The eighteenth anniversary of 9/11 was marked by the Administration inviting the Taliban to Camp David, and by the resignation and/or firing of John Bolton as National Security Advisor - which two events may not be unconnected. Because really, when the Taliban are running around Camp David, who needs national security?
For the fifteen years after the launch of SteynOnline in 2002, we re-posted every year on this date material of mine from September 11th 2001 and the days that followed. Two years ago, we ceased that policy, for reasons I discussed on Clubland Q&A:
If this is a war, there's no agreement on what we're up against: Terrorism? Islamic terrorism? Islamic extremism? Islam? Whatever it is, a president who, on the campaign trail, mocked his predecessor's inability to use the words "radical Islam" himself eschewed all mention of the I-word today. September 11th 2001 was supposedly "the day everything changed" - if by "everything changed" you mean "the rate of mass Muslim immigration to the west doubled". As that absurd statistic suggests, we are not where I thought we would be 16 years on: We run around fighting for worthless bits of barren sod like Helmand province in Afghanistan, while surrendering day by day some of the most valuable real estate on the planet, such as France and Sweden.
That last point may seem obvious. But, if it is, it's a truth all but entirely unacknowledged by anyone who matters in the western world. I subsequently expanded on it, in a piece we called "The Language of Losing" and which appears to have been succeeded by "The Actions of Losers" - such as inviting the Taliban to Camp David. Hey, why not for the ceremonies in Lower Manhattan? On yet another wretched anniversary I mourn not only the dead of that grim day, but our loss of purpose. All that has changed two years on is that for "sixteenth anniversary" we substitute "eighteenth" - and on and on into the future:
In any war, you have to be able to prioritize: You can't win everything, so where would you rather win? Raqqa or Rotterdam? Kandahar or Cannes? Yet, whenever some guy goes Allahu Akbar on the streets of a western city, the telly pundits generally fall into one of two groups: The left say it's no big deal, and the right say this is why we need more boots on the ground in Syria or Afghanistan. Yesterday President Trump said he was committed to ensuring that terrorists "never again have a safe haven to launch attacks against our country".
By that he means "safe havens" in Afghanistan. But the reason the west's enemies are able to pile up a continuous corpse count in Paris, Nice, Berlin, Brussels, London, Manchester, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Orlando, San Bernadino, Ottawa, Sydney, Barcelona, [Your Town Here] is because they have "safe havens" in France, Germany, Britain, Scandinavia, North America, etc. Which "safe havens" are likely to prove more consequential for the developed world in the years ahead?
Who's winning what turf? After 16 years of western military occupation, the Taliban control more territory in Afghanistan than at any time since the first US troops went in. On the other hand, after 16 years of accelerating Islamic immigration, Europe has more no-go zones, more sharia courts, more refugees, more covered women, more Muslim-dominated schoolhouses, more radical mosques, more female genital mutilation, more grooming and gang rape, more Muslim Brotherhood front groups, more Muslim mayors and legislators, more Muslim-funded Middle East Studies programs at universities ...and fewer churches, fewer Jews in Toulouse, fewer gays in Amsterdam, fewer unaccompanied women out after dark in German and Swedish cities, fewer historical representations of Mohammed in Continental museums, art galleries and scholarly books, fewer mixed bathing sessions at municipal swimming pools, fewer lessons on the Crusades and the Holocaust in European schools ...and less and less free speech in some of the oldest democracies on earth.
In Afghanistan, we're fighting for something not worth winning, and we're losing. In Europe, Islam is fighting for something very much worth winning, and they're advancing. And, according to all the official strategists in Washington and elsewhere, these two things are nothing to do with each other.
To be fair, a lot of the ever increasing restraints on free expression are self-imposed: newspapers decide that it would be "insensitive" to publish certain cartoons, publishers politely decline novels on certain themes, and in Minnesota (where I'll be in a couple of weeks) white progressives agonize that remembering 9/11 is "Islamophobic". Which is weird - because a space alien visiting the United States for Monday's ceremonies would have been stunned to discover that Islam had anything to do with 9/11. As I mentioned yesterday, the President forbore to mention Islam at all: Instead, we were attacked by "horrible, horrible enemies" and "enemies like we've never seen before". Well, we've seen a lot of them since, and they appear to have certain things in common - things that this President was once not shy about mentioning. Yet, insofar as Islam got a look in from officialdom, it was a passing reference in the speech of Defense Secretary "Mad Dog" Mattis:
Maniacs disguised in false religious garb thought by hurting us they could scare us that day.
