This morning on local radio they are pondering the question – “is it time to put 9/11 behind us?”
My response – when did we put the invasion of Poland and Pearl Harbor “behind” us? When the war was over.
“A bomb-sniffing dog in Ankara helped Turkish authorities stop a massive terrorist attack on the anniversary of 9/11. A van full of explosives in a parking garage would have devastated the center of the large city, and it would have served as a counterpoint to the messages released by Osama bin Laden in the past week […] This would make three terrorist attacks thwarted in the past week.”
Letter to a Friend: On Islamic Fundamentalism (Sept. 11, 2006);
Today is September 11th and I suppose every single person in this country knows what they were doing on this date five years ago. I recall the feeling of unreality I had as I watched a small TV screen here at home repeatedly play tiny images of two towers collapsing. And then, in the immediate aftermath, do you remember how many in this country – especially among intellectuals and academics – wanted to discuss what “we” had done to “deserve” this? Those were hard days, and in many respects the years since then have been harder still, for although I had by then already spent decades in the strange ideological climate of American academic life, I never expected to see such an orgy of “blame America first” unleashed in this country. Nor did I have any way of anticipating how serious the real consequences would be when those attitudes, nurtured in the idle confines of academia, spilled over into the very dangerous world outside.
I would hate it if our old friendship were to dissolve over politics, mere politics. But I can’t not respond to your last letter, in which you stated that you were just as worried by Christian as by Muslim fundamentalists. Repeatedly in the past few years I’ve heard acquaintances, even relatives, express the same view. To my mind, however, this is a preposterous comment, for it evades the crucial recognition that something new has been unfolding before our eyes. Not that 9/11 inaugurated that new stage. I think, rather, it marked the end of the beginning, and the subsequent stage, the middle part, is still underway.
h/t
At Wizbang, 6 Years Later.
Roger Simon reviews World War IV: The Long Struggle Against Islamofascism – “You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you.”
And Lileks.
Related links are welcome in the comments.
Heroes – Flight 93 – http://no-libs.com/?p=1072
“Did you notice how little attention was given to the fact – plainly reported but rarely discussed — that the two Fox news journalists kidnapped in Gaza (in August 2006) were forced to convert to Islam in order to save their own lives? As if this were an insignificant detail instead of a major indicator of what Muslim radicals have in mind. (Are Christian fundamentalists forcing conversions on anyone?) Equally interesting was that no one bothered to consider the significance of the detail that the journalists themselves and everyone concerned about them breathed a sigh of relief when they were back in Israel, that supposedly iniquitous country! Apparently everyone knows, despite all the bad press about Israel being just like Nazi Germany, that Israel is in fact a liberal democracy and that these men would be safe there, as are the gay Muslims who take refuge in Israel. Yet it’s Israel, not any Arab or Muslim country, that is the object of attacks in the media (where staged events are reported as outrages committed by Israel), and it’s Israel alone that is the target of divestment campaigns and boycotts by westerners.”
The whole “letter to a friend” is an example of amazing, succint writing, but for some reason I think that paragraph says a lot. Also this:
“I am astonished that so many academics on the supposedly progressive side simply do not admit that everything they value (including cultural diversity, gay rights, women’s empowerment, the freedom to express their own ideas) is literally intolerable to radical Islam, and that millions of people today adhere to this view of Islam and loudly proclaim their hatred of the West and all it stands for. The silence of most American feminists is particularly appalling, and I can only imagine that they are caught in their own ideological schemata, which somehow blind them to the necessity of protesting oppression when it is perpetrated by non-Anglo, non-White people.”
and this:
“If you are still tempted to worry as much, as you wrote, about Christian fundamentalists as about Muslim ones, just ask yourself about the agenda of each group, their numbers, their geographical presence, their past and present violent actions, the political responses to them, and the sort of press they each get in the West. So – the problem of phony parallels (between Muslim and other fundamentalists; between Israel and South Africa or – as is openly said these days – Israel and Nazi Germany) really does need to be cleared up.”
and this:
“But what most distresses me is that our generation of professors has contributed in a major way to the current atmosphere, one in which many academics are reticent about criticism of Islamism while also being unable or unwilling to see our own society as worth defending. It’s as if those of us who have had the best that this country has to offer have, through some twisted logic, become unable to see what it is about this society that, whatever its defects, makes people from all over the world wish to live here.”
Thanks for the link.
You are so right that it is not over.
Recommended viewing:
Latest 4 part video series that Joel has @ Proud to be Canadian.
The strongest feeling that I recall from that day is the vulnerability, and naivete of North America. We live in a bubble, so caught up in our malls, fashion, and the latest fad, unaware of the real world. I guess that is right where Islamic extremists want us to be.
I was there also…and I recall realising that whatever concern or stress I had on September 10 was suddenly very insignificant.
There’s an interesting interview with Norman Podheretz (author of World War IV) on National Review Online:
It’s titled: “A Real Neocon Speaks.”
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=MjUwNGQ4ZDRmNWU4NjhkYTg2MmQ0ZDE0YmE5ZjUzYmM=
The time for Americans to put 9/11 behind them is when the official story matches the realities of the evidence. There is still an open question as to HOW a 3 trillion dollar defense system let Americans down so badly.
There is a lot of explaining to do and we can’t blame some dead CIA bozo hiding in caves for the dismal lack of information in the official 9/11 reports.
