facto danger to the long-term security interests of their own country in the context of the terrorist threat – through massive failures of strategy and basic competence that have effectively magnified that very threat – than bin Laden himself could possibly pose at this point.
I’ll leave it at that. Actually that wasn’t sticking my neck out. It’s more in the realm of common sense dictating an honest description of the Emporer’s Clothes.
September 11th, 2006 at 6:37 pm
If Bush had any balls or a brain, he’d take Air Force One to Tehran. Where is Nixon now that we need him ?
September 11th, 2006 at 7:04 pm
Fallows’ Atlantic article isn’t on line, but here’s a line from a followu-up that’s 100% relevant to the charade we’re being treated to to mask Bush’s failure and delusional incompetence in responding to 9/11.
“A state of war with no clear end point makes it more likely for a country to overreact in ways that hurt itself, especially by losing the moral high ground that was crucial to America’s victory in the Cold War. It also makes it harder for the country to do the patient work of tracking down, catching, and thwarting the “copycat” groups, since that depends so heavily on relations with allied countries and with sympathetic Muslim groups. Remember: it was police work, surveillance, and patient cultivation of sources that broke the airline bombing ring – not speeches about a state of war.”
Okay, I’m sure I’ve stretched MC’s and everyone else’s patience. Sorry. I’ll sit down and shut up.
September 11th, 2006 at 7:35 pm
Mork, points taken, but I don’t think they are unanswerable. Second point first.
I find that Americans, particularly those on the left, tend to overestimate the hatred people of other countries have for us. Our major shared sources are the reports of our own journalists in those countries. Journalists by their very nature are influenced by their contacts: government officials, NGO’s, other journalists, university professors of politics, and people with a grudge, seeking them out. In any country, these groups will have a disproportionate percentage of anti-Americanists.
But there are other groups of Americans who have some knowledge of other countries, and their experience is quite different: our military, missionaries, medical personnel, families, people in international business, and tourists. These groups report considerable pro-American sentiment, but among people who have less prominence.
It would be fair of you to counter that these groups by their nature would be most likely to encounter pro-American sentiment, and that is true. But in Romania, I encounter almost universal admiration for America – when they disagree with us it is because they think we mean well but are misinformed – yet among the people of my first list, I do encounter anti-Americanism. I have less experience in the rest of Eastern Europe, but find the same thing.
More general data here:
http://futurist.typepad.com/my_weblog/2006/08/who_does_americ.html
You will note that even in places supposed dripping in antiAmericanism, such as France and China, there are significant minorities that view us favorably. That polls of citizens in countries with nothing like a free press dislike us strikes me as of dubious validity.
As to the first question, whether our oil and Israel driven policy makes it easier for Islamic fundamentalists to recruit, I would say yes, definitely. But that is not the only dynamic in those countries, and a foreign policy rooted in “don’t give ‘em anything that their extremists don’t like” would not likely be successful in any long run. It is ultimately not very important if they like us – only important that they like freedom. Liking us would help greatly, but is not the key.
Israel is their excuse, and oil $ their enabler, and both of those things will be important for at least the next few decades. But even those things will ultimately prove secondary. This is really a civil war within Islam. If Israel and the oil were gone, most of the issues for the next century would still remain.
Thank you for your civility, BTW.
September 11th, 2006 at 8:03 pm
I really Don’t Want to Write This Post . . ….
I really didn’t want to write anything today about the events of 9/11. When I got up this morning and went out to the bus stop, the weather reminded too much of September 11, 2001. The first thing that I…
September 11th, 2006 at 8:15 pm
Churchill was a right-wing nut job, and he was England’s Stalin. Please stop talking about him.
September 11th, 2006 at 8:16 pm
“If Israel and the oil were gone”, frankly none of this would matter much to the U.S. Just saying.
And the belief that a “civil war within Islam” is the occasion for the U.S. to declare WW3, or whatever the nom du jour is, isn’t coherent. Unless we start leaving loopy ideology, like “it’s only important that they love freedom” at the door, we’re going to be increasingly screwed, because the U.S. isn’t going to be the vehicle for Islam to resolve their internal contradictions, elimnate their extremist elements or whatever. And when you say “civil war within Islam”, I’m wondering which side we’re on. Sunni ? Shia ? Any Muslim who’s nice ? Just how does this civil war manifest itself ? It’s obvious that the civil war we happen to be in the middle of – and arguably precipitated in it’s current form – doesn’t really have a side that it’s in our interest to have “win”, incidentally. with the possible exception of the Kurds, and I’m not 100% certain about that one, given their overlapping regional ambitions into territories controlled by other of our allies and adversaries. The very fact that this broader war is nearly impossible for it’s proponents to explain coherently in the context of the actual measures they’ve taken and the results they’ve produced to date is beyond disturbing. It means that in the near term we’re totally screwed and have been terribly failed by our leadership.