Well, whoever they are, these "maniacs" can evidently scare grizzled hard men called "Mad Dog" into concluding that, when it comes to mentioning the I-word, discretion is the better part of valor. "False religious garb" means we're back to the standard Euro-squish line that all this Allahu Akbar I'm-ready-for-my-virgins stuff is a "perversion" of the real Islam, which is a peaceful faith practiced by millions of people for whom self-detonation is an unwelcome distraction from traditional activities such as clitoridectomies, honor killings and throwing sodomites off tall buildings. Stop me if you've heard this before, but these "maniacs" are hijacking this "religious garb" in order to peddle a "false" vision of Islam. Foaming-canine-wise, Mad Dog sounds about as mad as, say, Theresa May. I take it that, even in today's politically correct military, you can't earn the epithet "Mad Dog" simply by handing out diversity awards to the Transgender Outreach Liaison Officer of the Month, and General Mattis served honorably and impressively in Afghanistan and Iraq. But, when it comes to strategic clarity, that may be the problem.
In Iraq, everyone's Muslim - mainly because all the Christians got chased out on America's watch. So it's both reasonable and necessary to distinguish between Muslims - between the ones who want to kill you no matter what, and the ones who might be more flexible on that point. I sat in cafés in Rutba and Ramadi and got on well enough with the locals, but I confess I was more circumspect about the clitoridectomy shtick than I am above. Nevertheless, the distinctions one makes in the Sunni Triangle are not useful in the wider world. Old-school imperialists understood this. In 1939, Lieutenant-Colonel Peter Sanders (who was born in Abbotabad, where Osama bin Laden met his end) accepted an invitation to lunch from the Waziri tribesman who'd blown him up and cost him his right arm a week earlier - because, in Waziri terms, this particular tribesman was less worse than many of the others. That kind of unperturbable imperial élan would strike the contemporary world as slightly nutty. But what the Colonel would have found truly nutty is inviting thousands of that Waziri tribesman's relatives to live in England.
In 1980, when a concerned official apprised him of electoral irregularities in certain areas during Zimbabwe's pre-independence election, the Governor Lord Soames (Winston Churchill's son-in-law) scoffed: "Good God, man, this is Africa, not Surrey." The ability to distinguish between Africa (or the Middle East, or the Hindu Kush) and Surrey is vital. General Mattis' line about "maniacs disguised in false religious garb" might be politic or even sincere when advanced in Tikrit or Basra, but delivered at the Pentagon it's the most feeble dissembling 16 years into an existential struggle. And its deployment on 9/11 itself - on the home front, on sacred ground where blood was spilled - is not a small thing. It underlines that, in a profound sense, the dreary endless unwon wars in Afghanistan and elsewhere are not just a peripheral distraction from the real, central front, but an obstacle that prevents even the shrewdest and bravest of men from framing the struggle correctly.
In a sense, we have a hot war and a cold war operating simultaneously. The hot wars are in those bits of barren sod I mentioned yesterday - places where we're tourists with last decade's Baedeker: As one appreciates when looking at all those dodgy chaps John McCain was having his photo taken with a few years back, no one really knows who the good guys are in Syria - and anyway today's good guys all hold that designation conditionally and you've no idea where to look on 'em for the "best by" date. It's like the old 1066 And All That joke about the Irish Question: whenever the English get close to the answer, the Irish change the question. That goes quintuple for the Syrian, Afghan, Yemeni and Libyan questions.
Meanwhile, there's a cold war - the remorseless incremental Islamization of the heart of Christendom. Of course, there were simultaneous hot wars during the last big Cold War, too. But we were more clear-sighted with the Soviets: We understood that Afghanistan was peripheral, and that what mattered was preventing our enemies from hollowing out the free world. Today, the men running this new war think Afghanistan is the be-all and end-all, and that the hollowing out of the free world by the west's enemies is not merely irrelevant but in fact evidence of our moral virtue.
You can't connect what's happening in Molenbeek, Malmö and the other "safe havens" of the west with the "safe havens" of the east if you think what's going on is about random "maniacs" adopting "false religious garb". And until we do make that connection we are doomed to lose.
And incidentally the continuous protestations that hardcore incendiary extremist Islam is an unfortunate aberration would be more persuasive if western politicians ever paid the slightest attention to genuinely moderate voices within Islam. But they don't. They either ignore or consciously marginalize them. Case in point -Yahya Cholil Staquf:
Western politicians should stop telling us that fundamentalism and violence have nothing to do with traditional Islam. That is simply wrong... The approach you describe won't work. If you refuse to acknowledge the existence of a problem, you can't begin to solve it.
