New York City:
The Pentagon:
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| Photo from the Department of Defense |
What did America learn that day?
What did the world learn that day?
Has the West learned the right lessons?
Have we moved on so far that we have forgotten those attacks?
History doesn't repeat itself but it often rhymes (attributed to Mark Twain).
Please take a few moments to reflect on the terrorist attacks of 9/11: to honor those who lost their lives and to remember the many more who lost their beloveds:
It seems like America has mostly forgotten what happened on this day 21 years ago.
ReplyDeleteJust sad.
Heltau
Many learned nothing. Some learned a lot....and the rest, had the truth confirmed.
ReplyDeleteWe all learned that Congress doesn't read sweeping domestic surveillance bills before they vote for passage.
And we learned that Eugene Debs was percipient:
“In every age it has been the tyrant, the oppressor and the exploiter who has wrapped himself in the cloak of patriotism, or religion, or both to deceive and overawe the People.”
+++ Eugene Debs, of all people. You know we're living in strange times...
DeleteA number of conservative websites note that we still cannot discuss the role of Islam in the jihadi attacks of 9/11. I used to blame Bush but the left has largely been responsible for the whitewash of Islam. As David Horowitz pointed out 17 years ago, Islam and the left formed an "Unholy Alliance" bound by a shared hatred of everything good about Western Civilization.
ReplyDeleteJason,
DeleteGood morning, my friend! I was hoping that you'd stop by.
A number of conservative websites note that we still cannot discuss the role of Islam in the jihadi attacks of 9/11.
I've noticed. Sad -- and another different kind of tragedy.
David Horowitz was -- and is -- right.
Best to you and Warren. I have to touch base with people who remember and understand the reasons. I wish there were more of us.
DeleteJason,
DeleteBTW, if you want my new phone number so that we can chat, send me an email. See my email addy in the sidebar here at AOW. I'll love to talk with you!
Jason,
DeleteHint: don't click the link; merely hover your mouse, then separately address the email.
.....note that we still cannot discuss the role of Islam in the jihadi attacks of 9/11.
DeleteSeems an odd remark when so many websites, forums and news outlets have turned the above into an industry.
May God continue to bless those who lost their lives, and their families on that TERRIBLE day
ReplyDeleteAnd may God bless those good people who rushed to the scene of the disasters and imperiled their lives to save others.
DeleteWhat have we learned?
ReplyDeleteWe have learned that the Saudis were complicit, and their brother by another satanic mother, George W Bush, helped them escape.
The government bureaucratic blob has learned how to perpetually fail upwards, consuming more and more of our liberties and money, accumulating ever more fearsome power to itself as it foments one crisis after another.
The government-corporate panopticon also continues to grow in the name of "safety" and "security," while our government invites millions from all over the world to come here, unvetted, just as it brought in any Afghan who could fight their way onto a military aircraft.
For our ever-expanding government, no failure is too big, no amount of taxpayer money too expensive, no amount of control over the citizenry is too much because its "for our own good."
We the People cannot stop any government program. We cannot even slow one down. We cannot even demand an audit or a modicum of accountability.
Our government is an unstoppable, shambolic cyclops.
99.9% of people in Afghanistan didn't know anything about the US or didn't care. Slightly lesser percentage in Iraq.
ReplyDeleteThe Jihadis were used as a tool of attack to get us engaged in that part of the world. Being a nation led by fools and chiselers, we jumped took the bait.
Destroying such nations and leaving them in rubble would accomplish nothing.
Slobbering fools who respond, "Oh yeah? It would teach people not to f*** with us!"
No it wouldn't. If it isn't clear yet. The US isn't the only nation where the leaders ignore the wishes of the citizens.
I think you'd be hard pressed to find anyone in America after 9/11 that didn't want to nuke the Arab world until it glowed then shoot them in the dark. Say what you will about Bush, but his approval ratings weren't hurt, at all, by taking out Afghanistan or Iraq. It was the rebuilders and those that committed to try to change primitive goat herders into functioning democracies that lost support and approval from "the wishes of the American citizen."
ReplyDeleteAmerican leadership did precisely what the American people wanted. And next time, they will be even more precise and quicker about it. Destroy the enemy, and walk away.
The only "slobbering fool" in the equation is the one for whom nothing America does can be right. Everything is America's fault, even when it isn't.