“There is still an open question as to HOW a 3 trillion dollar defense system let Americans down so badly.”
Same reason the equally expensive pre-WW2 US and other Allied defense establishments didn’t prevent Pearl Harbor and the invasion of Poland, WL. In the real world, there are never any guarantees.
Let’s plan and fight for victory in the present and future, shall we, and not obsess about the past.
I don’t think that 9/11 should be put behind us until Islamic fascism is moved to the periphery in both the ME and in the West.
Utopian ideologies, such as fascism and communism, will never disappear, because our psychological nature means that we desire the stability of ‘purity and perfection’. Biological reality, however, rejects both and is in a constant state of flux. But, these ideologies can be moved to a marginal ratio in the population. If they become dominant, it’s a sign of a pathology in the society.
I think that Islamic fascism is, now, in the ME, gradually becoming marginalized as tribalism becomes a less viable mode of organization and gives way to the civic mode. This is not an easy, simple or painless transition. But, the US war on Iraq – and in Afghanistan – has opened the cracks up in the tribal system. It will change to a civic mode.
I predict that the fascist groups will turn more and more to criminality, ie kidnappings and the drug trade, away from ideology, as this transition takes place.
But – what remains disturbing is that the Western idealists remain in operation. They aren’t involved in the results of the dysfunctional economics of tribalism. They are kept within the robust capitalist economies of the west. So, they are ‘cloud dwellers’ – people who think and act without regard to reality. Therefore, the ideology of Islamic fascism can become rooted in the west – unless the west fights back.
The fact that Islamic fascism is hidden within the ‘hands-off’ image of its being a religion; and that the West moved into the inept powerlessness of multiculturalism – means that the West has little capacity to defend itself against utopian Islamic fascism in the West.
And, the filiation of western academics with islamic fascism – can be understood as based on two properties. First, islamic fascism is socialist and utopian – as are western lefists. They consider that a ‘pure state’ of ‘the best society’ can exist. That’s Basic Fallacy One.
Then, they both consider that they way to reach this pure state, with its removal of doubt and problems, is by a dominant authority – big govt or religion as big gov’t.
Both, interestingly, reject the use of reason. The leftists are firm postmodernists – which rejects reason and relies on subjective emotion. Same with Islamic fascism.
And, both, since they reject reason, reject the freedom of the individual – who is instead submerged within the homogeneous non-identity of a group.
Both also reject science, technology, free enterprise.
So, the left and fascism are ideologically hand in glove with each other.
A further bond, is that in their ideology of utopian purity, they must set up an agency of Evil, to fight against. This mythic fight is necessary, as it becomes obvious that people don’t want to move into this homogeneous state of Top Down Authoritarian Gov’t. Both islamic fascism and the leftist west – have set up the USA as the Agency of Evil.
That’s because it focuses on: the freedom of the individual, capitalism, free enterprise, private property, dissent and questions, the use of reason, science etc.
By the way, ann, the reaction of hostility to Israel by some, is not due to its being a democracy, but to its occupation of Palestinian lands and repression of those peoples.
*
“GIVE WAR A CHANCE.”
*
“The great lesson of September 11 was not that the jihadists ever believed that they could kill us all. Rather, they trusted that enough of the West and indeed enough of us here in America, might at the end of the day declare that we had it coming.
In this long war, that belief was — and is — far deadlier even than an unhinged murderer at the controls of an airliner.”
…-
Victor Davis Hanson: Lessons in War. Reflections on 9/11, six years later
NRO ^ | September 11, 2007 | Victor Davis Hanson
On that day, we watched tape of the doomed in suits diving head first from the burning floors, hoping to splatter on roofs rather than crush and kill incoming firefighters — as some tragically did.
I remember reading about the last hours in the stairwell of the Cassandra FBI agent John O’Neill, who chose to go back into the inferno. His year-long, near solitary race to save us against the evil of the al Qaeda planners Khalid Sheik Mohammed and Ramzi Binalshibh came to an end that day — and with it O’Neill himself.
And I remember reading the accounts of a smiling bin Laden, fresh off from buying his fifth wife for $5,000 (a 15-year-old girl no less). At that very moment in Afghanistan, always the inveterate liar, he was haughty after his recent cowardly murder of the far better fighter Massoud.
That day bin Laden snickered to the radio reports of his 9/11 jihadists, now holding up a finger for each plane’s impending crash to his adoring acolytes in Afghanistan — and soon to be alternately denying culpability in his fear, then boasting of it in his hubris.
Then there were the incomprehensible statements of our own that followed — of Michael Moore, the later darling at the Democratic Convention, claiming that a Democratic city’s blue-state, anti-Bush voters ipso facto should have won an exemption from the killers’ target list.
We heard too from the now apparently warped novelist Norman Mailer, at last relieved that his aesthetic skyline was cleared of the bothersome looming towers (“two huge buck teeth”) — and with them, for Ward Churchill at least, the ashes of the “Little Eichmanns,” of his “technocrats of empire.”
We remember the firemen and police who went up into the towers even as they came down. And always there were the nightlong, lit-up scenes of the construction and rescue workers who brought a majestic dignity to the macabre task of sifting for hundreds in the detritus of lower New York.