He's right. Which is why, 16 years on, we haven't begun to solve it. Maybe in lieu of this year's speakers they could book Mr Staquf for next year's Pentagon ceremony. Or would that be Islamophobic?
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I'm sorry if you ever trusted Mr Trump. The only reason I voted for him was that I suspected he wasn't as completely corrupt as Chillary Clitton. Turns out, he's as unreliable as I suspected.
Yeah, we were bummed we couldn't make this cruise, too, especially now that everyone's coming back all stoked with shipboard mates' camaraderie.
I was wondering if the Holland America cruise ship would acknowledge Sept. 11 when we arrived in Vancouver. Nothing. Time difference with New York City but still.
And Trudeau calling our election on Sept. 11th. No respect at all and an excuse to avoid any ceremony remembering the Canadians who died.
Wonderful cruise except for the National Park Ranger who lectured passengers at the Glacier Bay site and said climate change in practically every sentence. Could have made a great drinking game.
Amazing how you can be both so bleak and other times so funny, Mark. By the way what does the Brit expression tumpy (?) mean that you used? Someone being rogered I get...
The climate is always changing. You guys were in Glacier Bay the best month of the year. By February the climate in Glacier Bay will really have changed. I wonder what these Park Rangers do the rest of the year besides getting paid? There aren't many cruises during most of the year.
BTW if you get rogered but are not tumpy, how do you think Americans feel?
Who cares if the Mujahideen have a safe haven for "training" in Afghanistan or wherever, several of the 9/11 hijackers received FLIGHT TRAINING IN THE UNITED STATES and didn't even bother to learn how to land the damn things. Red flag maybe? This gets overlooked but you are so right, we are attacked by "radical Islamists", so let's bring more in so they can see we are not so bad. People just don't understand the backwardness of Islam in whatever "form" it comes in.
Great article Mark as usual but the question is, who invited the Taliban to Camp David? I can't imagine Trump or Bolton doing such a thing?
Agree. It makes no sense, so wondering how true the headline is. On the other hand, we only know a tiny bit about all the work that is going on, so we have to wait and see. Maybe there was some meeting intended, somewhere but it was leaked to undermine efforts. The public is only supposed to see the end results of diplomacy - hand-shakes, treaties or grrr don't let the door hit you in the way out - which absolutely requires enough secure confidentiality that the sides feel comfortable discussing - thrashing out - everything - good and bad.
I don't see any note about the "other" 9/11--9/11/12--when some other people did something else. (Apologies if there was a reference that I missed.)
It's understandable, really: the Obama administration neglected the date, too. Which is why a US consulate in Benghazi-freakin'-Libya was left under-guarded to be overwhelmed, and four Americans were left to die in the desert. Nobody circled the date on the calendar? Oops. [Blushing] Those desperate pleas for greater security? Please. File your request in quintuplicate, and expect a preliminary answer in six to eight weeks.
I used to remember their names, but, to my shame, I just now had to remind myself that those who died on 9/11/12 were Ambassador Chris Stevens, Information Officer Sean Smith, and CIA ops (and former SEALs) Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty (a local boy from Winchester, MA).
At least I tried to remember them; President Obama might never have heard of them. He was "off the grid" that night, preparing for a fundraising junket the next day to--wait for it--Las Vegas. He had his Defense Secretary on the case, he might have thought; isn't that what one is for? As it happened, the only US assets that responded with anything like alacrity were two unarmed drones that filmed the whole atrocity in real time. By the time boots were on the ground, it was to recover, not rescue, the four.
But "what difference, at this point, does it make"? The president wasn't held accountable; the Secretary of State uncharactaristically ducked out of the limelight the following Sunday morning; leave it to one of Obama's loyal female bodyguards (Qaddafi would have approved) to put her talking head on five different "news" shows and spew a medium-big lie about a YouTube video. She didn't "Face the Press", she two-faced it. The rest is history, forgotten history. That the body of Chris Stevens, the first Ambassador to die in service in 32 years (also in a sh*thole country, Afghanistan), was dragged around Benghazi was barely a speed bump in the political ambitions of Obama (who handily won his re-election) and Clinton (who handily lost hers). The Democrat-Media Complex galvanized its efforts, and turned "Benghazi" from a synonym for disgraceful betrayal to one for right-wing overreach. Just as they did later with Hillary's private email server. ("But her emails," is how lefties dismiss Republican objections to her cover-ups and lies.)