You really think that the American people learn anything, beamish? They think whatever the advertisers tell them to think. The customer is never wrong, and they are the customers. They just need to want what's being sold, and that's what Madison Ave's for. The factory of American desire.
ReplyDeleteOh, wait, did I say, "Madison Avenue"? I meant the Tik-Tok Influencer House in Beverly Hills.
ReplyDelete...cuz if the "beautiful people" want it, it must be REALLY good!
ReplyDeleteBut Bush didn't nuke anything. He didn't even "teach anybody a lesson," other than, we can be duped into going off half-cocked and fighting other people's wars for them.
ReplyDeleteHave you seen the movie "Unforgiven?"
And Iraq had not a damn thing to do with 9/11.
ReplyDeleteBush-Cheney effed up both wars they started. They did nothing right.
Not only that, but invading Iraq was part of ObL’s grand strategy. We literally March to the best of his drum…..even after we were attacked on 9/11.
ReplyDelete- CI
I don't think I'll ever be so far gone to think Bush or Cheney "started a war." The Iraqi Liberation Act, and bombing the Bejeezus out of Iraq started under Clinton. The Clinton Justice Department indictment of Osama bin Laden listen Iraq as a sponsor. The al Qaeda chemical weapons factory the Clinton administration bombed in Sudan was staffed by Iraqi engineers. Reality is not very friendly to the "Bush started wars" idiocy.
ReplyDeleteWe'll just have to agree to disagree until you can be taken seriously.
Hmmm...
ReplyDeleteAnd over here in realityville, George Bush invaded Iraq, after being suckered by Achmed Chalabi. I admit though, your fantasy world is better than the bitter reality...
Bush Announces he has authorized the invasion of Iraq
US foreign policy was set on the removal of Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq (by an act of Congress, no less) nearly a full three years before September 11, 2001.
ReplyDeleteI can't think of any other time in US history that Congress made the toppling of a foreign government the purpose and intent of a public law.
Bush didn't have to convince anyone in Congress of anything they hadn't already sold themselves upon.
Iraq admitted, among other things, an offensive biological warfare capability, notably, 5,000 gallons of botulinum, which causes botulism; 2,000 gallons of anthrax; 25 biological-filled Scud warheads; and 157 aerial bombs. And I might say UNSCOM inspectors believe that Iraq has actually greatly understated its production. ...
Over the past few months, as [the weapons inspectors] have come closer and closer to rooting out Iraq's remaining nuclear capacity, Saddam has undertaken yet another gambit to thwart their ambitions by imposing debilitating conditions on the inspectors and declaring key sites which have still not been inspected off limits. ...
It is obvious that there is an attempt here, based on the whole history of this operation since 1991, to protect whatever remains of his capacity to produce weapons of mass destruction, the missiles to deliver them, and the feed stocks necessary to produce them. The UNSCOM inspectors believe that Iraq still has stockpiles of chemical and biological munitions, a small force of Scud-type missiles, and the capacity to restart quickly its production program and build many, many more weapons. ...
Now, let's imagine the future. What if he fails to comply and we fail to act, or we take some ambiguous third route, which gives him yet more opportunities to develop this program of weapons of mass destruction and continue to press for the release of the sanctions and continue to ignore the solemn commitments that he made? Well, he will conclude that the international community has lost its will. He will then conclude that he can go right on and do more to rebuild an arsenal of devastating destruction. And some day, some way, I guarantee you he'll use the arsenal. ... - President Bill Clinton, February 1998
There was no way Bush would have committed to a "war on terrorism" that failed to take out Saddam Hussein. A war on terrorism that failed to target Saddam Hussein would be like a history of rock and roll music that failed to mention Elvis Presley.
It probably didn't help Saddam Hussein's longevity that Iraqi intelligence was behind the World Trade Center bombing in 1993 (Ramzi Yousef and Khalid Sheikh Muhammad), that Iraq was harboring Abdul Rahman Yasin (a WTC '93 bombing conspirator), that Iraq and al-Qaida were working together in the Sudan to make chemical weapons, that Iraqi intelligence attempted to assassinate President George GHW Bush, that the same Khalid Sheikh Muhammad from the World Trade Center bombing in '93 planned the 9/11 plot to crash hijacked aircraft.
Nah, Saddam Hussein doesn't get a pass. He picked a fight with the big dog, and the big dog ate his ass.
