I do not argue that we should ever forget 9/11, only that we cannot misinterpret it. the goal of terrorism is to scare people into doing things that are not in their best interests, out of fear. The only way to combat terrorism is to refuse to allow it to be effective. This means not letting our memories of the horror of 9/11 convince us to act in a way different than we would have if the attack had not occured. Some will say" 9/11 changed the situation, and so we have to change our actions", but I disagree. 9/11 did not signal the start of a new era in American life, where we live under constant threat of attack, any more than we choose to see the modern age that way. As far as I've seen, it was an isolated attack that we have collectively
convinced ourselves was a harbinger of terrible things to come.
And so it rests with all of us to individually defeat terrorism by mastering the sides of ourselves that break naturally towards unreasonable fear. I know 9/11 hit close to home. I almost lost a loved one (he was late to work that day), and I know plenty who were not so lucky. But 9/11 was nothing more than a single attack on us,
unless we allow it to change the way we run our lives. Then it becomes a victory for those whose goal is to make America afraid. Then it becomes a victory for terror, a victory for the terrorists. When we give in to our fear, we give away our hopes for a better world.
The Grip Doctrine.
26 comments:
I encourage anyone who is interested to check out the documentary "Loose Change." It's interesting, whether or not you agree with what it proposes. You can see it on Google video.
I agree with you in that we must never forget 9/11. Also, we must not let 9/11 get the best of us, otherwise the terrorists do win.
However, 9/11 was only isolated as we have been vigilant in our security since. Terrorists tried to bring down a WTC tower in 1993. Instead of breaking up Al Quaeda we did nothing. This led them to regroup, led to various attacks on U.s. installations overseas, and eventually gave us 9/11.
Thank our president that we have not been attacked since, and have disrupted the network so much that they have not attacked in nearly 6 years. So, you're right, since 9/11 it has been an isolated incident.
Kelly...
"Loose Change", your right, entertaining:) I love science fiction.
Yes, thank you president bush. Thanks to you, americans have not been attacked in the last 6 years.
Yes, we may be safe here in our cozy little homes in the US, but the only reason for that is because we are fighting this war overseas, amongst the homes of millions of innocent Iraqi people. Whether or not you believe this war is just, think about it.
Anb because we have been protected, yet another reason that makes it clear that the war is just....
Moreover, it is a shame that terrorists and Islamo-facists want to disrupt the lives of innocent people. They are the ones disrupting our progress, the progress that will make the lives of Iraqis much better....
Point being that we are still losing american life, whether it is at home or overseas. We simply react so forcefully to the idea of an attack on our soil because it jeopardizes our notion of safety. While, 3000 miles away, soldiers on their 20 month extended tours die left and right at the hands of an enemy they cannot fight. Our war on terror is just as futile as any war fought against an ideal. You cannot fight "Terror." Terror is an emotion that people all over the world fight to control, not just the small group in Iraq. This is why people question America's motives and this is why people are disparaging our war in iraq.
Yes, we are losing american life. It is sad, and we must not forget. Nonetheless, we must press on. The American lives being lost are not innocent civilians, but soldiers who are bravely fighting for our right to exist and have freedom. Bless their hearts. That is what our military has done since day 1, and they have, are, and will continue to do it very well.
The "idea of an attack" is more than that but a reality, as 9/11 has shown. We must prevent it from happening again. We tried negotiations, UN sanctions, talking, and trying to reason. But, you cannot reason with people who are unreasonable.
We are not fighting an "ideal" or an "emotion". We are fighting terrorists. People who want nothing less than the destruction of the U.S., Israel, and virtually every western nation. We have seen what happens to those when they get caught by these people...death. Nick Berg was somebody trying to help out Iraq, and we know what happened...
People will always question our motives. people even got angry after the tsunami in '04 because they felt we hadn't pledge enough $$. We are "damned if we do, and damned if we don't" because we are the strongest nation in the world. At this point we are talking about our survival, yours and mine, let the skeptics scoff.
We are fighting an enemy that is real in every sense of the word.
We're not just losing "American life." A life is a life, someone who is killed in this war -- whether American or Iraqi, soldier or civilian -- is someone's little brother, someone's mother, someone's father, someone's sister, someone's best friend. A life is a life. How can we justify killing millions of innocent civilians in Iraq? How can we justify the loss of an American soldier in a war that is based on lies and false pretenses?
Your premise is wrong. We are not killing "millions" of innocent civilians in Iraq?
However, you are right when you say that killing innocent people is unjustified. And so, when the madmen in Iraq blowup themselves and take all innocent people with them, that is unjustifiable. Were is the worldwide, united outcry when this happens?