And anyone wonders why I light a candle every night for the election of Donald Trump?
Your posts are always worth reading, J. Yes indeed: Mr Trump may not be everybody's ideal, but the alternatives do not bear contemplation.
The conclusion that I have come to after much thought is that Role Models Matter -for example, one might deduce that the role model of Christianity (Jesus) has characteristics which are the polar opposite of the role model and inventor of Islam (Mohammed). Jesus, for example, was not a murderer, a warlord, a polygamist, a paedophile, a slave trader, a pillager or an agent of vengeance. That's important. In addition, Christianity attaches value to the 10 Commandments whereas Mohammed discarded values like "Thou shall not kill, Thou shall not commit adultery, Thou shall not steal, Thou shall not bear false witness, Thou shall not covet thy neighbour's wife and thou shall not covet thy neighbours goods. And although Jesus is regarded as the son of God by Christians, Mohammed is, to the detriment of humanity, considered as the "perfect" man by Muslims. What is a sin to Christians is not a sin to Muslims, and crimes that send Christians to hell deliver Muslims to their heaven with a brothel. As Hamlet said... "There's the rub..."
Yes, there's the rub, alright. Here's where I break into "How do you solve a problem like Sharia"?
Indeed... How do you hold a bluebird in your hand after it's been cut off? One man who might have an answer is...
Xi Jinping, Xi Jinping
Every morning you greet me
Small and Red
Likes them dead
You look happy to greet me!
That the LGB..... Community is hard at work extirpating the Christians in revenge for Christianity's ceaseless persecution of the LGB..... Community, must be music to some ears.
What clears up the murkiness in a hurry surrounding Islam's animosity and hostility with the world is remembering that this goes back 4,000 years, to Abraham's two sons: Isaac and Ishmael. Isaac was the son of promise, from whom descended Israel, and out of the same lineage, Christianity. Islam is descended from Ishmael, founded much later in the 7th century AD.
This is the kind of person Ishmael was predicted in Genesis to be: "He will be a wild donkey of a man; his hand will be against everyone and everyone's hand against him, and he will live in hostility toward all his brothers."
Ishmael's spirit of rivalry and jealousy is kept alive by Islam in its struggle (the translation of jihad) to dominate its historical and spiritual brother (Isaac) as well as its own brothers and sisters today. Islam is as brutal and murderous toward its own as it is toward infidels. Witness the story Laura Rosen Cohen linked to Tuesday about the women in Pakistan killed for sitting on the floor clapping at a wedding. (Referring to one of the women in their coverage elsewhere, the BBC unbelievably refers to the others as "her accomplices"). The heroic relative of one of the victims, who unsuccessfully sought justice for five years, was finally gunned down this year in the same city Osama bin Laden was - Abbotabad. His photo shows a stymied, dejected man resigned to his fate, which he said he expected. There was nothing he could do about it. I have nothing but sympathy for him and the other eight who died in that saga, but the last 18 years have shown there isn't much we can do but keep Islam out, if we want peace.
Didn't expect that Fred Soper's philosophy to solving urgent problems would be revelant to this too.
"Preferring steady progress, slow and imperfect, is a good philosophy for the defeated." - Fred Lowe Soper
That is worth pondering. Your epic portrayal a couple of years ago of best practices for eradication of mosquitoes on a continental scale was both an efficient primer on entomological genocide and an introduction to someone who should be more widely known in Fred Soper.
Very appreciated, Sol! Did you notice our comment yesterday on M. Mark's previous topic on the population and colonialism, the philosophy behind all international public health actions on malaria since 1938, re-affirmed until 2030?
The basis since 1938 via the League of Nations, and now the U.N. agencies has been in effect codifying a deliberate devaluing of 'rural' people in public health priorities. The 1938 League of Nations malaria policy was extended in 2015 for the next 15 years.
Then, check out the bombshell in episode 24/25 of Climate Change The Facts - in which Bernie Lewin revealed in his essay that the underlying suppositions of the original Climate Change calculations include quantifying humanity by two different value groups - people of full worth 'them' vs people of fractional worth - the "poor." Well-well! That's true, vicious racism, reducing the worth of a human being from whole to a part. Two votes of this lessor group needed to overcome only one vote from the other...
