Article

2003-08-30

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Posted by Fred Pruitt 2003-08-30 00:55|| || Front Page|| [8 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 Nothing to argue with here.

Posted by Douglas De Bono 2003-8-30 1:07:45 AM|| [http://www.DouglasDeBono.com] 2003-8-30 1:07:45 AM|| Front Page Top

#2 Thanks for clearing things up for me, Fred.

When I first heard about the release of the tapes I was way put off, asking myself, "What kind of ghoul wants to listen to that shit?" And I know I'll never listen to 'em, for the same reason that I don't look at pictures of Nazi death camp victims any more than I have to-- they just tear too hard on my heart. But all the same, it's a good thing that those pictures are "out there"-- not 'cuz they titilate the ghouls among us, but because we good-hearted guys need to have reminders that there are also black hearts in the world and that, like it or not, the very good-heartedness that makes us love our friends and families also forces us to fight the black hearts tooth and claw.

Posted by TPF 2003-8-30 2:56:20 AM|| 2003-8-30 2:56:20 AM|| Front Page Top

#3 Purrfect. Pure resolve, no reservations, no hesitation, no quarter.

Posted by .com 2003-8-30 7:48:00 AM|| 2003-8-30 7:48:00 AM|| Front Page Top

#4 What I would like to know is whether observing a minute of silence on each Sept. 11 will wane as time goes by. Probably yearly observances will disappear, with only major anniversaries being observed. Though I could be wrong. I'm of the opinion that these attacks were as big, if not bigger than Pearl Harbor, as historical events go, and a minute of silence should be observed every year.

Posted by Raphael 2003-8-30 7:52:46 AM|| 2003-8-30 7:52:46 AM|| Front Page Top

#5 Fred, with all due respect--and brother, the respect is due you!--I think you're being unduly pessimistic here.

The media elite--which is much more Lefty and European in its thinking than the population at large--wants to move on. The media prefers to spend time on Britney's breasts and all, mostly because that's all they're capable of understanding. Remember, it's the media that's declining to replay the 9/11 video because it's too "upsetting" and "inflammatory."

I think the American people are well out ahead of the media on this one, and perhaps even a little ahead of the Administration.

The big thing that struck me about this latest set of transcripts was the heroism of so many of the Port Authority people, such as the architect and the construction inspector who freed 50 trapped people on the 88th and 89th floors of WTC1 with a crowbar.

There were a lot of people like that on that day: the "Red Bandanna Man" in WTC2, the firefighters, the volunteer infantry of Flight 93.

There is reason for optimism. Uncommon valor appears to be a common virtue in this country.

Posted by Mike 2003-8-30 8:05:05 AM|| 2003-8-30 8:05:05 AM|| Front Page Top

#6 I'd like to see the WTC stories/video on every year. If they can do it with "Wizard of Oz", Charlie Brown specials, Emmy awards, Oscar awards, and the NHL All-Star game, they can surely show what is the defining moment for the next 100 years of American conflicts. We Americans do have short attention spans, but the media is even worse...especially when they just want to move on. The media, elites, academia see the replay of the videos as rebuilding the kind of anger and national security concerns that "keeps Bush~~itler~~ in power", and they certainly don't want that

Posted by Frank G 2003-8-30 9:34:21 AM|| 2003-8-30 9:34:21 AM|| Front Page Top

#7 Sept 11 is my birthday...last year, the first anniversary, I took my daughter to NY to pay our respects....this year, my wife and I will go to NY to pay our respects. I wont forget, I will never forget...every year when the 11th rolls in, how can I forget? I am no linked to this forever...and by the way, even though I was in Texas when this happened...because it was my birthday, it has a "special" meaning to me now and will forever. When I go to NY in a couple of weeks, I think I will take the thoughts of you Rantburgers with me...and pay respects for myself and for all the folks that cant be there. It is an amazing experience to be there on the 11th...it gets inside you and never leaves.
So, never forget, I know I certainly wont...

Posted by Dan 2003-8-30 11:21:33 AM|| 2003-8-30 11:21:33 AM|| Front Page Top

#8 I totally agree. But I am not sure it will work. Didn't we try something like this in GW I? (*We should have taken Soddy's head then).

As for the media refusal to run the transcripts and tapes because they are too 'upsetting' and we need to 'heal' and 'move on'. That is a load of crap. We need to remember and keep up our resolve.