September 11th, 2006 at 9:14 pm
These kinds of things do more to stop terrorism than anything our leaders have articulated in the past five years. Not counting that smashing heal the world tour put on by the polycultural Karen Hughes.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6055951
When I listen to people like Najdat Anzour speak I am reminded that the ideals of secularism, peace, and moderation that our current administration so abhores can still be communicated to our brothers in arms. Men like Anzour, who appreciate the value of human life, are our real allies against the extremists who would resolve any conflict on the battlefield. American’s are no longer buying these dichotomies – if Bin Laden is bad than Bush is good. There are better ways than fighting fire with fire, even if they don’t look as manly.
September 11th, 2006 at 9:21 pm
Islamo-symp, John Tierney, quoted in full because it’s behind a wall. This guy – a conservative of libertarian bent, with whom I generally agree on little or nothing other than a few social issues – gets it. Maybe there’s some hope…
September 12, 2006
NYT’s Op-Ed Columnist
Osama’s Spin Lessons
By JOHN TIERNEY
Somewhere, Osama bin Laden must be smiling. Or at least he will be whenever his couriers deliver the next batch of press clippings.
Once again he has beaten America at an American game: public relations. He may be sitting powerlessly in a cave, but his image is as scary as ever. He doesn’t even have to cut a new video. He released an old one last week, the equivalent of a fading musician putting out a greatest-hits album, only this one’s getting played every hour.
Last night, President Bush paid him homage by quoting his warning that America will face “defeat and disgrace forever†it if loses in Iraq. Bush himself called the war on terror a “struggle for civilization,†and said it was essential to â€maintain the way of life enjoyed by free nations.â€
It was just the kind of apocalyptic language favored by bin Laden, except that, for all his delusions, he might realize that American civilization is not really in jeopardy. Americans can try to copy him, but they don’t understand his rhetorical technique.
They continually misinterpret his equine theory of international relations: “When people see a strong horse and a weak horse, by nature, they will like the strong horse.†This is supposedly a reason America was attacked on Sept. 11 — it was perceived as weak for failing to respond to Al Qaeda’s earlier attacks — and why it can’t leave Iraq.
If we falter in Iraq, Vice President Dick Cheney explained to Tim Russert on Sunday, the war on terror will falter because people will say: “My gosh, the United States hasn’t got the stomach for the fight. Bin Laden’s right, Al Qaeda’s right, the United States has lost its will and will not complete the mission.â€
But bin Laden knows something else the Bush administration hasn’t figured out: You don’t actually have to be the strong horse. You just have to look stronger. You can be weak, you can be pummeled in a fight, but as long as your opponent looks more scared than you, you can save face by simply declaring victory.
As an act of war, the attack on Sept. 11 was a blunder by Al Qaeda, and not merely because of the counterattack that destroyed Al Qaeda’s training camps and ousted the Taliban. It also alienated former jihadist allies in the Arab world, and caused a rift within Al Qaeda.
One of its senior members, Abu al-Walid al-Masri, broke with bin Laden and accused him of having an “extreme infatuation†with international publicity. The attack, as Fawaz Gerges notes in Foreign Policy magazine, demonstrated that “bin Laden was prepared to sacrifice Afghanistan and Mullah Omar at the altar of his public relations campaign.â€
But at least bin Laden knew his P.R. Al Qaeda wasn’t a serious military threat to America, but it could play one on television. As Al Qaeda’s losses mounted and America recovered from the attack, bin Laden and his cohorts didn’t let the facts get in the way of their campaign to promote fear (and themselves). They hid in caves and proclaimed themselves champions.
America, meanwhile, accentuated the negative. Instead of declaring victory against terrorists after routing the Taliban and sending bin Laden into hiding, it invaded Iraq, reinvigorating Al Qaeda with a new tool for recruiting. Instead of putting the terrorist risk in perspective, Bush (with the full cooperation of Democrats and the press) set an impossible standard for making America safe.