We're quite convinced that the modern public has never heard of true heros like Fred Soper and William Gorgas because they were those inconvenient guys who when given a job to do, took it seriously and did it - on time and under budget.
It's become obvious that Soper's rapid and decisive victory over malaria in NE Brazil in 1940 wasn't supposed to be... according to the, at the time, newly-minted 'grand policy.' So, over the years, he needed to be diminished and kept out of the public consciousness, while the public has been groomed for decades that those stuck in malaria endemic areas just have to learn to live with that reality.
"There are no insurmountable obstacles to defeating malaria in Africa." Fred Lowe Soper. 1940
Official International Public Health 1938-2030: "Shut up."
I love you man but do you seriously think someone who completed a project on time and under budget has ever become famous? You are seriously unaware of steps 5 and 6 of large project management.
5. Punish the innocent.
6. Promote the uninvolved.
Do you remember where your comment which Sol referenced was posted? I would like to read it again.
LOL! Laugh when we can, because it's too true!
Uh-oh. Maybe see you next year when we re-emerge hopefully triumphant from the archives bins.
I wonder how many hundreds of millions of lives that policy has cost.
Don't forget- 7. Jump into the next project prepared by your colleagues in the Great Game. Rinse and repeat.
Exactly. 1938 to 2018 is a long time to run a fail.
:(
Brilliant summation, Mark. Inability to identify the problem, which includes naming it properly, means the problem will never be faced squarely, much less solved. Western Civilization is built on a Christian, sometime Judeo-Christian tradition. Inviting in large numbers of people who don't share that tradition, and will never adopt it, is cultural suicide. We didn't win The Big One by failing to name and accurately characterize the enemy.
I know this probably wasn't the plan, but wouldn't it have been great if Trump got those Taliban leaders to Camp David and then arrested them all and sent them off to Gitmo to never be seen again?
You should be Trump's National Security Advisor! A damn good idea!
Forget Camp David! Leave complex manoeuvres like that to the professionals and move the meeting to the Saudi's consulate in Istanbul. Best to leave the more advanced Muslims to deal with the uppity ones in a cultural context.
So perfect, your assessment regarding Islam and the slow but steady destruction of The West due to stupid and cowardly "double-talk" by our feckless politicians. I'm with you, Mark, "extremist" Islam isn't the problem, Islam is the problem! The entire Muslim "cult" and its traditions are designed to dominate the individual and rule over nations and peoples. It's in their Book to do so and all Muslims are so commanded. For my money, not only should they not be in our U.S. House of Representatives now, they ought not be in the USA period! Those of a totalitarian mindset, proven to be so over centuries, have no place in a free society!
It is Sept 11, and the spilled blood of the victims of Jihad cries out for vengeance, regardless of whether or not anyone is listening.
I fully agree with you, but what you do when vengeance is against the current christian doctrine? You cannot strike back because you may hit innocents? You see WW2 was won because you knew who the enemies are and decided on unconditional surrender, Although even that was incomplete otherwise Hirohito would have been tried as war criminal and executed. Another reason for not completing it was the need to get the best of the German scientists to have the advantage over the Soviet union Remember Wernher Magnus Maximilian Freiherr von Braun was a German and later American aerospace engineer and space architect. He was the leading figure in the development of rocket technology in Germany and a pioneer of rocket technology and space science in the United States.He was not the only one. Many murderers of prisoners of war and other war criminals were not brought to Justice both of japanese and Germans
Our inability to deal with Islam and everything else under the sun is due mainly to leftism. Leftism has destroyed our souls by politicizing everything that exists. Things that have been politicized have been drained of all truth and meaning as if Dracula had emptied your arteries. There are very few things in life, maybe none, that are actually political as we presently understand the term. Politics is mostly just temporizing. But things are either true or they're not true. Perhaps we could be less strident and say that things are reasonable or they are not reasonable. In any case, there is a proper answer to every question. We've lost the ability to think in this way. As to President Trump, I think he is a decisive and clear thinking person, but even he has to play the political game on some level. Our culture is now merely a political culture.
Decades into the Islamization of the West and the "nothing to see here" attitude of our rulers (and we the people), I'm reminded of Mr. Hooper's (Richard Dreyfuss) comment to the mayor of Shark City: "I think I am familiar with the fact that you are going to ignore this problem until it swims up and bites you in the ass."
Great article: I laughed, I cried... Many thanks. Thanks also for steering clear of sanctimony, as always. That's such an unbecoming property.
