[guitarnick40]

I myself am surprised at the lack of attention to 9-11 this year, even in the wake of Katrina. And that's just the way that the liberal MSM , Al Queda and the Dumbocrats want it.

[Jet Jaguar]

MSM = Forgive and forget...

[guitarnick40]

"So four years on we're winning in the Middle East and Central Asia, floundering in Europe and North America. War is hell, but a war that half the country refuses to recognize as such staggers on as a very contemporary kind of purgatory."

We must never forget

[backhoe]

Where It's 9-11 All the Time...

Click the picture...

[Zacs Mom]

[goldstategop]

The Left has never had use for 9/11 because they perceive as Bush's War. And they really do share the Islamists hatred of capitalism and democracy. As Mark Steyn writes, we're winning the war abroad but losing it at home due in no small part to our indolence and ease of life and inability to defend our values against freedom's enemies. Its a good question to ask whether we'll still be commemorating 9/11 in 2009. 4 years can make a difference and if any one has noticed, Iraq has all but disappeared from the headlines.

(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)

[hershey]

Bingo.

[Gritty]

On this fourth anniversary we are in a bizarre situation: The war is being won -- in Afghanistan, Iraq, the broader Middle East and many other places where America has changed the conditions on the ground in its favor. But at home the war about the war is being lost.

Unfortunately, Steyn is once again "right on".

[decimon]

...like the shoe-removing ritual before you board a flight at Poughkeepsie.

You can pick your toes in Poughkeepsie but you can't board any flights.

[tkathy]

IMO the reason the MSM is downplaying 9/11 is that the dims and the left are scared to death of Guiliani.

Any mention of 9/11 and the world wide threat behind the heinous event brings to mind the brilliant leadership of Rudy.

[Dark Skies]

Only a tiny minority of Muslims want to be suicide bombers, and only a slightly larger minority want actively to provide support networks for suicide bombers, but big majorities of Muslims support almost all the terrorists' strategic goals...

And what is the Administrations strategy for dealing with fact? There is no strategy, because our President has declared war on terrorism, not Islamism.

[alwaysconservative]

Steyn is absolutely right, once again. Thanks for posting this!

[livius]

Good article (of course!).

I think in some ways, the war aspect has dropped out of people's mind precisely because Bush was so successful in keeping things going after the attacks. There was a serious economic threat, and the threat of a loss of confidence, but he pulled everybody up and sent them back to work and told them to get on with life.

It worked, but the fact that people didn't have to suffer massive disruption of their lives, other than having to take their shoes off at the airport, enabled them to forget and finally let the anti-US press make them begin to believe that they hallucinated the whole thing and it really wasn't that bad after all.

[Carry_Okie]

Only a tiny minority of Muslims want to be suicide bombers, and only a slightly larger minority want actively to provide support networks for suicide bombers, but big majorities of Muslims support almost all the terrorists' strategic goals: For example, according to a recent poll, over 60 percent of British Muslims want to live under sharia in the United Kingdom. That's a "moderate" Westernized Muslim: He wants stoning for adultery to be introduced in Liverpool, but he's a "moderate" because it's not such a priority that he's prepared to fly a plane into a skyscraper.

The key point to be made, and why there is no such thing as "moderate" Islam. The only reason to go on with this charade is to keep the Islamic majority from realizing what is at stake. Unfortunately, that political strategy allowed the West to go asleep as well.

[knighthawk]

Ping

[maica]

from Steyn, the high-lighted phrases deserve discussion on FR:

As with IRA killers and the broader Irish nationalist population, these shared aims provide a large comfort zone in which terror networks can operate. And it enables the non-violent lobby groups to use the terrorists -- or the threat of terrorists -- as part of a good cop/bad cop routine. Thus, the Islamic lobby groups pressure governments to make concessions to them rather than to the terrorists -- even though both elements share the same aims. You can pluck out news items at random: In London, a religious "hate crimes" law that makes honest discussion of Islam even more difficult; in Ontario, the moves toward sharia courts for Muslim community disputes; in Seattle, the introduction of gender-separate, Muslim-only swimming sessions in municipal pools. The 9/11 terrorists were in favor of all these things.

So four years on we're winning in the Middle East and Central Asia, floundering in Europe and North America. War is hell, but a war that half the country refuses to recognize as such staggers on as a very contemporary kind of purgatory.