The lessons for us today, almost five centuries hence, are equally important. The same enemy exists today. Instead of galleys he uses airliners, and instead of Janissaries he uses suicide bombers. He hates and fears western civilization, and seeks to convert or enslave us. We have to meet him and engage him everywhere he is, just as the Knights did. What it will take to win against him is what it took to win at Malta: preparation, skill at arms, leadership, and above all faith and an iron will.
In this post we see what our fellow patriotic Americans on the Left think about today's anniversary.
And then, in what I can only consider a bizarre article, CNN tells us Educators divided over what to learn from 9/11. The only reason educators might be divided is that some are members of the anti-American Left, the Hate America First crowd, and want to teach that whilst drawing their pay from the American taxpayer:
But perhaps the biggest divide has occurred between those who stress teaching values and patriotism and those who encourage questioning U.S. policies and examining terrorists' motives.
"There is a difference between 'America deserved it' on the one-hand and 'America is the beacon of freedom and equality for the world' on the other hand," says Chester Finn, president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute.
Finn's right, and there's a false dichotomy in the first sentence. It's not "values and patriotism" vs. "questioning US policies". It's moral relativism; you don't "justify" flying airplanes into buildings, no matter what beef you may have. Well, normal people don't. And normal people shouldn't try to understand or excuse it, either.
After Pearl Harbor was attacked, was there really a segment of the population that sat around the tree singing Kumbayyah asking, "Why do the Japanese hate us? We need to open a dialog with Emperor Hirohito." We didn't care why they attacked. We fought back. We killed their citizens and laid waste to their country. When that wasn't enough, we dropped nuclear bombs on two of their cities. Then we accepted their unconditional surrender. We didn't cry about those acts, and Roosevelt wasn't pilloried in the press for the intentional killing of civilians during the firebombing of Tokyo. We did what needed to be done.
Oh, if only more Americans had the intestinal fortitude to do that today. But no, their hatred of President Bush is greater than their hatred of the people who flew airplanes into buildings, of people who say they will not stop killing us until we all accept Allah and his sharia law. Why do you Lefties not believe this? Osama himself, your buddy, has said so. You don't need to believe the President--Osama keeps telling us what he wants. There's no negotiating with that. He wants you dead, too, unless and until you become a Muslim. The fact that you're against President Bush--Osama and his ilk don't care. And it won't buy you one extra day of life under the Caliphate, either, you traitors and collaborators.
Wow, now I see why Michael Savage talks and writes this way--it's a hoot!
But now on to the story of a student I spoke to today. One of my students and I were talking after school, and he told me that he visited Israel this summer. Hey, I'm building a relationship here--I learned the student was Jewish. Anyway, he told me that before that visit, he believed that you could talk to terrorists, understand them, negotiate with them. After this visit, however, after seeing Israel first hand, after talking to Israelis, after being there during the Lebanon incursion, he now accepts that there's only one solution to terrorism, which is the solution I advocate.
You have to kill them. As many as you can.
Here's a little math problem I came up with in class today. Let's determine how many jihadis we need to kill in order to make this not worth their while anymore. Let's let the line below represent the entire number of people that have lived on Earth since humans became humans. I don't know exactly what that number is, but we know it's finite:
**************************
Let's assume that half of that population has been female. So now we're down to this amount:
*************
Now throughout time, except in very recent history, childhood mortality was a very real concern.
***********
Many women throughout history have had children, or at least sex. Take them out, and here's what's left:
***
It's out of that final number that all the virgin females must be drawn. Divide that number by 72, the number of virgins each jihadi is assured in Paradise, and that's the minimum number of jihadis we have to kill. Kill more than that, and there won't be any more virgins to go around. The jihadis won't have any reason to kill anymore.
You want a practical application of math? There it is.
You know what? I'm not going to publish any anti-American, anti-Bush comments on this post. I don't care if this post gets any comments at all. Want to push some hateful, partisan crap? I won't publish it here. Not on this post, and not today. Go read the Daily Kos and hang out with your fellow traitors, while you sip your Starbucks and drive your SUV to the next protest rally. You are not welcome here today.