“We’re on the offense against the terrorists on every battlefront,†Bush said last week, “and we’ll accept nothing less than complete victory.â€
When you define victory that way, when you treat one attack from a disorganized band of fanatics as a menace to civilization, you’ve doomed yourself to defeat and caused more damage than they could. You can’t completely stop terrorism, but you can scare people into giving up liberties, wasting huge sums of money and sacrificing more lives than would be lost in a terrorist attack.
Take it from bin Laden, who bragged in 2004 that it was “easy to provoke and bait this administration.â€
“All that we have to do,†he said, “is to send two mujahedeen to the farthest point east to raise a piece of cloth on which is written Al Qaeda, in order to make the generals race there to cause America to suffer human, economic and political losses.†And then Al Qaeda, no matter what losses it has suffered, will come off once again looking like the strong horse.
September 11th, 2006 at 9:46 pm
“… almost every one of the women, children and old people you were dropping bombs on were spending part of their day working in a factory to make bullets and explosives that would be used to kill YOUR children.”
Just prior to the bombing of Japan, “17 percent of Japan’s total output was being devoted to direct war purposes and expansion of her munition industries, as against 2.6 percent at that time in the United States.”
As with any country at war, operating well short of total devastation, almost all economic activity is oriented around civilian use, and for reasons that should be pretty obvious: people need to eat, clothe themselves, have roofs over their heads.
Here’s a nice one:
“The obvious retort,”what about the children?” is equally without real merit. Aside from the fact that the Axis powers used child labor extensively, (which would drag the children out of the realm of noncombatants) the fact remains that they, being essentially at the side of their mothers who are part of the war-making capability of the enemy, are semi-legitimate targets. Bombs, be they conventional or nuclear, do not discriminate. To be plain, that’s just tough.”
http://hnn.us/articles/189.html
“Semi-legitimate” — I like that. I suppose a babysitter who looks after a child too young to be “drafted” into war production so that a mother and her other children can go make bullets is also a “semi-legitimate” target. As for the child getting the babysitting, well … “that’s just tough”.
“The reason total war is so ugly is because the choice is not _whether_ to kill children, but _whose_ children you are going to condemn to death.”
Being drafted is not a death sentence. Having firebombs dumped on you is. Going into battle is always a choice for a soldier, even if the alternatives are unpleasant. Staying alive after a firestorm has sucked all the oxygen out of the immediate environment is not.
September 11th, 2006 at 9:54 pm
That’s it, They did it. they try swift boated the truth. The only answer is we don’t go to their theme parks, ride on their cruise ships, buy their videos, or their toys. Say Bye Bye to the Disney Kingdom. They wouldn’t distribute Michael Moore’s movie because they SAID they didn’t want to deal with controversial subjects. So 40 million dollars later, two months before an election they want to air this pack of lies commercial free. Gee Sinclair tried this trick once before. And to top it off, It’s airing unedited in New Zealand right now. What’s next, a rush Halloween release of the foreign release?!!!! I think this is a GOP campaign contribution.
thats my latest rant, to see my rant in cartoon form go to my website
http://www.whatnowtoons.com
September 11th, 2006 at 11:43 pm
Thanks for posting the Tierney piece, reg, that is one of the wisest things I have ever seen on this subject. And as for sticking your neck out, that particular post was one of your best and I agree with every sentence.
September 12th, 2006 at 6:36 am
I don’t think we heard enough from Reg in this thread.
September 12th, 2006 at 7:47 am
Well, “Stevez”, you’re free, like reg, to say something intelligent and thought-provoking at any time. Reg is quite good at it, so you might take notes. Or you can continue to make little ankle-nipping comments that, ironically, clutter up the message board more than the longer and more informative comments of other posters.
Your choice.