"[W}e haven't begun to solve it", indeed. Pessimism isn't only easy: it seems in this case to be indicated. Clearly the secret for subduing the West is out. The West has yet to adapt to that, and appears to be failing. I don't even know that the failure will be recorded in history, because it is becoming clear who will be writing that history.
My rule of thumb is the worst that can happen if you are a pessimist you are surprised that it did not happen and are happy. On other hand if you are optimist and it and it does not happen you feel like Hillary Clinton and her supporters. That is the reason when you are optimist better check what the other side is saying they might have a point. I know this is very difficult it goes against the grain. I have another rule of thumb what progressive denounce is good and what progressive praise is bad so far it has not disappointed me because I am conservative
Thanks, A. Certainly one wouldn't want to be feeling like Hilary Clinton and her supporters, bless them one and all!
"If language is not correct, then what is said is not what is meant; if what is said is not what is meant, then what must be done remains undone; if this remains undone, morals and art will deteriorate; if justice goes astray, the people will stand about in helpless confusion. Hence there must be no arbitrariness in what is said. This matters above everything." -- The Analects of Confucius, Book 13, Verse 3
Anyone that considers the Quran sacred a true wold of Allah cannot be moderate he can pretend to be moderate and that is called Taqiyya. someone wants to know what it is I suggest to google Raymond Ibrahim: Ben Carson Exposes Islamic Taqiyya .I guess you know who he is
There are a number of manuals circulating about the prosecution of warfare. The most successful is the one you refer to. To have a closely disciplined army at your command that wears the sheepskin disguise is a work of genius. There are those who believe it is a religion. Would you trust them?
I thought exactly the same on wolves in a mosque when one of them kills number of sheep they come out done Sheepskins and say no,no you see we are sheep we had a bad wolf that did it the sheep are happy that there was only lone wolf . Then the wolves return to the mosque and hang the sheepskin to be ready for the next lone wolf attack. Just imagine this manual was created by a 40 year old illiterate camel traders that heard the voice angel Gabriel instructing him to create a new religion to the invisible moon God Allah
Ewe may be thinking of Jacinda the catspaw dropped into position in time for a dose of Pallywood stagecraft.
"We understood ... that what mattered was preventing our enemies from hollowing out the free world."
Who cares? They still succeeded.
During the Cold War years, perhaps some Iranian or Iraqi wondered, "Can't they both lose?"
He got his wish.
This failure goes all the way back to the immediate aftermath with the "Religion of Peace" messaging from President George W. Bush. The mass murder of civilians by Jihadists was not a "tragedy" but rather an ATROCITY. None of our leaders, Democrat or Republican, seems to understand that or be willing to say so.
I much prefer Lord Kitchener's approach.
I think the "Religion of Peace" message is forever buried in the rubble and death toll that the Islamic jihadists leave in their wake of misery.
I have held just about every opinion on Afghanistan, so this is only my latest. The United States needs to learn how to declare victory and go home. If Osama bin Laden left Afghanistan in December 2001 (note "if"), why didn't we? Al Qaeda's infrastructure (if a dank grotto qualifies as infrastructure) had been destroyed, and if they had attempted to rebuild their training camps of monkey bars and flaming hoops, we'd have scorched the dumps. Osama would live out his remaining days with a target between his beady eyes, until a drone or a Special Forces bullet dimmed them forever. Sounds like "Mission Accomplished" to me. Yes, I know women used to walk the streets of Kabul in stylish clothes and with their hair down. But dinosaurs used to roam the earth, too. We shouldn't expect the 82nd Airborne to bring them back either.
That's very funny, J., 'though your point is a serious and valid one.
I imagine that we'd agree that there must have been some weighty consideration militating against cutting losses, claiming success and pulling out of that godforsaken pile of rock earlier, but it is difficult now to contemplate what it might have been.
The next step would be to bicker about what to do about the waves of migrants sure to follow the military out of there. We may leave that job to the politicians, and can trust them to do it as well as they're done any part of what we may remember as the Afghanistan job. Or the Libya job. Or the Syria job. Or the Bosnia job, or the Crimea job, for that matter.
We had just arrived in a dominate Muslim country in Africa on 9/11. The people there plus a large Lebanese expat population were frightened and many approached us personally to offer heartfelt and genuine words of horror and condolences, apologizing profusely and condemning what had happened. It was genuine. They didn't know us and didn't have to do or say anything. They were all as shocked as we were. Remember, all US airspace was shut down. We were stuck there - standed in one of poorest countries in the world. But we had no problems at all, were helped, not bothered. To say we appreciated that consideration at the time and to this day, is stating it completely inadequately. But it was like gloom over everyone for a long time. There was something very very profoundly evil about the attack, everyone felt it in their hearts even in a place completely remote from the disaster, and were afraid. All the guilty - the whole network - should be brought to justice, but always remember not to entangle the innocent in the condemnation.