21 comments:
"In this post we see what our fellow patriotic Americans on the Left think about today's anniversary."
I wouldn't get all your news from blogs.
May the victims of 9/11 RIP.
we should have done more than a moment of silence at school today? Back to a topic you alluded to in this post. Do you think that a long war (3 years maybe 2) is possible in today’s America with today’s media? The last two Vietnam and terror have both been mercilessly attacked by the press and for the most part unpopular with the public. Do you think that an American led long war can ever be popular or at least avoid merciless attack ever again? (And under what circumstance)
Evan
I like intelligent questions.
Long wars are notoriously difficult for a free people to tolerate, primarily because wars threaten their freedoms and prosperity. People get soft. The 24 hr news cycle magnifies fear, because they see how ugly war is and it offends their sensibilities. They'll give anything to make it stop, even if the alternative is worse.
I'm not prescient enough to know if we'll ever again be able to fight a serious war, and what the conditions would have to be in order to sustain such a fight. I do, however, find the words of John Stuart Mill applicable here:
War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks nothing is worth a war, is much worse. A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing he cares more about than he does about his personal safety, is a miserable creature who has no chance of being free, unless made and kept so by the exertions of men better than himself.
I wish I had something eloquent or as meaningful as was posted here today. What is sad is that something like this should be standard fare through national media and it is not. Instead we are given scurrulous comments, subtle innuendos and outright lies and we are expected to accept the "diversity" offered by a religious zealot who will "give" us peace if we convert to his point of view. Instead I say we send this zealot a message that a free and independent people don't have to succumb to his way of thinking and can choose to worship, or not worship, who and when and where they want. Screw 'em.
P.S. I think we should also consider that our current crop of high school freshmen were probably sheltered from the more violent images of 9/11. At this time when they are becoming politically aware, we owe it to them that they not be left ignorant of why we are fighting and whom we are fighting. There are far too many movies, films, videos, books and personalities ready to make a buck off of the spilled blood of our citizens. Rather than waiting for the war to cross the ocean, we need to make it clear that if we had not taken a stand where we did and when we did, or if our president had taken the easy way out by using nuclear weapons to annihilate thier pathetic piece of sand-we would be dealing with a very different type of problem indeed. That our president showed restraint and that he tried to build a cooperative force, speaks to the way we do things here. That Asia and the EU have turned the other way shows how little they have learned. Sooner or later it will come back to bite them. And then we will see a war.
I told you--not on this post.
I didn't think it was that bad! In fact, I deleted about 3/4 of what I wrote.
Speaking a liberal, I believe this is one of, if not the only area that you and I agree on. I'm good friends with (The unnamed Jewish student) and we both believe that the only solution to the Middle East is action. Mind, I was totally against the Iraq war...but that's a different topic.
To quote the genius of Dave Mustaine of Megadeth:
"Appeasement only makes the aggressor more aggressive
He understands only one language - action!
And he respects only one word - force!
No sign of them stopping, no time for back channel communiques
We need all the help we can get, air strikes and invasions!
Retaliate. I say!"
That's from "Blackmail The Universe" of The System has Failed. Excellent album, by the way. The song is about the Middle East, if I remember correctly.
I want these terrorists dead. Now. I don't care what methods are used. I don't care how many people die in the process. I don't care how much the countries of the world will hate us—every terrorist killed is a gift of life to every innocent.
But Mr. Miller, don't think that ALL lefties are Starbucks drinking, SUV driving hippies. We aren't. Actually, very few of my friends or my friends' parents go under that category. Besides, everyone likes Starbucks. I am just as patriotic as you are, in every single way. I have as much love for this country as any hard-line conservative does. In fact, I have more. Why? Because dissent is patriotic. Criticizing the President is patriotic. Following the President and his administration like a sheep dog (not saying that you do that or anything) is about as un-American as you can get. The most patriotic thing an American can do is think for themselves—and! If they don't agree with how the government is working, they say something. They whine and complain. This doesn't make me a traitor.