I mean God forbid that they interrupt the Husky Football Opener or take 15 seconds from the Sports | Human-interest section of the news to give some coverage to what is really going on there. (The huskies are the University of Washington Football team).

I just watched KOMO-TV news. They spend 0 time covering what is happening in Afghanistan and Iraq or the war on Terror (except to say we are to blame for the bombing...) about 5 mins on the husky opnener and 10 mins for Sports, 5 mins for some guy whinning because his wife is still in Iraq...

American Media sucks. Period.

So what do they show? Gepheart(less) saying that he is ashamed of the 'humiliation' of being in Iraq. Kerry saying that we should stop now. Hollywood ~~wierdos~~ stars dissing the United States for not giving 'instant solution and not finding WMD (but the UN should have been given farking YEARS to do the same).

Ok... Rant over.

Posted by GregJ 2003-8-30 11:28:11 AM|| 2003-8-30 11:28:11 AM|| Front Page Top

#9 I'm with you 100% on this one, Fred!

Posted by Tom 2003-8-30 11:29:46 AM|| 2003-8-30 11:29:46 AM|| Front Page Top

#10 People are afraid of the U.S. now. We're over-reacting cowboy pre-emptive WW-III unilateralist gun-crazy Texan bullies. Unh hunh. They better be scared because if we get another attack here at home, most of what Fred suggests will happen. I will personally start the campaign to throw Peter Jennings back into Canada.

Posted by Anonymous 2003-8-30 11:49:55 AM|| 2003-8-30 11:49:55 AM|| Front Page Top

#11 I will personally start the campaign to throw Peter Jennings back into Canada.

Actually, Jennings is now a citizen of the United States. I personally would prefer seeing him report - in person - on the Shia/Sunni war that's about to erupt in Iraq (and elsewhere - remember, you read it here first). Canada - or at least, Canada's current government - is part of the problem. Sending Jennings back there would do nothing to solve the problem, and will probably make it worse. I'd like the US to shut down the US/Canadian border for three days, just as a wake-up call to Canadians about how their "foreign policy" with their southern neighbor can escalate into something extremely nasty. If we cannot trust Canada, then the "longest undefended border in the world" may have to close.

At the same time, we really, really need to plug the US/Mexico border, and start pounding Fox to keep his people in his country. If that means doing things that are hard, he'd better roll up his sleeves and get to work. The American people are finally getting fed up with "business as usual" from Washington and the political segment of our society.

If it has to, it may just get nasty - not only "there", but here as well.

Posted by Old Patriot 2003-8-30 1:01:16 PM|| [http://users.codenet.net/mweather/default.htm] 2003-8-30 1:01:16 PM|| Front Page Top

#12 I want to say something on this subject, but everybody has already said it. So I'll just say this.

God bless America.

Posted by Charles 2003-8-30 1:29:45 PM|| 2003-8-30 1:29:45 PM|| Front Page Top

#13 What Fred said.

Something the folks in the Islamic world should take into account: right now we're trying awfully hard to distinquish between peaceful Muslims and Muslims with (as Fred notes frequently) turbans, beards and rifles. We're doing that even as it causes us to take casualties, it forces us to slow down the important work of rooting the terrorists out, and it brings us no credit with the left-liberals of the Western world.

One more major attack -- one more WTC, one more Pentagon, one Bali in the US -- and the gloves will come off. You think we're a bunch of out-of-control crazy cowboys now, just attack us one more time.

Few things are more frightening than a western, advanced democracy that has decided to wage total war.

Posted by Steve White 2003-8-30 2:17:22 PM|| 2003-8-30 2:17:22 PM|| Front Page Top

#14 Fred

I appreciate your thoughtful comments. We all have been thinking about 9-11 and its aftermath and have been verbalizing these thoughts, feelings, and reactions for almost two years together on Rantburg, thanks to you and your dedication.

I think about 9-11 alot. I have a colleague and his wife that have a picture of themselves on top of the WTC two days before it was toppled.

We should take time to memorialize those people that were denied their lives by those Islamic societies waging jiihad with their punk agents. However, we cannot keep having memorial services and wringing our hands and looking inward all of the time. We have to reflect, but we have to clean up the mess that started it.