September 12th, 2006 at 12:51 pm
It’s the Homeland Fear Factor, here to terrify you into voting for them. The Authoritarians want to control all that you see and hear. They can make your world shaky and terrifying or sharpen it to crystal clarity. They will control all that you see and hear, with the commander and chief constantly linking Iraq to 9-11 buy repeating the two in addresses, like last nights part II of “Path to Lies”. Don’t fall for it people, they’re worried they could loose the House & Senate, that’s why they’re pulling out all their dirty tricks right now. Don’t be fooled, it’s just their election campaign in action. Here’s a link to my cartoon, “Homeland Fear Factor”
http://www.whatnowtoons/#056
September 12th, 2006 at 3:22 pm
SteveZ – thanks for your support. I’m tapped out, but since you want me to provide more for you to read, here’s the complete text of War and Peace.
http://www.bibliomania.com/0/0/52/96
September 12th, 2006 at 8:09 pm
I guess, reg, if it’s not clear to you that in the civil war in Islam we’re on the side of the modernists of all stripes, then it is little wonder the rest of our current strategy is also opaque to you.
September 12th, 2006 at 8:24 pm
Opaque doesn’t even begin to describe your incoherence and unhinged GWOT rhetoric.
September 13th, 2006 at 7:16 am
Toons seems representative of the far left in general. Fears his own government more than those of his enemies. The fear is classic big-boogey-man-in-the-sky conspiracies theories and operatives within his own damned country.
It’s classic rocking chair looneyness. And if he were living in the middle east, he would be just the personality profile radical Islam would be looking for to buy into their virgins reward.
September 13th, 2006 at 9:31 am
AVW writes: “I guess, reg, if it’s not clear to you that in the civil war in Islam we’re on the side of the modernists of all stripes, then it is little wonder the rest of our current strategy is also opaque to you.”
Iraq’s PM Maliki was just warmly received by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. How that makes Maliki a “modernist” of any stripe is opaque to me.
September 13th, 2006 at 11:24 am
Jim R , yep that’s me Looney left, or I would rather be considered the radical middle, since the Bush regime has taken everything to the far right, and have us hate everybody they tell us to, manipulating us with fear. My Idea of America is a two party system with checks and balances on power, privacy rights, you know, the kind of things one finds in the Bill of Rights, and the Constitution.
Keep America the Land of the Free
http://www.whatnowtoons.com
September 14th, 2006 at 6:02 pm
Mork, if you’re still around, send me an email, please.
October 13th, 2006 at 6:31 pm
One thing that struck me as odd in the days after 9/11 was Bush saying “We will not tolerate conspiracy theories [regarding 9/11]“. Sure enough there have been some wacky conspiracy theories surrounding the events of that day. The most far-fetched and patently ridiculous one that I’ve ever heard goes like this: Nineteen hijackers who claimed to be devout Muslims but yet were so un-Muslim as to be getting drunk all the time, doing cocaine and frequenting strip clubs decided to hijack four airliners and fly them into buildings in the northeastern U.S., the area of the country that is the most thick with fighter bases. After leaving a Koran on a barstool at a strip bar after getting shitfaced drunk on the night before, then writing a suicide note/inspirational letter that sounded like it was written by someone with next to no knowledge of Islam, they went to bed and got up the next morning hung over and carried out their devious plan. Nevermind the fact that of the four “pilots” among them there was not a one that could handle a Cessna or a Piper Cub let alone fly a jumbo jet, and the one assigned the most difficult task of all, Hani Hanjour, was so laughably incompetent that he was the worst fake “pilot” of the bunch. Nevermind the fact that they received very rudimentary flight training at Pensacola Naval Air Station, making them more likely to have been C.I.A. assets than Islamic fundamentalist terrorists. So on to the airports. These “hijackers” somehow managed to board all four airliners with their tickets, yet not even ONE got his name on any of the flight manifests. So they hijack all four airliners and at this time passengers on United 93 start making a bunch of cell phone calls from 35,000 feet in the air to tell people what was going on. Nevermind the fact that cell phones wouldn’t work very well above 4,000 feet, and wouldn’t work at ALL above 8,000 feet. But the conspiracy theorists won’t let that fact get in the way of a good fantasy. That is one of the little things you “aren’t supposed to think about”. Nevermind that one of the callers called his mom and said his first and last name, more like he was reading from a list than calling his own mom. Anyway, when these airliners each deviated from their flight plan and didn’t respond to ground control, NORAD would any other time have followed standard operating procedure (and did NOT have to be told by F.A.A. that there were hijackings because they were watching the same events unfold on their own radar) which means fighter jets would be scrambled from the nearest base where they were available on standby within a few minutes, just like every other time when airliners stray off course. But of course on 9/11 this didn’t happen, not even close. Somehow these “hijackers” must have used magical