"Go read the Daily Kos and hang out with your fellow traitors"
Please. Get real, I'm not a traitor any more than Al Franken is. Do I deserve the die by lethal injection because I don't agree with the President. Traitor is a strong term for one of disagrees with the government.
Dissent is *not* patriotic. It may not be traitorous in all cases, but it most assuredly is *not* patriotic. The left wants you to believe that it is.
When John Kennedy said, "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country", my parents and grandparents could have yelled out, "Blow it out your butt, freak! I'm in this for *me*." That would have been dissent, but it certainly wouldn't have been patriotic.
You think this country *needs* Democrats in order to function properly? No, it needs what used to be called a loyal opposition. Read what one of those looks like here at http://rightontheleftcoast.blogspot.com/2006/09/how-political-opposition-is-supposed.html
If that entire link didn't come through, click on the September 2006 archives and go to the appropriately-named September 3rd post.
You don't think that dissent is patriotic? You don't think that people should question the morality or validity of their leaders actions? I'm taking therefore that you didn't critize Clinton with the action in Kosovo or any of the other unpopular things he did simply because that would have been traitorous? But anyway, stepping away from the current or previous presidents of the United States, do you not believe that any country should ever question its leaders? What about when those leaders are abolishing rights in the name security, say Iran for example. Should no one stand up and say, hold on this isn't a good idea? I'm curious as to whether this traitorous dissent applies in all cases or simply when people disagree with what you think.
By the way I've been meaning to come by and say hi, see how this years math classes are, so...definately will be by soon.
Dissent can be useful, and even tolerated under the 1st Amendment, but dissent in and of itself isn't patriotic. Lying about the President isn't patriotic. Being a butthead in general isn't patriotic, as I pointed out with my Kennedy example above.
And come by any time :-)
And Jefferson never said, "Dissent is patriotic," and never would have, because it's an idiotic statement.
What the leftists mean when they say that is "Hating America is patriotic."
There's a difference between dissent and opportunism. What I see from the left is them grappling for whatever fingerholds they can get to one up the opponents. They appear to have given very little thought to the what ifs such as
-What if President Bush had cut to the chase and dropped the bomb on the middle East? Would we still be fighting a war over there, or would it have boiled over to our shores and put our cities into harm's way?
-What if we hadn't gone to Iraq and Hussein had developed his WMD program, which despite objections did leave evidence enough to do serious damage? Would we now be cleaning up the aftermath of a bio-terror or germ-warfare attack? Would our country have been brought to its knees due to inaction?
-What if the EU had joined us in the fight? Would it have shortened the battle and brought this to a swift conclusion? And what part of this resistance was paid for with Iraqi oil traded under the table? Shouldn't the EU's personal gains at the expense of the US be considered?
-What if the UN had put teeth in their sanctions (somthing which they have yet to do with any Middle Eastern country including IRAN)? Would we then have seen a moderation or overthrow of theocratic fascists who impose their political will in the name of Allah?
Just wondering.
I think one thing needs to be clarified. Are we talking about the war on terror or the Iraq war?
Anyone who opposes the War on Terror, which I perceive to have been the fighting in Afghanistan to capture Bin Laden, is probably out of their mind a little bit. Very few people I know/know of, if any, have demonstrated opposition to that war. It was definitely necessary to get rid of a terror group threatening the world and oppressing the country of Afghanistan. The rest of the world was behind us. I hope whatever opposition there was was respectful and peaceful. Anything stupid most definitely have been looked down upon by society.
I do not percieve the fighting in Iraq to be related to the war on terror. Opposition to the Iraq war has a more solid case. It was done without the support of the world, or the majority of the American people for that matter, and has given reason for Middle Easterners to hate us. It has killed tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians and severly damaged Iraq's infastructure.
