President Obama’s statement on 9/11 is one of the most saccharine, tone-deaf, and idiotic things I’ve ever read:
Indeed, amid the carnage and heartbreak of that tragic day in September, we also experienced a profound sense of community and witnessed a vivid display of those values, as first responders raced toward chaos, as Americans lined up to donate blood, as young people signed up to serve their country – as old divides seemed to fade away and America stood as one.
Now, eight years later, it is that sense of common purpose we must recapture. . . .
That is why we are marking this Sept. 11 as a National Day of Service and Remembrance. On this day, and every day, it is incumbent on each of us to uphold those ideals that our enemies were – and are – so eager to destroy.
To serve others and give back to our communities
They don’t want to attack our ideals. They don’t care if we donate blood or serve soup to the homeless and pick up litter. They want to kill us. Obama does not deal with reality; namely, that Arab Muslims killed our people that day, and they still want to kill us because our power threatens their designs on their region, and because they hate America as a symbol of the Western World.
The alleged unity of that day is a bit off a misnomer. It faded so soon thereafter. I haven’t forgotten the old pacifist leftist spirit that rose from the ashes of Ground Zero: “Let’s not bomb on Ramadan,” and “we’re just as bad as our enemies if we strike back,” in addition to seven years of suggestions that the real 9/11 “Truth” was that Bush evilly engineered the attacks in order to get a few millions in contracts to Halliburton. There has been little unity since 9/11, as evidenced not least by Obama’s weak-willed half-measures in the war-on-terror including his appalling speech in Caro and his proposal to domesticate and in some cases release the murderous Gitmo detainees.
Bush may have misread the cause of Islamic Terrorism as a lack of democracy and freedom in the Middle East, creating the so-called swamp of political pathology. He never understood that swamp was fed by an underground spring called Islam. The words of the Koran, the Hadiths, and the teachings of the Imams are where the terrorists get their ideas. Whether that Islam is technically “True Islam” or not hardly matters; a goodly swath of Muslims sincerely believe that is exactly what it is, these views are rigorously proffered by Islamic scholars, and this interpretation is not a fringe view. Years spent in the US and Germany by Khalid Sheikh Mohammad and Mohammad Atta only strengthened their resolve. They know us, and our democracy and freedoms don’t impress them. The problem is their own native beliefs, combined with our weakness in allowing this foreign import on our shores. That all said, at least we always knew Bush knew who the enemy was. At least Bush was willing to say, we will defend our country. He made it a high priority through thick and thin.
Obama lacks this kind of patriotism. He’s not so sure who’s right. He is torn by his leftist anti-Americanism and the surprising fact he’s the American President.
Obama has at times suggested the War in Afghanistan is a key part of his anti-terror strategy. The role and importance of that campaign was far-from-prominent in his speech. It was mentioned once. I guess Obama considers it unseemly to connect the Afghan campaign to the terrorism on 9/11. For him, it’s the rhetorical equivalent of the Flag Lapel Pin he considers too jingoistic. There’s little sense from Obama that another 9/11 takes just one effective and motivated al Qaeda cell within our perimeter.
Fouad Ajami today wrote:
Wars are great clarifiers. Barack Obama’s trumpet is uncertain. His call to arms in Afghanistan does not stir. He fears failure in Afghanistan, and nothing more. Having disowned Iraq, kept its cause at a distance, he is forced to fight the war in Afghanistan. So he equivocates and plays for time. Forever the campaigner, he has his eye on the public mood, the steel that his predecessor showed in 2007 when all was in the balance in Iraq is not evident in Mr. Obama.
Obama’s call during the campaign for a kind of surge in Afghanistan made no sense in light of his opposition to prosecuting the Iraq War. Either we must implant stable societies in these hell-holes, or we cannot, in which case we should leave and instead move around the rubble from time to time using air power and direct action by special forces when the bad guys make themselves visible.
I’ve said for several years now that the best way to fight al Qaeda is to remain on the sidelines, strengthen our borders, and pounce when they coalesce. If draining the swamp made little sense in Iraq in light of its absent WMDs and the country’s uncontrollable internal currentsl, why are we in Afghanistan eight years after 9/11? Why does Obama of all people propose this?
Obama’s stance on this subject was always unserious, a campaign prop, and his diffident refusal to either increase forces and rally Americans for the campaign or quickly to leave shows how his domestic political concerns–especially the age-old Democratic fear of being called weak–have callously allowed Americans to be sacrificed in a drawn-out war with little continuing strategic rationale and without end in sight.
We were right to attempt to destroy bin Laden, al Qaeda, and the Taliban after 9/11. They soon fled to the hills and became strategically ineffective. When that happy result was completed by early 2002, our work there was effectively done until they should make themselves easy targets once again. Obviously we should have had more troops to block and destroy more of al Qaeda’s forces in Tora Bora and other battles early on. We should have been willing to use force more indiscriminately in the early stage, as the “blow back” is minimized so long as we leave and so long as our message of retaliation is clear. But such is life. Better a big fence at home than perennial campaigns to import democracy and normalcy to a land of cavemen and primitives.