We keep thinking as well that if there had not been a Todd Beamer and a few kindred brave souls on United Flight 93, there would have been no more Capitol at all, its century-old dome instead reduced to smithereens like that of the golden mosque of Samara. It perhaps would now still be sitting there, six years later, a quarter rebuilt amid scaffolds, its restoration unfinished as it was during the Civil War — and its smoldering skeleton plastered on every poster in Gaza, in DVDs sold in all the bazaars of Pakistan. …-
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1894509/posts
A good link to a page that commemorates the 24 Canadians who were murdered that day.
http://members.shaw.ca/kcic1/cdnwtc.html
Born in a welfare district in Montreal with a tyrant as a father,in and out of youth detention centres and foster homes,I became a paratrooper in the armed forces so that I could make a life for myself.I never wanted children out of fear I would become my father,my wife felt otherwise.I now work for an airline and was in Winnepeg on a layover when was told to get myself home as my wife was going into labour.Three hours into labour we were told that planes were hitting the world trade centres.Today is my son Liam’s birthday.We have organized a back laneway hockey game with fifteen of his friends joining the party.Todays date will never be lost on this family, it was the scariest and happiest day of my life,one I will never forget.
I agree with the radio guy. Trudeau showed us The Way.
Its time to put 9/11 behind us, pull out of Afghanistan and cut the defense budget again. Spend that money on something important, like safe injections sites and a bigger, better gun registry.
We can vote for Celine Dion, join hands in a circle singing Kumbaya and let the damn Americans worry about it. Well they started it, they should finish it!
We can keep right on doing that until crazy Islamowankers blow up something big in Toronto.
Then we can proceed with Dion’s back-up plan, the Muslim Internment Act. Hey, it worked on the Japs in WWII, why not now?
I propose to buy stock in rail car manufacturers. Its going to take a lot of rolling stock to move every brown person in Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver up to Hudson’s Bay.
I expect a good return on investment before 2010.
Perhaps after Jack Layton negotiates peace with Bin Laden, the two of them can ride together on a float at the next Gay Pride parade in Tranna.
Peace through superior firepower, not limp-wristed platitudes of “can’t we all just get along?”.
Has this report been seen/heard in the Canadian MSM?
…-
International Herald Tribune
Canada looking into national memorial for Canadian victims of Sept. 11 attacks
The Associated Press
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
TORONTO: Canada is looking into the possibility of establishing a national memorial to the Canadians who died in the Sept. 11 attacks, and is working to enact legislation allowing victims to sue foreign governments that support terrorism, a top official said Tuesday.
Such a memorial, honoring the 24 Canadians killed in the attacks in the U.S., would stand as a reminder that Canada is not immune to terrorism, Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day said Tuesday, speaking at a small ceremony in Toronto to mark the sixth anniversary of the attacks.
Canada currently has no law that allows victims to sue governments that support terrorism.
While the government has spent millions to boost security and improve intelligence, Day says the job is not over and reiterated the importance of the Afghanistan mission where Canada has more than 2,300 troops.
Maureen Basnicki, who lost her husband in the World Trade Center attack, says she supports the idea of a national memorial. Basnicki said it is important that all Canadians remember that Sept. 11 was an assault on the values of democracy and freedom and that Canadians continue fighting to preserve those values.
The Blue Jays will honor the victims of attacks during a ceremony before the Toronto-New York Yankees game on Tuesday night in Canada.
The efforts of first responders also will be saluted as New York police and firefighters’ representatives join their Toronto counterparts on the field.
Throwing out the ceremonial first pitch will be two young Canadian boys who lost their father in the attack. …-
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/09/11/america/NA-GEN-Canada-Sept-11-Memorial.php
Even though the craven slobs in the media and the spineless Dems here would like to put 9/11 behind us, I never will never, and, thank God most decent Americans/Canadians won’t either. It was the defining moment that galvanized in rational minds the realization that the world had irrevocably changed.
In the past six years we’ve witnessed the unrelenting thuggery of expansionist militant Islam in Bali, Beslan, the Moscow theater, Madrid, London, Darfur and every part of the world where they have a community or share a border. What has emerged since 9/11, and it should have been expected, is the left’s historic duplicity. Six years past 9/11 we understand with clarity now both of the forces that have anti-democracy agendas.
Three thousand plus innocent people literally vaporized in a matter of hours, how can anyone put behind them the the evil forces that masterminded that? There is no safety in ignoring them. The surviving Munich Olympics terrorists were released as a placating gesture, it didn’t make the world any safer.
WL Mackenzie Redux…“The time for Americans to put 9/11 behind them is when the official story matches the realities of the evidence.”…you’ve got some 9/11 conspiracy theory you’d like to share with us?
didnt you guys see the CBCpravda version, it was all George Bushes fault, he was reading a book for seven minutes ( seven !!!) while the towers were being attacked. they forgot to cut to Bush as a fighter pilot to show that he should have been up there. instead he was driving in a motorcade in the wrong direction and had to do a U turn, and his cell phone didnt work.
CBCpravda has outdone themselves on this anniversary. criticing that there were toxins in the air, – yeah bright boy- airing micheal moores crap and terrance mckennas slanted junk.
just need Borat Dion to come out and say something that needs to be covered.
sell the CBC to Fox.