9/11 was the most consequential historic event of my lifetime: it has dominated foreign policy in particular ever since. There is no sense that it has been forgotten.
ReplyDeleteBut what did we learn from it? Our governments tried their hardest not to learn anything. W Bush doubled down on stupid (remember how stupid we used to think W was?), determined to keep the narrative complexity at around the level of a pre-school easy-reader. If I understand the OP correctly, these are the "lessons" you had in mind... I think there's more to it than that. Meanwhile, Blair showed contempt for the soverignty of parliament, treating them as a tedious obstical to be overcome rather than an authority to be consulted. With his sexed-up dossier, he ushured in the tidal wave of cynicism which was a necessary condition for the succession of degenerate governments we've been lumbered with in the UK since.
The fallout is ongoing, the true lessons are still unfolding.
Thanks for the quick sketch on how it affected Britain. I didn't realize all that.
DeleteNobody's giving Saddam a pass.
ReplyDeleteYou probably are still insisting Saddam had WMD.
Iraq certainly did have stockpiles of pesticidal chemicals, the binary artillery shells to put them in that mixes to sarin gas in flight, and the artillery to fire them from. Every thing the UN suspected they had, that Iraq blocked their access to, they ended up having had all along. The US Army hauled tons of it out of Iraq.
ReplyDeleteIt's sort of like the FBI suspecting Donald Trump of possessing classified documents and finally going in and getting them out of Donald Trump's desk. The only different is Saddam Hussein got dragged out of a spider hole and punched in his mouth.
By the dual use parameters set by UN resolutions, yes, Saddam had WMD. Uncounted grains of salt in his kitchen would have been a violation. WMD more deadly than salt shakers were found, of course, and specifically of the type Iraq historically used against Iran and against the Kurds.
The soldiers hauling the stuff out of Iraq wore hazmat suits in desert heat to take it to Anniston, Alabama for incineration. Pretty sure they wouldn't recommend you rub it on your skin.
The question you're attempting to shield yourself from answering is this: Given Saddam Hussein's Iraq historically being a state sponsor of terrorism, the Iraqi Mukhabarat (intelligence agencies) ties to the WTC bombing in 1993 and the al-Qaeda run chemical weapons plant in Sudan and the ties to the 9/11 attack planner Khalid Sheikh Muammad, the intransigence with UN inspections that were looking for exactly what the US military wound up finding in Iraq - 9/11 happens, the years of firing upon patrols enforcing no-fly zones, and so on, what does President Silverfiddle do in regards to Iraq and Saddam Hussein, if not give him a pass?
ReplyDeleteLeave Iraq in rubble? Name Cindy Sheehan as Secretary of Defense? Protest going to war until the oil-for-food voucher grift runs out?
How does President Silverfiddle avoid the alleged mistakes that Bush made? Does this achieve the public law enshrined intent of removing Saddam Hussein from power and transitioning Iraq to a democracy with less violence and chaos? How does it prevent President Silverfiddle's successor from letting the Fedayeen Saddam become ISIS?
It's Monday morning, Daniel Jones is your quarterback, how do you get to the Super Bowl from here? Buy tickets?
Dangerous chemicals in leaky barrels are at the very best very poor weapons. Its not WMD. CI was there hunting and finding such stashes. Ask his opinion it's worth more than yours or mine.
ReplyDeleteBut hey, lets let hear Bush the Dumber in his own words, when apparently, Cheney's hand wasn't up his ass:
"No one was more shocked and angry than I was when we didn't find the weapons," he writes.
"I had a sickening feeling every time I thought about it. I still do."
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-11680239
Firing on war planes flying over his nation? How dare he???
ReplyDeleteA president Silverfiddle would start by hiring people smart enough, when a fly lands on their head, to not smash it with a hammer.
Every thing the UN suspected they had, that Iraq blocked their access to, they ended up having had all along. The US Army hauled tons of it out of Iraq.
ReplyDeleteThe 75th Exploitation Task Force indeed removed several tons of uranium yellowcake........which had been sold to Canada as part of a deal brokered by the U.S., and the whereabouts known prior to the invasion.
Aside from that, the "WMD" found, was essentially limited to a few dozen buried mortar shells with leaking blister agent.
Bottles, rags, gasoline, matches... but no Molotov cocktails.
ReplyDeleteNot even close.
ReplyDelete