So, what do you think? Does the war in Iraq combat terror? Don't the vast majority of anti-war feelings in the U.S. stem from Iraq and not from the war on terror?
I would bet that most of the opposition to Iraq wish that we had spent those resources fighting terror. Like I said, if you're opposed to fighting terror, something's wrong with you. But, opposition to the War in Iraq is a distinctly different matter.
I hope I don't get sensored! :)
Osama himself has said that Iraq is the "central front" in al-Qaeda's fight against the American Satan. That tells me right there it's part of the war on terror.
I'm not going to get sucked into outlining how legal this war was, or how Iraq was a state sponsor or terrorism, or anything else that's obvious--I'm not going to explain how the earth is round, either. Anyone who isn't up to speed on those at this late date is too far behind to catch up.
And I don't give a damn what the rest of the world thinks. People didn't fly airplanes into their buildings.
It is a matter of record that terrorists were be trained in Iraq as part of the allied effort to spread Islamist beliefs. They have photos. Of course there are documented examples of WMD's as well, but liberals only want it actually in their hands, not the sad results such as entire Kurdish towns. I wish you could talk to this guy on my husband's soccer team. He was 18 when he escaped Iraq after his entire family was killed. He only avoided it because he was helping his uncle in a neighboring village. He doesn't care about mercy or the Geneva Convention, he simply wants the politicians that used fascism as a way to gain power to die and for the the Iranian influence in the region to cease.
Young-Activist, you're mistaken on a few counts. But let's start where you're correct.
Dissent can serve as a check on power. Dissent itself is neither good nor bad; it can be used for either good or bad purposes. Beauty, as they say, is in the eye of the beholder.
But on to Iraq. You're mistaken when you say Iraq didn't pose a threat. They were a state-sponsor of terrorism, like Libya, Iran, and Syria. Saddam made payments to the families of "martyrs" in Palestine, he harbored Abu Nidal (of the 1985 Achille Lauro highjacking, among others), and was a destabilizing force in the region (just ask the Kuwaitis). Given that, it's clear that Iraq was a legitimate target in the Global War on Terror. And let's not forget, Saddam's repeated violations of the 1991 cease fire was cause enough for the "reinstatement of hostilities". So Iraq wasn't a *direct* threat to us in 2003, but he was a troublemaker that needed to be dealt with. Besides, should we always wait until there's a direct threat? I'm sure people will complain, once Iran gets an atomic weapon, that we should have prevented them from doing so.
So this war has eliminated two state sponsors of terror, Iraq and Libya. Not bad. And let's not forget that Afghanistan under the Taliban was obviously a state sponsor of terror.
Next topic. The jihadis have made Iraq the central front of their war. They think if they can beat us there, iif they establish another lawless country for their bases, life would be good. As a result, we must stay the course in Iraq. It cannot fall into chaos, because chaos invites bad guys.
Next, WMD includes nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons. All three. I've written several posts on the Duelfer Report, the post-war report to Congress about Saddam's WMD program. To summarize it here, the report says that sanctions were working to a degree, but that Saddam had a definite program to evade the sanctions (with the help of France and Russia) and eventually get them rescinded, and had a weapons program waiting to be restarted as soon as sanctions were lifted.
That's enough for now. Thanks for contributing here, and for doing so in such measured tones.
Things as I see them are much simpler then popularly perceived. All we have to do is carpet bomb the middle east and give it to the Jews.
Unfortunatly thats not going to happen because we need to preserve the "thriving" culture of the area. Moving to my point, All Californians need to realize that consevatives are not a bunch of war mongers.
A quote from former president Clinton states that Americans "should deter, defeat and respond vigorously to all terrorist attacks on our territory and against our citizens." Furthermore, it called terrorism both a "matter of national security" and a crime, The implementation of his proposals led to a substantial increase in counter-terrorism funds for the FBI and CIA.
Futhermore just so the liberals can wrap their minds around this the money went to assasinating people such as Osama.
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