News outlets in Toronto are reporting that a live grenade was found in a bundle of clothing in a factory next to a mosque..police report that it was disarmed and they see no connection between this and the anniversary of 9/11..
…right..
It’s not World War IV,,,
It is God War III,,,
The Islamic Terrorist Savages started God War I around 700 AD, the rest of the World was forced to band together to defeat them.
The Islamic Terrorist Savages started God War II around 1400 AD with the same results.
The year is 2007 and that 700 year Muslim itch to dominate the World is underway again. We need to smitten the Liberals/Democrats for no support and crush the Islamic Terrorist Savages till none are left, and we need to do this in the name of our God, so that our children are not left with another Muslim Hornet’s Nest.
Can I have an Amen Please…
,
That’d be “smite”. Upside the head with a 2×4. Only known way to get a jackass’s attention.
Amen, Brother Ratt.
Kate, unfortunately we did put Poland “behind us”. We and the other Allies declared war on Germany after the invasion of Poland. The USA declared war on Japan after Pearl Harbor and only on Germany after Germany declared war on USA. Winston Churchill was not content with finishing the war with Poland as a vassal of the USSR but the USA didn’t see it that way and we went along, putting Poland “behind us”, though it really wasn’t for another 45 years.
CBC
http://www.cbc.ca/news/yourview/2007/09/emergency_workers_to_read_name.html
has open comments on whether we should have a memorial for 9/11. 95 percent of the commenter’s are against it with most of their reasons being it happened to America and it was their fault, nothing to do with us, so it is their problem. What a bunch of head in the sand idiots.
I would like to send Victor Hanson’s article out to everyone I know. The problem is there’s such a diversity of opinion that’s seeped into so many minds its hard to estimate where people stand. From newspapers to tv to university lectures, much of the popular opinion is beyond delusional, it’s downright evil.
From Ward Churchill calling the 9/11 victims “little Eichmanns;” to Rosy O’Fatcow confirming that it was an American inside job, the explosives were planted as evidence shows from the video of tower 7; to even Bush claiming Islam as a religion of peace.
But then we’ve got the Quran, where nobody cares to look:
Fight against those who believe not in Allah, nor in the Last Day, nor forbid that which has been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, and those who acknowledge not the religion of truth among the People of the Scripture, This honorable Ayah was revealed with the order to fight the People of the Book, after the pagans were defeated, the people entered Allah’s religion in large numbers, and the Arabian Peninsula was secured under the Muslims’ control. Allah commanded His Messenger to fight the People of the Scriptures, Jews and Christians, on the ninth year of Hijrah, and he prepared his army to fight the Romans and called the people to Jihad announcing his intent and destination.
WWIV? I think its the age old war against a mortal enemy who we as a civilization forgot and because of that have allowed to gain strength again.
The war is against Islam.
As Teddy Roosevelt said:
Christianity is not the creed of Asia and Africa at this moment solely because the seventh century Christians of Asia and Africa had trained themselves not to fight, whereas the Moslems were trained to fight.
Christianity was saved in Europe solely because the peoples of Europe fought. If the peoples of Europe in the seventh and eighth centuries, an on up to and including the seventeenth century, had not possessed a military equality with, and gradually a growing superiority over the Mohammedans who invaded Europe, Europe would at this moment be Mohammedan and the Christian religion would be exterminated.
Wherever the Mohammedans have had complete sway, wherever the Christians have been unable to resist them by the sword, Christianity has ultimately disappeared. From the hammer of Charles Martel to the sword of Sobieski, Christianity owed its safety in Europe to the fact that it was able to show that it could and would fight as well as the Mohammedan aggressor. …..
The civilization of Europe, American and Australia exists today at all only because of the victories of civilized man over the enemies of civilization because of victories through the centuries from Charles Martel in the eighth century and those of John Sobieski in the seventeenth century. During the thousand years that included the careers of the Frankish soldier and the Polish king, the Christians of Asia and Africa proved unable to wage successful war with the Moslem conquerors; and in consequence Christianity practically vanished from the two continents; and today, nobody can find in them any “social values” whatever, in the sense in which we use the words, so far as the sphere of Mohammedan influences are concerned.
There are such “social values” today in Europe, America and Australia only because during those thousand years, the Christians of Europe possessed the warlike power to do what the Christians of Asia and Africa had failed to do — that is, to beat back the Moslem invader.
—————–
Unfortunately, you can’t win a war when most won’t admit who the enemy is.
There is already a memorial for the Canadian 9/11 victims. It is located in St. Catharines Ontario, it is a walkway that has one tree planted for each of the victims. There is a nice dedication plaque on each tree.
I walked through it on the weekend. Very touching.
For those who visited the Wizbang site, did you scroll down to the article which followed the one about “6 years later”?
Damn BBC, leading the leftist media into dhimmitude!
http://wizbangblog.com/content/2007/09/11/bbc-for-kids-us-to-blame-for-911.php#comments
It still seems suspicious to me that the hijack pilots should have been trained well enough to hit their targets with a bit of flight school instruction. The commandeering of the aircraft and then finding their targets and hitting them ‘dead on’ during a highly stressful situation seems improbable. Has anyone ever credibly investigated the amount of training the terrorist received versus the amount of skill required to complete their dastardly deed? I recall the skeleton of a jet liner in Afghanistan also used for training.