Someones good is someone else evil, someone's terrorist is someone else freedom fighter, Some ones martyr is someone else fool, Maybe you should follow Aristotle advice "Be a free thinker and don't accept everything you hear as truth. Be critical and evaluate what you believe in." To start with maybe you should study the Quran by yourself it is in Plain English. You can get it on Amazon Al-Qur'an: A Contemporary Translation Paperback by Ahmed Ali (Author) Paperback in Canada 22 Dollar US probably $16 This bilingual edition of the Qur'an, the Holy Book of Islam, was first published in the United States in 1988. Ahmed Ali, the distinguished Pakistani novelist, poet, critic, and diplomat, presents this elegant and poetic translation in a contemporary and living voice. On each page, the original Arabic and the translated English sit side by side, encouraging the reader to draw from both texts. Professor Ali also includes notes where necessary, providing the full meaning of each word and phrase. This accessible volume is truly essential for both scholars and followers of Islam. One thing you should take into account that Mohamed Started preaching in Mecca tried entice people to follow him then at some point people got fed up he had to flee to Medina and her abrogated the verses of Mecca replaced with verses that he stated in Medina and there he became a warlord
Actually a better book would be Robert Spencers's the truth about Muhammad that fills in the gaps that the Quran leaves out with the story of actions of Mohamed it is important because what he has done must be by his followers emulated The book cost in US 19 propabbly on Amazon it may cost less
If you were dealing with Lebanese expats, you might want to consider that they were expats who fled the invasion of radical "Palestinians" into their previously peaceful country. Their attitudes were probably not typical of the Arab world. Lebanon was once a garden spot, the Riviera of the Arab world in some ways, until Arafat/Hezbollah got hold of it. Lots of Christians there at one time, who I'm sure got out as fast as they could.
We've lived in majority Islamic countries for a long time and you think we need to read the book to 'open our minds'. Right. If you've seen what we've seen, you'd be shocked, and it's mild compared to the vicious chaos that was unleashed in other countries. Applying ridiculous sterotypes to how and what we think about any of this is pathetically inadequate.
Come on, we might want to consider? We're sure you mean well, so don't take our frustration personally. In that particular country alone, our landlord was a Muslim Lebanese who'd fled the Lebanon war, among our close neighbors were Muslim Algerians, others were Christian Lebanese who had fled Sierra Leone's civil war. One cannot mistake they were Christian. The husband's inside right forearm was tattooed with a large cross. That meant that whenever he extended his hand to shake, the cross was exposed. Can't hide that very well in a hot climate and a majority Muslim host country, so it means a profound state of consciousness to stay firm in one's faith identity, whether it was voluntarily tatted or forced. Many Muslim Lebanese over the years in many, many countries in Africa told us very-very discreetly to be careful and to watch out for the Muslim Brotherhood. There are a lot more nice people out there than the vicious ones, that's all, and it is quite possible to distinguish between the two.
Mad Dog is one of the many in the military who were given numerous lectures (Obama administration) and groomed for political correctness... any breaches could result in loss of promotion or retirement. The order of the day is don't rock the boat. CYA there aren't many Pattons, Chesty Pullers, or LeMay's.
We will always be with you USA.
Thanks. We'll take all the help we can get. Especially on this awful anniversary. Almost 20 years ago but I can remember the day like it was a few weeks ago.
It seems that Afghanistan is our Maginot Line except we've failed to abandon it once the enemy bypassed it. While Islam has established new battlegrounds throughout the West, we're still hunkered down in the bunkers along the old line in the sand.
David, I have not heard this analogy before and I think it's excellent. The Line let the French indulge in irresponsible behavior, especially politically, while proving to be no barrier to the enemy whatsoever. It shocks me how familiar that seems to our present situation. The word I keep returning to is "corruption", in every area of our culture. You've helped me to see that the Maginot Line was actually a monument to corruption. I fear that our new "Freedom Tower" will someday be seen in a similar light. I see it every day from my office window but rather than inspiring courage, it seems much more a symbol of appeasement.
The Islamists are on the run everywhere.