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We are led by politicians who argue, in effect, that our immigration policies are properly driven by our inability to secure our own borders, and we must embrace this as our fate. They may not put it quite so bluntly, but that’s the gist of it.
These people, Bush, Obama, etc. flatter the American ego by suggesting that all the world wishes to emulate the political and social dynamics of the American state, a proposition which is both false and — in any event — absolutely unattainable.
The resentments of the Islamic World toward the West are undoubtedly aggrevated by the presence of Israel, US military actions, and the like, but what most Westerners fail to realize is that these resentments are part of a much deeper sense that the Islamic World is at odds with the West, is in conflict with the West, and has been for about 1000 years. In other words, many Muslims see their culture as being in an irreconcilable state of hostility toward the West, and interpret the greater prosperity, intellectual creativity, and social dynamism of the West as a profound insult to their faith and culture. Such resentments will not be assuaged by the platitudes of our political class, nor by a grinning, beaming, Ramadan visit to a mosque.
“On this day, and every day, it is incumbent on each of us to uphold those ideals that our enemies were – and are – so eager to destroy.
To serve others and give back to our communities”
I can imagine bin Laden and his minions watching surveillance video from the U.S. 10 years ago. “Oh no!” they would say as the tape rolls, “the Americans are volunteering to give back to their community. Like religious fundamentalists everywhere, we can’t stand to see people volunteering, so we must destroy the Twin Towers, which is where our intelligence indicates the headquarters of ACORN is located. This will strike at the root of the community activism which is our sworn enemy.”
“I’ve said for several years now that the best way to fight al Qaeda is to remain on the sidelines, strengthen our borders, and pounce when they coalesce.”
The Pat Buchanan circle-the-wagons strategy sounds pragmatic, stable and safe enough, but the problem is it won’t work. You can’t treat religious jihad like illegal immigration.
Al Qaeda’s days of “coalesing” are over-if they ever existed in the first place. Unless you plan on pouncing upon the internet cafes of Liverpool and beyond, you shalln’t find AQ en masse, anywhere. You’d be lucky to find five Islamic dudes in a cheap hotel with cell phones, anymore.
Ok. Maybe there’s a few diehards hanging out in those whatever-that-place-is-called caves, smoking Pakistani hash and making snuff videos.
Here’s a scoop. Bush got it right, as history will reveal. I salute the man. He not only attacked AQ per se in Afghanistan (if as you say, insufficiently) but, when he and the neocons invaded Iraq, Bush made certain that their spirit was crushed as well. I’ll bet AQ just loved getting laughed out of half of Mesopotamia, especially by USA proxies.
How soon we forget that Iraq was supposed to be the proverbial East-meets-West, clash-of-civilizations threshold. I recall the worried mantra. Pop up any old Soros’ link; they were as frequent as a puter virus, and just as annoying.
A thousand Bin Ladens were going to spring up and rise from our “democratic” imperialism. The Jihad was finally, finally watered and fed like some aging camel. And every two-bit liberal, dove and isolationist decried our advance.
Hmm. So let’s review. Where’s AQ and Bin Laden now? Set aside the monkey tape-recordings that Al Jazeera has to reproduce every 911 to keep its street-cred. Where’s the latent caliphate that was supposed to dot the landscape?
Were the London and Bali bombings the “great terrorist response?” Please. There’s more dead in a given sour weekend in the hoods of West Phila. Stop by some time, ladies.
Better yet, yet me rephrase the essential question: Bin Laden, Who?
Resh, even if that’s all true, does our continued prosecution of essentially a nation-building counterinsurgency in Afghanistan further that objective? I agree it was sensible to pounce early on. But we were too nice, and we were too optimistic about our ability to leave something stable and pro-American in our wake. Better a purely punitive expedition, I say. Well that part’s done, so it’s time to leave.
You’re dead on, Roach. The Afghan. reinforcement ploy and continued presence is where you ought to be lambasting Obama. Endlessly. And Reid and Pelosi and Biden and HRC.
None of them have a clue, geopolitcally.
It’s obvious by anyone with a sober mind that we’re done there in terms of achieving any strategic value. Get out. Now.
The problem is, Obama is trying to exhibit some martial testosterone since he’s been weak in every other area relating to terrorism. (Ok. I better concede him a slight nod on new-age FISA initiatives, namely, state secrets.)
But flexing muscle now, in Kabul, is pointless. The place is a dead zone for the west, the natives, the Taliban and even for AQ. Tell Obama that Bush already won the war on terror, even if Obama wants to fight it at arm’s length and in the lingering shadows of yesterday’s 911 crucible.
Edit: ” It’s obvious TO anyone…”
Regrets.
[...] my least favorite phenomenon: 9/11 has more recently a “day for volunteering.” And that volunteering has nothing to do with the victims or the military or anything remotely [...]