Elsewhere on the 9/11 anniversary, a video from the Save Europe from Islamification demonstration in Brussels. So much for freedom of speech in Europe. How much longer are we going to allow our elites, political and in the media, working in tandem with Islam nail our mouths shut?
http://www.brusselsjournal.com/
I would like to know when Christians in anyone’s lifetime today, murdered thousands in the name of Jesus. People who say they are just as worried about Christian fundamentalists as they are about Muslim fundamentalist have their heads up their butts. I consider myself to be a Christian fundamentalist because I do not believe the Word of God in the Bible can be reformed to suit the degeneration of our morality today.
Sorry to get back to you so late, ET . . . long day.
“By the way, ann, the reaction of hostility to Israel by some, is not due to its being a democracy, but to its occupation of Palestinian lands and repression of those peoples. ”
Perhaps if the surrounding nations had been satisfied with the UN division of the lands in 1948, and not invaded Israel immediately in order to wipe her off the map, Israelis would not have to occupy lands beyound the 1948 borders in self-defense. Look what’s happened since they gave back Gaza. They probably need to occupy it again in self-defense soon.
Do you know of any nation in history that voluntarily gave back land it had thoroughly conquered? Especially such strategic land as the Golan heights? (Probably do . . . I’m sure you’ll give me many examples, but I just can’t think of any right now except the colonizers giving back colonies — these colonies were not on their colonizers’ borders at least).
I can’t believe Israel’s suicidal generosity sometimes.
“The commandeering of the aircraft and then finding their targets and hitting them ‘dead on’ during a highly stressful situation seems improbable.”
Weasel words. Saying that something seems improbable after the fact of its happening does not mean it did not happen! Say your neighbour gets hit by lightning; does your walking up to him afterward and saying, “Wow, it seems so improbable that you’d get hit by lightning,” do anything for him? Probability does not apply to the past.
ET: “The leftists are firm postmodernists ”
Yet again: Some are. Some oppose it strongly. Do you want some references or do you not really care what the truth of the matter is?
Sure, exile – give me some references to leftists who are strongly in favour of objective reality, who are realists and against postmodern phenomenology and relativism.
well, gosh, ann- the British, Americans etc, sure didn’t keep the lands they conquered in WWII. I think Germany, France, Japan etc – are still reasonably intact. Don’t let the facts bother you.
Did you know that at one time parts of Italy were under Spanish rule? That parts of the ME were under Turkish rule? Parts of Belgium were under Austrian rule…and so on and so on and so on.
Conquering lands doesn’t mean automatically, that you get to keep the land. That type of Only The Strong Have Rights – is unjust. But don’t let ethics bother you.
You are a young student (undergrad?) and I think you need to do a lot more reading and thinking about issues. What’s going on now in the ME, besides the rise of Islamic fascism due to tribalism, is that the Is-Pal situation has changed from its original Israel-Palestinian land and refugee issues – to one where both fascism and Iran are involved – the latter in its own imperial ambitions – and both are using the Is-Pal situation as a cover.
I repeat – settling lands that were promised to an other people – is an unprincipled and dishonourable act.
Penny; With regard to you question to WLM Redux, please understand he is a dingbat who clamins to be on the right wing of politics (as am I) but does little except to embarrass us with his inane comments.
Thanks, Bcer, I’ve figured that out. Every time I ask him to clarify his statements it is met with dead silence.
He needs to either put up or shut up on his lame conspiracy theories that he weaves into his comments.
His moronic and conflicting, pure games playing, comments need examined.
So, WLM Redux, answer my question and the ones on an older thread I proposed to you when you suggested that the OBL tapes were a CIA invention? Go for it.
yomama, Reagan sure didn’t miss the Iranian revolution and hostage takers for what they were or that the Russian “evil empire’ was a fake. On both issues he scored a victory. That’s really all that counts.
The CIA in what goes on in the universe is a red herring, trotted out by the likes of WLM Redux and his lefty ilk when an illogical conspiracy is better than the facts on the ground.
Oh, please, ET:
“the British, Americans etc, sure didn’t keep the lands they conquered in WWII. I think Germany, France, Japan etc – are still reasonably intact. Don’t let the facts bother you.”
Like Germany and Japan were going to wipe U.S. and Britain off the map after WWII! Please read what every single M.E. Muslim leader has said about Israel ever since 1948. Even “moderate” ones like Jordan’s. Is a nation entitled to defend itself, yes or no? If Canada launched missiles into the U.S. constantly and threatened to wipe out every American, you bet the U.S. should invade us and keep our territory as long as we kept up such idiotic and threatening rhetoric.
” I think you need to do a lot more reading and thinking about issues.”
Right back at you.
“What’s going on now in the ME, besides the rise of Islamic fascism due to tribalism, is that the Is-Pal situation has changed from its original Israel-Palestinian land and refugee issues – to one where both fascism and Iran are involved – the latter in its own imperial ambitions – and both are using the Is-Pal situation as a cover.”
None of it changes the fact that Israel has a right to defend her people from annihilation, even if it means occupying the territories of those who threaten to do so. Any nation would. Even Canada.
Perhaps you don’t agree with the decision of the UN to give Israel land in Palestine in 1948. If you don’t, then say so and we have no basis for furthur discussion. If you do, then you know Israel, as a country, can defend herself.