Most Muslims (2/3 I think) are not fundamentalist. They squirm every time there is a bomb or a rape gang.
But, they have to realise we do not want to import their countries ways.
The free west is great because we are free (not the EU). So managed immigration is the way.
Mark makes profound points that everyone who seriously cares about liberty should read. Political correctness (the left's Gleichschaltung) destroys the ability to think correctly. The fact that supposed conservatives honor this reality-denying vocabulary is especially concerning.
In this presently upside down world who is the radical Islamist? The Muslim that follows the teachings and laws of Islam to the letter including personal and global jihad or the Muslim that doesn't plan on bombing and shooting up the infidel and ignores Allahs command to have nothing to do with Jews and Christians? The West forgets it is also a numbers game with over a billion Muslims, 10-15% want active jihad and nearly 50% believe in severe punishment for anyone dissing the Prophet (PBUH....or else). A few 100 million wannabe jihadists is a large recruitment pool. The total Islam package isn't just religious practice and Friday worship in a West where the divinity of humanism has hollowed out the perspective of greater Powers at work.
The day of the 18th anniversary of 9/11 opened with an explosion in the U.S. Embassy in Kabul. The PA system reportedly broadcast, "An explosion caused by a rocket has occurred on the compound." It wouldn't be the first time a Chinese made artillery rocket hit the Embassy compound. I wonder if there was any warning.
But 9/11/2001 is really the day we lost our Liberty and began our swift loss to terrorism. While our leaders pledged, "we will not let the terrorists change our way of life.", we certainly did. I compare the falling of the Twin Towers to a bee sting. The destruction hurt but the anaphylactic shock killed us.
We started out well by supporting the Northern Alliance and running the Taliban government out of power. Then we did not know when to declare victory and go home. Next we and our NATO allies launched another pointless war in the name of democracy and weapons of mass destruction that bled us and contributed to our coming bankruptcy. Worse, instead of stepping up and taking tough measures that needed to be done we aggressively did the wrong thing. We threw out the right to only be searched with a warrant and started patting down grandma's at the airport. We passed the Patriot Act and brought on the surveillance state. As Mark has educated us, we actually allowed increased Muslim immigration. We were told that the terrorists were extremists but not only that, we were forbidden to use the M-word to describe terrorists and endlessly told that the I-word was simply a misguided ideology. On the 11th anniversary we were treated to the murder of our Ambassador in Benghazi because of an unseen movie.
The war on terrorism has caused strife among our allies, encouraged our enemies and disillusioned the voters so that we had to endure eight painful years of an administration that fundamentally changed America and sent us swirling downward to socialism, mass immigration and complete loss of our rights and Liberty. When I light the 18 candles on the cake I won't be in a celebratory mood.
Excellent post, W. I hope that it will be widely read.
Walt
Obama was African American and he was also African Muslim.The American considered him African American. His skin color made it clear that he is African. The Muslim considered him African Muslim . That is the way Kadaffy called him. My son married a girl whose mother is an Iranian Muscle that converted to Judaism.When I asked her about Obama she had no hesitation to tell me he is a Muslim, . It takes a Muslim recognize who is a Muslim
Whenever I hear "We must fight them over there or we will fight them here" I get the sense that they view our soldiers as targets for terrorists and it's better for our soldiers to get killed in lands that we don't have intrest in than maintain our own defenses. Their plan all along was to just to keep our presence there indefinitatly because it makes the impression that we're " making a difference". Just as we "make a diffrence" when we have give foreign aid to third world nations for what seems like decades with no change in their situation. Why would you change if you knew you'd get more money for being third world. I've always remembered the post you did regarding WWI and how they knew what they were fighting for and they weren't going to settle for anything less than victory. I look at the nearly twenty years that we've been at this and it's like we've just sent troops out there just to make us feel better.
Cultural suicide. When you just can't stand the pain of your successful Western Civilization any longer.
I'll frame that and hang it in my office, S.
Mark, once again you eloquently make the case that in essence, we're just not very serious people anymore. Afghanistan is the tree that keeps us from seeing the forest. It's so much easier that way. I remember the exact moment I felt we were lost; when the US Air Force was ordered not to bomb a large group of high level Taliban leaders gathered around a graveside,to prevent the desecration of the Muslim cemetery. Seems to me if a country is more worried about the sensibilities of its mortal enemy above the safety of its own people, then the truly dangerous enemy resides at home. A sad day it was in 2001. But at least I thought we'd rise to the fight. I was very wrong.