Thank goodness we do not target civilians, and continue to do our best to make their lives better...
Based on lies and false pretenses? Like what for instance? Please don't give me the whole "Bush Lied People Died" schtick...that is as old as the hills and totally false in itself.
Except for the fact that it isn't false. And it rhymes, which is always more fun that slogans that don't.
And for the record, it isn't in the millions of Iraqi deaths. Yet.
It's at 650,000. (that's more than we lost in both world wars combined)
A couple of commissions have conducted research into the WMDs of Iraq, and the war.....none have said Bush lied. They were very critical, of course, and called for troop withdrawals, but none said Bush lied. Thus, I have yet to see evidence he did.
By what authority are you determining Bush lied? How do you know he did?
Are you talking about the debunked Lancet report?
As far as the 650,000, I believe that number has been discredited several times. The number is far lower by other estimates. UN and Iraq body count has it closer to 100,000...
I'm actually referring to books written by several figures in the Administration who have since been... released...
They wouldn't necessarily have a bone to pick, would they? :)
They might. Of course, it's not like anyone has provided enough evidence to counter their claims. So in this case, I'll go with the dozens of Generals, Department Heads, staffers, and officials who have lots of data and (maybe) a bone to pick over... Ann Coulter?
Sweet, that was an easy choice.
The info. is out there if you are willing to look, and not just at biased liberal sites....
The onus is on them, they are making the claims...now let them prove it. If somebody stepped to me and said, "You're a liar." All I have to say is, "Prove it, where's your evidence?" It is one thing to make these claims to further a political agenda, and it is a completely other thing to prove it....which has yet to be done. Speculation, hearsay, and innuendo doesn't cut it. Show me the "smoking gun."
Same here, I'll go with the generals, staffers, heads of departments who believe otherwise.
Ok. Where is their information?
I'll show you mine, and we can leave it up to the public here to decide.
Fire away...you made the claim.
I'll be glad to post as well.
(By the way, I can already figure out who the "public here" will side with, as my views are not widely held at school :)
O, then public aside, let's start with the easiest one: Downing Street Memo.
Says that the Bush team (and the British) had decided that 8 months before the invasion, they were going to use force to remove Saddam although, "the case was thin, Saddam was not threatening his neighbours, and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran . . . the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."
Even ignoring the fact that INTELLIGENCE WAS BEING FIXED (direct quote), this was at the same timeBush was claiming he had no desire to go to war and was woking as hard as he could to find a diplomatic solution. Liar, Liar, pants on...Fire?
And before you discount this, remember that despite MANY requests, neither Bush or any White House official has denied the veracity of the memo. Tony Blair, the British PM, has even admitted that it's real.
I don't think I should need more, but let's go to one more lie by omission. In 2005, "The State Department refused to release its annual report on terrorism, which would have shown that the number of ‘significant’ attacks OUTSIDE Iraq had grown from 175 in 2003 to 655 in 2004. I heard Karen Aguilar, acting co-ordinator for counterterrorism at the State Department, explain that ‘statistics are not relevant’ to ‘trends in global terrorism’." (from an article published last year)
So much for the war helping National Security, no?
(Emphasis mine, btw)
Ah yes, the Dowing memo...
The veracity of it remains dubious. But I'll entertain it. first off:
"neither Bush or any White House official has denied the veracity of the memo....tony blair admitted it's real."
I won't call you a liar, just ill informed.
Bush Quote about the memo: "There's nothing farther from the truth."
He went on to add that military force was, "our last option."
Blair Quote about the memo: "The facts were not being fixed in any shape or form at all."
Sounds like White House and Uk denials to me. You may want to edit your last post:)
Bush asked for a UN resoultion but was denied...yeah, oil contracts from UN nations.
Who is there who does not know that the Bush administration decided after September 2001 to change the balance of power in the region and to enforce the Iraq Liberation Act, passed unanimously by the Senate in 1998, which made it overt American policy to change the government of Iraq? Did clinton lie too?
Moreover, lets get down to who believed in the WMDs...the idea that Bush lied about WMDs was the biggest "lie" told to the american people:
--Clinton Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, February 1998: "Iraq is a long way from [here], but what happens there matters a great deal here. For the risks that the leaders of a rogue state will use nuclear, chemical or biological weapons against us or our allies is the greatest security threat we face."
--Clinton National Security Adviser Sandy Berger, February 1998: "He will use those weapons of mass destruction again, as he has 10 times since 1983."