Hmmmm, I wonder how all these Israelis and Palestinians, who are just mere “organizations of matter to prevent entropic dissipation” after all, could feel such hatred for each other?
And now for the thundering insults . . . sigh.
“I repeat – settling lands that were promised to an other people – is an unprincipled and dishonourable act.” Posted by: ET at September 11, 2007 6:38 PM
What a stupid statement – who promised who what. It is all up for grabs – do you remember the Indians.
go ann go!
When it comes to evolution and Israel, ET is a materialist – she promotes every lefty idea about Israel – they are “occupiers”, it’s the settlers, “Palestinians” have been living there since time immemorial, etc. I don’t get it.
This kind of thing (from the article Kate linked to) do not register on ET:
“Did you know that until 1967 there wasn’t even a “Palestinian” identity among those Arabs that had left Israel? Only a general undifferentiated Arab identity, riven by internecine conflicts and with shifting borders as political and doctrinal quarrels unfolded?”
ET will not accept objective facts:
– before 1967 the only people calling themselves Palestinians were Jews – witness the Palestinian Post/today’s Jerusalem Post, the Palestinian Philharmonic Orchestra/now the Israeli Philharmonic Orchestra; and my all time favourite, the movie Exodus, made in 1960 when even Hollywood knew that Palestinians were Jews
In the movie “Exodus,” the female lead character asks Paul Newman at dinner where he comes from.
Paul Newman answers, “I don’t come from anywhere. I’m a sabra. A native-born Palestinian.”
All through the movie (made in 1960), they refer to Jews from the land of Israel as “Palestinians.”
Some samples:
“Ben Ami is one of the Palestinians who run this camp.” (On Cyprus.)
“He’s the Palestinian commander, that’s who.” (Referring to a Jewish commander in the same camp.)
“I want to see the Palestinian camp commander.”
“This is the Palestinian commander, David Ben Ami.”
“Would you order him to place all his Palestinian…administrative personnel at my disposal while loading?”
“Report at once to your nearest Palestinian guard point.” (Referring to a Jewish guard point.)
“This chap Ben Canaan probably wasn’t lying when he said he fought with us. Thousands of Palestinians did.” (Jews from the Palestine Mandate fought for Britain in WWII. The Arabs did not.)
“I know Haganah would call him back, if you would only use your influence.” (Statement to Paul Newman from the character who is his sister.)
“Any girl that falls in love with a Palestinian boy has a long wait coming.” (Paul Newman’s response to her.)
Even Hollywood knew in 1960 that “Palestinians” were Jews. The Arabs in the movie were called “Arabs.”
Ian, you are much too quick to condemn. What I was trying to say was that perhaps the pilots that crashed the airliners were well trained before they arrived in the USA. Put yourself in their position. You do some hours in a flight simulator, commandeer and airplane and crash it rather precisely into buildings spread over the eastern seaboard. Not only do you have to fly the plane you have to navigate. Seems a bit of a stretch that a novice could do such a feat. Just a thought
besides the rise of Islamic fascism due to tribalism…
Now there is a falsehood if ever I saw one. Tribalism is part of humanity – think nation, state, province, city, political belief, religious belief, school we attended or even town where we grew up.
Islam views itself as having all the solutions to mankinds ills and offers for those who spread the religion great rewards. As does Science as does Christianity as does politics. The only real difference between Osama bin Laden (Islamist), Billy Graham (Christian), David Suzuki (Scientist), Josef Stalin (Politician) is message and methodology. Each is/was trying to impose his view of the world upon others. bin Laden used force and fear, Suzuki uses fear and morallizing, Billy Graham used/uses words of fear and comfort. Josef Stalin used force and fear.
This is not to say that the four belief systems mentioned above and there are millions more not mentioned are all equal.
Islam, Science, Politics all promote death to humanity as a means of bringing about a better world.
Strangely only Christianity which focuses on the death of the only Man/God promotes life.
Islam, Science, Politics seek to appease the god.
Christianity accepts God’s forgiveness.
Tribalism is not the cause of Islamic fascism. Islamic fascism is the natural outgrowth of the core belief in Islam. Communist fascism’s natural outcome led Josef Stalin to kill millions because the idea of perfecting society perforce involves slaughtering those who are not perfectable. Suzuki would kill millions by trying to go back to some ideal time long past when technology was more primative and less pervasive. The natural outcome of Christianity is helping the helpless, standing up for and aiding the victim.
As I said at the outset tribalism is part of humanity….what the tribe believes about itself and the world it inhabits is what is important to the survival of mankind.
“The strongest feeling that I recall from that day is the vulnerability, and naivete of North America. We live in a bubble, so caught up in our malls, fashion, and the latest fad, unaware of the real world.”
No argument there. North Americans, especialy the ones living in the flyover zones are completely clueless as to what the outside world is like.
“Islam, Science, Politics all promote death to humanity as a means of bringing about a better world.”
Bring on the War on Science.
the war against muslims will never be over. we are importing them into our countries very quickly. they will commence jihad when numbers reach a critical mass. we will be fighting here in what is left of canada after the french, indians and other groups sever their portions. keep talking because talk is all we have unless we foment a serious backlash against socialists of all stripes.
i daisy. that is the truth, simply told. we will have to fight muslims on our own soil soon. but the apologists willhave to be engaged first, both verbally and physically.
