Posted on 09/10/2007 3:43:18 AM PDT by Clive
As we approach the sixth anniversary of the attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, there is no shortage of media retrospectives, individual recollections and clinical assessments based on hindsight.
It's fashionable (and true) to note that our world changed that day. In the space of barely an hour on that sunny Tuesday morning, more people died than the number of Allies killed on D-Day or during Pearl Harbour -- some 3,000.
We tend to evaluate the past by what we know today, and what has happened since. Often, this is wisdom after the fact. Hindsight is 20/20 vision.
In the chaotic days following 9/11, there was general relief that it was George Bush who won the U.S. presidency, and not Al Gore. Bush was leader of the moment who rallied his country, reassured the people, showed neither panic nor hesitation in recognizing the enemy and vowing to eliminate it.
Ironically, Bush today is viewed as something of a disaster who miscalculated on Iraq; instead of being content with ousting the homicidal Saddam Hussein, he sought to impose democracy on a country rife with paranoia and conflicting agendas.
The resolve Bush showed in 2001 is viewed as stubbornness today -- a refusal to acknowledge error.
He's neither the first nor last leader to be judged by the success or failure of his mission.
UNDER-ESTIMATED
America and the West were rocked out of complacency by 9/11. Until then, Osama bin Laden, al-Qaida terrorism, Islamic militancy and extremism, were mostly ignored or under-estimated.
Bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, the attack on the USS Cole in Aden, even the first World Trade Center bombing (1993) were viewed as isolated incidents and not as a pattern of Islamic hostility against the West.
No longer. Fear, confusion and apprehension towards Islamic extremism have replaced complacency. We now seek to appease, not defy.
It could be argued that the greatest example of Western appeasement that set the tone for today, was the refusal of most media to run those Danish cartoons that militants claimed were religious slurs, but in fact were political comment. By complying with extremist demands we of the media camouflaged our cowardice by calling it principle.
To America's credit following 9/11, the country as a whole showed little tendency to exact revenge or display hostility towards individual Muslims. Most developed countries have not made individuals scapegoats for acts of religious terrorism.
Now, six years after 9/11, we are already drifting back into a false sense of normality. Intellectually, we know a terrorist act could occur at any time, but viscerally we don't expect one. It was even a one-day wonder when police arrested a bunch of guys in Ontario supposedly planning to kidnap and behead the PM and take hostages.
We grumble at having to remove our shoes at airport screening -- thanks to that wingnut (Richard Reid) on the commercial airliner whose shoe-bomb malfunctioned.
American airports seem always to be on yellow terrorist alert, and periodically in Paris' Charles de Gaulle air terminal, abandoned luggage is blown up in a robot bomb disposal unit, with nary a murmur from milling crowds.
PEACE AN ENGLISH WORD
We know, now, that in some mosques the imams and religious leaders preach peace in English, but are more militant in their own language. Little is done to deal with this reality.
A problem for moderate (i.e. most) Muslims is that the Koran is written in Arabic, which 90% of the world's more than one billion Muslim's don't read. This makes interpretation dicey when extremists are mostly Arabic-speakers.
Since 9/11, it's accepted that terrorism threatens the civilized world, but as yet no formula is agreed upon about how to correct or curb this menace.
This is the greatest concern of all.
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90% do not know they worship the devil via the koran. I shouldn't be surprised, but I am surprised at the stupidity of the 90% who can't read it but believe it...??? (Muslims are 10% violence and hate, 90% are idiots and fools?) This is islam according to the article.
I've been saying this for years - and it has now become more insidious than can be imagined. Our nation's ACCOMMODATION AND APPEASEMENT is what is fueling further radicalization overseas - Please folks open your eyes and grow a spine.
We might win the battle, but we are losing the war FRiends if we don't grow up and grow up fast!
I'm here in SE Asia and I can tell you firsthand that the waters are rising around me - I see the confidence of Islamists growing daily here as they watch the US screw around with anything from foot basins to footballs to madrassas in NYC
If there is one thing I could say to America it would be that if you don't put an end to the ACCOMMODATION AND APPEASEMENT once and for all - then you will end up sentencing your children and grandchildren to fight the battle that you didn't have the courage to fight.
I’m sorry. I guess I didn’t make myself clear in my post.
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