Afghanistan was the right thing to do. We denied a base to the enemy. Iraq was the right thing to do. We established a beachead right in the middle of the problem. We need to make our best effort in turning around the problem and making things more rational in the middle east. According to the recent RAND article on nation building, we will need 0.5 million troops and 7 to 10 years for this gig. I think that we should make the effort. The arabs have been stagnating for only 13 centuries, so what's a decade?

We also must not tolerate the kind of terrorism that the Israelis and Lebanese have suffered with. I agree with your Paleo cleanup.

In short, our challenge is to make things better, knock off the gunnies, and raise everyone up to a higher level. If there is no hope after we make our best effort, then the parking lot solution is our last resort.

Posted by Alaska Paul 2003-8-30 3:42:26 PM|| 2003-8-30 3:42:26 PM|| Front Page Top

#15 AP? Don't know if you've checked your email, but thanks for the hat! Same baby blue as the Chargers throwback jersey I had on watching the game (preseason, but still gotta get my fix) against the 49ers last nite
Frank

Posted by Frank G 2003-8-30 3:54:12 PM|| 2003-8-30 3:54:12 PM|| Front Page Top

#16 Steve White> "Something the folks in the Islamic world should take into account: right now we're trying awfully hard to distinquish between peaceful Muslims and Muslims with (as Fred notes frequently) turbans, beards and rifles."

Do you have another choice? You can opt to not distinguish between peaceful and hostile Muslims, but that would pretty much mean indiscriminately attacking every Muslim country in the world. Not even America can attack *at the same time* Pakistan, Iran, Syria, Turkey, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Egpyt, Sudan, etc, etc, etc.

You say that the gloves will come off, but what do you actually mean by that, other than America doing the impossible?

If another 9/11 happened, perhaps USA will overthrow the governments of Syria+Iran next. But even there you'll still have to try and distinguish between peaceful Muslims and the other kind. Because not distinguishing means killing them all. And you can't do that, for obvious reasons (e.g. genocide as huge as that will turn the whole world *truly* against you, and not just the Muslim nations for that matter). And by "truly against you", I don't mean France-style-against you, I mean Al Qaeda-style-against you.

Posted by Aris Katsaris 2003-8-30 5:02:33 PM|| 2003-8-30 5:02:33 PM|| Front Page Top

#17 Aris,

I don't think anyone (except for the Qaeda affiliates and the Reds) accuses us of indiscriminately attacking those who aren't involved in attacking us. Those who do, do so for political ends.

Turkey and the Central Asian countries don't harbor terror groups -- they suffer from them the same way the rest of us do.

"The gloves come off" refers to ruthlessly and mercilessly hunting these bastards down and killing them. Overthrowing the governments of Syria and Iran will also relieve the yoke from the citizens of those countries, who're being kept in the realm of the primitive by their self-proclaimed betters, who know what's best for them.

Contrary to the proclaimed belief of those who oppose us, we don't like killing people, and we like killing innocents least. That's why we go out of our way not to do it. But if it comes down to a choice of having our innocents killed, as happened 9-11-01, and killing their innocents because they're standing between us and the Bad Guys, we'll feel real sorry.

Afterward.

We don't "do" genocide. I and the rest of my countrymen (with the exception of the usual proportion of the mentally defective) feel revulsion at the very idea. But I have nothing against exterminating entire organizations, down to the last foot soldier, horse-holder and spear-carrier, and anyone trying to protect them.

Posted by Fred 2003-8-30 5:26:47 PM|| 2003-8-30 5:26:47 PM|| Front Page Top

#18 My comment was in response to Steve White, who did speak about the gloves coming off as opposed to the current state of distinguishing between peaceful and non-peaceful Muslims.

I don't think that your interpretation is what Steve himself had in mind. If it was, and your meaning indeed coincides with his, I hope Steve will say so.