“Seems a bit of a stretch that a novice could do such a feat.”
You’re doing it again. You don’t come across as a Truther wingnut, so maybe I was a bit rough on you, but you make a pretty fundamental error here. I’ll say it again: probability does not apply to past events. It doesn’t matter how unlikely something was to happen after it’s already happened. If you want to say that the 9/11 hijackers had more extensive flight training than the official accounts, you have to introduce evidence to back up your claim. You can’t just say that the official explanation is unlikely and expect others to make your case for you.
Hi ex-liberal. You raise an interesting point: Who was there longest? Who was “Palestinian” first?
Even though the Romans (about 7 decades after Christ) scattered and broke the Jewish nation, there were always pockets of Jews living in Palestine (a Roman-bestowed name). In the 1800s and early 1900s scores more came, buying land off Turkish landowners and building kibbutzes. They bought the land, quite often worthless swampland that they turned into productive agricultural areas, and were therefore legitimate landowners in Palestine (as legitimate as you can be if you buy land from occupiers . . . Muslim occupiers!!!). It was only during the Nazi persecution of the 1930s, the Russian pogroms before and after the Revolution, and the aftermath of WWII that saw thousands and thousands of Jews pour into Palestine to join their already-present fellow Jews. I guess you could call that an illegal invasion, but the UN recognized in 1948 that the Jews had nowhere else to go, and had a right to live in their ancestral homeland.
If only the Arabs in Palestine had accepted the 1948 division of the land. Instead, Israel was invaded by the surrounding Muslim nations, and the Arab Palestinians were told they could flee the fighting and come back to help themselves to a Jew-free land. Those who stayed ended up better off than those who left, having voting rights, jobs, and more freedoms in the nation of Israel than those hemmed up in the Gaza and West Bank. Why won’t the Muslim nations open their doors to the Arab Palestinians living in those crowded zones? They perpetuate the situation for their own gain, the cost merely being the continued misery of fellow Muslims. Israel, in contrast, opened its doors to the thousands of Jews expelled from Muslim lands in the 20th century (where’s the outrage about that, by the way?).
Israel would not have occupied the Gaza Strip and the West Bank in self-defence if the Arabs had opted for peace. All the fighting and shooting would end today if the Arabs genuinely wanted peace. It is not Israel perpetrating this endless war. They would put their guns away if they were sure the Arabs would keep the peace and stop killing Israeli civilians. But even promises of cease-fires are broken . . . look what’s happening in Gaza after Israel gave it back. By the way, did you see that one video exerpt (I think I saw it via LGF) of Palestinians in Gaza saying they wanted their Israeli occupiers back because the strife between Fatah and Hamas was causing so much misery?
Israel shouldn’t have built settlements in occupied territory, however. I suppose all that land looked so tempting, and Israel’s getting pretty crowded. They did dismantle many of those settlements, though, which is rare for powers to do once they have settled in conquered territory.
This is a topical branch off 9/11 — I guess we’d better get back on topic. It is connected though; Israel’s very existence, and U.S. support of it, is one of OBL’s and al Qaeda’s grievances. Amazing, as Mark Steyn wrote, how one small strip of land and a few million people is the alleged cause of all the misery and poverty in thousands of acres of oil-rich Muslim lands.
My apologies for the long blurb. Back to your regularly scheduled short, pithy, and witty comments . . .
ann – since when do I react or act with ‘thundering insults’? There is no need to justify your opinions by self-defining yourself as a victim.
Most certainly, Germany had every intention of gaining land and governing it according to its ideology- which meant that in the lands it conquered, the ‘undesirable people’ were annihilated. The same with the Soviet Union, the same with other regimes in previous eras. However, when the West won these wars, they did not keep the land.
It is not a truism that you get to keep the land, if the other nation intended to ‘wipe you off the map’ and you don’t keep the land if the other nation didn’t voice such an agenda.
The UN set up a two-state solution. Period. The settlements by Israel in the occupied land are illegal. Period. There is no justification for this. Settlements/occupation are not actions to prevent ‘annihilation’ but to settle the land.
I never said that human beings were ‘mere organizations of matter to prevent entropic dissipation’. Most certainly, that is the function of material organization, but, you are ignoring the term ‘organization’. I suggest that you think before you write.
joanne – the ME lands of Israel/Palestine were not being run within a migratory economy, as were the N.American/African lands but within a settled economy. In either case, it is unethical to walk in and take the lands away from another society because you want those lands. The ‘indian lands’ were not ‘up for grabs’.
ex-liberal. No, I’m not a materialist. I’m an objective realist – quite different. I base my conclusions on facts. Not movies. We’ve been through this before- I disagree with all your statements – as non-factual.
joe – you have a completely wrong understanding of tribalism. You seem to think that it means an ‘identity group’ with social boundaries. No. Tribalism is a particular mode of social, economic and political organization that is based around KINSHIP. Biological kinship. Not social connections as in ‘the nation, city, state, province’ etc. But biological ties. A tribe is a set of people who consider themselves a ‘set’ by virtue of heredity; they are biologically related to each other.