powers to cause NORAD to stand down, as ridiculous as this sounds because total inaction from the most high-tech and professional Air Force in the world would be necessary to carry out their tasks. So on the most important day in its history the Air Force was totally worthless. Then they had to make one of the airliners look like a smaller plane, because unknown to them the Naudet brothers had a videocamera to capture the only known footage of the North Tower crash, and this footage shows something that is not at all like a jumbo jet, but didn’t have to bother with the South Tower jet disguising itself because that was the one we were “supposed to see”. Anyway, as for the Pentagon they had to have Hani Hanjour fly his airliner like it was a fighter plane, making a high G-force corkscrew turn that no real airliner can do, in making its descent to strike the Pentagon. But these “hijackers” wanted to make sure Rumsfeld survived so they went out of their way to hit the farthest point in the building from where Rumsfeld and the top brass are located. And this worked out rather well for the military personnel in the Pentagon, since the side that was hit was the part that was under renovation at the time with few military personnel present compared to construction workers. Still more fortuitous for the Pentagon, the side that was hit had just before 9/11 been structurally reinforced to prevent a large fire there from spreading elsewhere in the building. Awful nice of them to pick that part to hit, huh? Then the airliner vaporized itself into nothing but tiny unidentifiable pieces no bigger than a fist, unlike the crash of a real airliner when you will be able to see at least some identifiable parts, like crumpled wings, broken tail section etc. Why, Hani Hanjour the terrible pilot flew that airliner so good that even though he hit the Pentagon on the ground floor the engines didn’t even drag the ground!! Imagine that!! Though the airliner vaporized itself on impact it only made a tiny 16 foot hole in the building. Amazing. Meanwhile, though the planes hitting the Twin Towers caused fires small enough for the firefighters to be heard on their radios saying “We just need 2 hoses and we can knock this fire down” attesting to the small size of it, somehow they must have used magical powers from beyond the grave to make this morph into a raging inferno capable of making the steel on all forty-seven main support columns (not to mention the over 100 smaller support columns) soften and buckle, then all fail at once. Hmmm. Then still more magic was used to make the building totally defy physics as well as common sense in having the uppermost floors pass through the remainder of the building as quickly, meaning as effortlessly, as falling through air, a feat that without magic could only be done with explosives. Then exactly 30 minutes later the North Tower collapses in precisely the same freefall physics-defying manner. Incredible. Not to mention the fact that both collapsed at a uniform rate too, not slowing down, which also defies physics because as the uppermost floors crash into and through each successive floor beneath them they would shed more and more energy each time, thus slowing itself down. Common sense tells you this is not possible without either the hijackers’ magical powers or explosives. To emphasize their telekinetic prowess, later in the day they made a third building, WTC # 7, collapse also at freefall rate though no plane or any major debris hit it. Amazing guys these magical hijackers. But we know it had to be “Muslim hijackers” the conspiracy theorist will tell you because (now don’t laugh) one of their passports was “found” a couple days later near Ground Zero, miraculously “surviving” the fire that we were told incinerated planes, passengers and black boxes, and also “survived” the collapse of the building it was in. When common sense tells you if that were true then they should start making buildings and airliners out of heavy paper and plastic so as to be “indestructable” like that magic passport. The hijackers even used their magical powers to bring at least seven of their number back to life, to appear at american embassies outraged at being blamed for 9/11!! BBC reported on that and it is still online. Nevertheless, they also used magical powers to make the american government look like it was covering something up in the aftermath of this, what with the hasty removal of the steel debris and having it driven to ports in trucks with GPS locators on them, to be shipped overseas to China and India to be melted down. When common sense again tells you that this is paradoxical in that if the steel was so unimportant that they didn’t bother saving some for analysis but so important as to require GPS locators on the trucks with one driver losing his job because he stopped to get lunch. Hmmmm. Yes, this whole story smacks of the utmost idiocy and fantastical far-fetched lying, but it is amazingly enough what some people believe. Even now, five years later, the provably false fairy tale of the “nineteen hijackers” is heard repeated again and again, and is accepted without question by so many Americans. Which is itself a testament to the innate psychological cowardice of the American sheeple, i mean people, and their abject willingness to believe something, ANYTHING, no matter how ridiculous in order to avoid facing a scary uncomfortable truth. Time to wake up America.
December 30th, 2006 at 9:13 am
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