Posted by Aris Katsaris 2003-8-30 5:36:09 PM|| 2003-8-30 5:36:09 PM|| Front Page Top

#19 I do not think that people forget so easily. Not when horror on such magnitude occurs. And contrary to what some people in the U.S. think, 9/11 isn't forgotten in Europe either.
Yesterday night German TV showed rare footage of a U.S. film crew that shot the last days of Nazi Germany in color. It was a painful reminder of something I have never forgotten: Completeley destroyed cities, people walking streets full of rubble, the liberation of Buchenwald. It's not gone, it will never be.
Why am I ranting about this. Because in war, there is no "good people" and "bad people". When Dresden went up in flames, they all suffered alike. Because the "good people" didn't act, they went down with the "bad people". And one billion of Muslims should be reminded of this: You can't just sit there being "good", you will have to rise and act against intolerance and terror that is committed "in your name". Maybe you didn't like 9/11 but I can't remember a major demonstration in any Arab street protesting against the mass murder of innocent people (including Muslims btw) committed in "the name of Islam". All you did, my good Muslims, is to blame it on others, on the CIA, on the Zionists and whoever. And yes I remember my fellow Germans in 1945 who, as the U.S. speaker in that movie nicely commented, "were not depressed that they started the war but that they had lost it".
Yet Germans have learned from history. Muslims (and yes I mean ALL MUSLIMS) will have to learn, too, and pretty fast. They will have to stand up against their ruthless antisemitic and anti-American rulers, against fanatic turbans, against terrorists. If they don't, they will go down like all these beautiful German cities in WW2. And no, they won't be able to blame anyone else than themselves.

You won't get away with "I didn't know", "I didn't approve", "It wasn't me".

Posted by True German Ally 2003-8-30 6:11:25 PM|| 2003-8-30 6:11:25 PM|| Front Page Top

#20 Aris, my line of reasoning was more like Fred's than what you suggested. We would take the gloves off and wipe out the terrorists, their sponsors and supporters if we suffered another 9/11. We won't do genocide, but we'll hunt the rat bastards down without mercy.

However, a caution to both you and Fred: provoke us enough, kill enough of us, attack us enough, and that restraining line against genocide is going to slip some. It won't break but it will slip. Ask the Japanese about WWII. There was a savage, no-quarter, no-holding back war. Don't think about Hiroshima, think instead what we did to Tokyo. And that was without a nuclear device.

Fred is right -- we won't do genocide. But right now we're taking extreme care to distinguish peaceful from threatening Muslims. Stage a couple more WTCs, and our care won't be so extreme. TGA is exactly right -- remember Dresden. Remember Tokyo. Remember what a democracy can do in total war when sufficiently provoked.

Posted by Steve White 2003-8-30 7:58:06 PM|| 2003-8-30 7:58:06 PM|| Front Page Top

#21 Yes Fred, yes indeed, yes!

Posted by Lucky 2003-8-30 10:05:41 PM|| 2003-8-30 10:05:41 PM|| Front Page Top

#22 TGA scores a goal.

Posted by michael 2003-8-30 10:38:45 PM|| 2003-8-30 10:38:45 PM|| Front Page Top

#23 TGA shows once again why I respect him so much.

I agree with fred but yet have been of the opinion that we SHOULD forcibly rebuild the ME in the fashion of TOkyo/Berlin post WW2 so we can crush the culture of honour-shame and Islamofascism.

If we bring the enlightenment to the ME, then the ME should cease to be a problem for us.

But nothing less than total and absolute defeat and subjection to imperial rule is needed to accomplish that as the traditions and culture are too strong to break by anything less than absolute and dictatorial power.

And western nations in the current culture cannot apply this.

SO I'm coming round to agree with Fred: decapitate and invade every time a boomber booms or a terrorist strikes.

And yet, this too will only be tolerated by the homefront up to a point: usually it is tolerated as a reaction to an outrage, then nothing happens until the next outrage.

There is no easy solution for this problem but the reason for that is the homefront still has not girded its loins, does not have a metal rod for a spine or a ruthless attitude to those who wish it harm.

And the Arabs will neither change their behaviour nor respect anything less than total ruthlessness and total control.

Posted by Anon1 2003-8-31 6:10:05 AM|| 2003-8-31 6:10:05 AM|| Front Page Top

06:10 Anon1
01:55 Zhang Fei
23:10 Bomb-a-rama
23:09 Dishman
23:07 michael
23:05 Bomb-a-rama
22:55 Aris Katsaris
22:52 Zhang Fei
22:38 michael
22:12 Frank G
22:05 Lucky
22:05 Frank G
21:10 Shipman
21:07 Shipman
21:07 TPF
21:03 Shipman
20:56 JDB
20:52 Shipman
20:47 Shipman
20:43 Shipman
20:38 Fred
20:36 Shipman
20:27 Someone who did NOT vote for William Proxmire
20:05 Steve White