It was the dominant mode of economic and political organization in smaller populations all over the world. It’s very functional in small, no-change, no-progress societies. A society can be based around a few smaller subsets (clans) and one clan can be dominant. Or, hereditary elders can dominate. It is extremely dysfunctional to maintain that mode in large populations that require flexibility and change in their economy, that require loyalties to innovation rather than kin and stability, and so on. The refusal to empower the population in the ME states – has led to an ideology that the way for things to ‘get better’ is a mov’t to a fundamentalist and essentialist Islam. This dysfunctional tribalism is the root cause of Islamic fascism.
“when the West won these wars, they did not keep the land.”
. . . because Germany et al were not right on the U.S. borders, were not launching missiles into its territory, and were not threatening to exterminate every American. The USSR was, however, on the borders of the West (Europe), and the U.S. still keeps bases there — in the Cold War these were meant to help Western Europe stay free.
Israel gave back the Golan Heights, very strategic area and right on its borders, to a nation (Syria) that threatens Israel to this day (at least with rhetoric, which would become reality if Syria had the power). Israel gave back Gaza, very strategic as a physical pass into Egypt (for weapons transport, etc.), and again right on its borders.
The world condemns Israel no matter what it does. If the Arabs all united and wiped Israel off the planet with one mass slaughter, the world would sigh in shock and spring into action by shrugging. Since Israel is blamed and criticised for absolutely everything (e.g.: for some civilian deaths in Lebanon recently as they tried to bomb terrorists hiding amongst the population, while no condemnation is given to the Lebanese army for killing scores of civilians recently), sometimes I think they should just do everything they can for their own security, and not give a Jerusalem fig for world opinion. It’s never on their side anyway. Take back the Golan Heights. Take Gaza. Bomb Damascus after even one teensy little threat from Syria. Expel all the Arab Palestinians from Palestine, including from Gaza and the West Bank. No one said anything about the Muslim nations expelling all their Jews, after all. But of course Israel won’t do this. Israel plays be the rules of civilization, even as their opponents won’t. And I fear this will cause Israel’s destruction in the end, while the world just sighs and watches.
No insults, eh? You’ve repeatedly accused me of not thinking, of not letting facts bother me, etc. You need to chill, ET. I think you’re having a hate-on for people who don’t view the universe the same way you do. Just try, try, to relate your opinions without insulting other people’s intelligence. Repeatedly reminding me of my youth and student-hood, and asking me to “open my mind” is condescending. If I in turn called you an old fuddy-duddy who won’t open his/her mind, and is just stuck in the ways that he/she learned from others long ago, that would be equally condescending. I do try to give you the credit that you think for yourself, though almost everything you’ve ever written to me I’ve heard from profs, teachers, and liberals ad nauseum — as I’m sure everything I’ve written you have read elsewhere. We all compile material that we agree and disagree with, and regurgitate it.
“I never said that human beings were ‘mere organizations of matter to prevent entropic dissipation'”
What are humans, then? You talk about “organization” that I’m ignoring. So . . . we’re organized atoms, then? Please enlighten those of us still primitive enough to think we’re something more. On second thought, don’t. Kate doesn’t want flame wars or long diatribes on her blog and I’ve already contributed to both enough already. Amazing how mere “organized” cells can argue so long and feel so passionately about things that don’t threaten their existence.
Perhaps you should just publish another “God delusion”-type book so we can all read of your valiant efforts to convert the ignorant, and we won’t take up so much of Kate’s bandwith.
The UN might have set up a two-state solution for Palestine in 1948, but it was immediately rejected by the Arabs. All neighbouring Arab states launched a war of annihilation against Israel. At the end of that war, the parts of Palestine that had been intended for the Arab state became part of Jordan. Nobody raised a peep about the “illegal occupation” by Jordan. That didn’t start until after the six-day war of 1967, when Israeli forces occupied the Jordanian west bank and east Jerusalem.
A quick look at the map will explain why the Israelis seized the west bank. As long as its Arab neighbours threatened annihilation, it made absolute military sense to control this territory. Same with the Golan Heights (seized from Syria). The settlements form part of this military pragmatism.
The Palestinians had their opportunity to finally have a state in the late 1990s, until Arafat saw the success of Hezbollah in Lebanon and decided he could get what he wants (the destruction of Israel) by force.
Ann – Israel still occupies the Golan Heights.
Thanks for correcting me, Belisarius.
Not all of the Golan Heights were given back, but Barak certainly offered it. Some strategic “farms” were given back to Syria and Lebanon, I believe. Also, I made that statement because as a kid in ’92 I got to stroll all over the Golan Heights with my tourist parents, but areas where I walked are no longer in Israeli hands. So I made the sweeping statement “the Golan Heights were returned”, when I should have clarified. I’m going to look it up some more (as I wipe egg off my face — reminds me not to make assumptions without research :-(.)
I don’t know what is not “objective reality” about the following facts:
– the so-called “occupied territories” are actually “disputed territories”; no one on the planet was shouting for a country for the poor poor ancient Palestinians between 1948 and 1967 when Jordan and Egypt held these lands.
– why can’t Jews live there anyway? would you be okay if some other place on the planet was designated as a Jew-free zone? plenty of non-Jews live in Israel, why can’t Jews live in Judea Samaria and Gaza
– the Arabs of the Mandate for Palestine were offered a state by the UN and they said NO; when Israel offered all the land seized in the 67 war, the Arabs responded with the three famous Nos – “No peace, No recognition, No negotiations.”
This is not my “personal narrative” or just my opinion – it is fact