--French President Jacques Chirac, February 2003: "There is a problem — the probable possession of weapons of mass destruction by an uncontrollable country, Iraq. The international community is right . . . in having decided Iraq should be disarmed."
--Portuguese Prime Minister Jose Manuel Durao Barroso, October 2003: "When [former President Bill] Clinton was here recently he told me was absolutely convinced, given his years in the White House and the access to privileged information which he had, that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction until the end of the Saddam regime."
--Vermont Gov. Howard Dean [D], September 2002: "There's no question that Saddam Hussein is a threat to the United States and to our allies."
--Al Gore in September 2002: "We know that [Saddam] has stored secret supplies of biological and chemical weapons throughout his country."
I could go on forever with this. Now that the war is unpopular and a hard fight, it is much easier to pull out....and seems to be politically the cool thing to do. They saw the same intelligence as not only others in political positions, but other nations as well. Other nations have their own intelligence capabilities, yet came to the same conclusions as the USA.
Many other countries agreed. Germany, France, China, Israel, and Britain all have intelligence communities, and all agreed Saddam had WMDs....hence, bush did not lie?
If you still cling to that, you must say they world lied? No?
Terrorists are feeling emboldened by what has happened in our nation, withdrawing will lead to even more attacks...
Helping National Security? We haven't been attacked since, so I guess it's working :)
Whether or not Iraq HAD weapons of mass destruction, the simple truth is, this War was sold to the American people based on the idea that all diplomatic possibilities had been exhausted. That was far from the truth. As has been shown many, many times, the US was too eager to accept information from such sources as Iraq defector Curveball (who actually failed a lie detector test during his testimony to the CIA that was then used) in a rush to war.
Maybe this war would have been a good idea, and maybe Saddam did have WMDs. Unfortunately, that possibility has been obscured by the fact that our government misrepresented its thought process and motivations. That is generally considered to be lying.
And National Security-wise, lets look at the number of terrorist attacks on Americans since 9/11 to the beginning of the Iraq War and from the Iraq war to now. Heck, I'll even spot you 1,000 terrorist attacks to make up for the difference in time lengths.
Guess which has more? Even with an extra thousand, the SEVENTY TERRORIST ATTACKS A DAY in Iraq seem to win out over the pre Iraq war terrorist attacks. Darn, so much for National Security!
All diplomatic possibilities were exhausted. UN was getting on board...hell, Saddam VIOLATED UN sanctions. End of discussion. We go to war almost 2 years after 9/11...no rush to war but a process to garner support. Almost 2 years is a rush? I'd agree with you if it was 2 months after 9/11, but nearly 2 years? With a person who has already demonstrated an unwillingness to listen to the world? Not buying it....
Gen. Georges Sada, the No. 2 ranking officer with the Iraqi Air Force told the Senate Armed Servies Committee of the people involved in the program to transport weapons out of Iraq into Syria.
Ali Ibrahim, another Iraqi commander, corroborates Sada's assertion that Saddam possessed stockpiles of WMD, but transported them out of Iraq by air and by land.
Do you beleive these two?
I do not believe the thought processes were misrepresented. The record shows how hard bush tried to get other countries to go along with us...the world could care less, they weren't attacked, we were.
Terrorists attacks in Iraq? Are you serious? WE ARE AT WAR. What the hell do you expect?
What about terrorists attacks at home? Our national security?
Um, err, yeah....it is ok to admit.
Correction: "UN was not getting on board,"
2 years after 9/11? Interesting.
However, IRAQ HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH 9/11!
*Smackdown*
You post in a way that makes slugs and other invertebrates look like Nobel Prize winners. Your ineffective imitation of good posting style only serves to illuminate your lack of substance, good taste, and decency.
Here's a tip: no one will ever know that you've had a lobotomy if you wear a wig to hide to the scars; stop posting your drivel on message boards, and learn to control the slobbering. Wouldn't clues have more room to fit in your head if you got rid of some of the gobbledygook in there? Have you ever noticed that whenever you sit behind a keyboard, some idiot starts typing? Oh well, as the late Douglas Adams said: "You live and learn. At any rate, you live."
Reading your post is less interesting than watching paint dry. If wit was spit, your mouth would be drier than a shallow well in an African heat wave. Any friend of yours is a lousy judge of character. Seriously, I've come across decomposing dog carcases that are less offensive to the senses than you are. Maybe you wouldn't read like such a pathetic loser if you didn't have an intellect rivaled only by the Village Idiot's stupider brother; if your weren't so fat that you make sumo wrestlers look anorexic, or if you didn't have a face that would give Freddie Kruger nightmares. Nah, of course you would.
Comment above...
Crack kills.
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