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| Mark Steyn: Nuking Cleveland won't help |
| 2007-08-11 |
| Mark Steyn reads Rantburg. Has to.... his last line of this commentary from The Corner.....Lightning won't strike twice, even if the Halliburton Tsunami-Hurricane Machine wants it to. Straight from Rantburg, I tell you! Stu Bykofsky filed a column this week headlined "To Save America, We Need Another 9/11": What kind of a sick bastard would write such a thing? Our pal Michelle Malkin responded: He wants more Americans murdered on American soil to “sew us back together?” And that's right. But there's another point to be made. I get a ton of mail every week along Bykofsky lines: "Oh, this country won't get serious until there's another attack." Sorry, but don't look to a big smoking crater in Buffalo to save us. For a start, the author overstates the immediate unity post-9/11. Even then, there was a big difference between the "righteous rage" crowd and those who wanted to wallow in bathetic weepy let's-hold-hands-and-drone-"Imagine" candlelight vigils and retreat into antiquated tropes about "root causes" like global poverty (notwithstanding the middle-class backgrounds of Mohammed Atta and co). The second time round, there won't even be a momentary veneer of unity. The angry left will be demanding by lunchtime "What did Bush know and when did he know it?" and citing eminent scientists such as Professor Rosie O'Donnell to demonstrate that it couldn't possibly have been anything but an inside job. The less angry left will demand not a punitive military response but a 12-month blue-ribbon commission co-chaired by Lee Hamilton to call witnesses and investigate where the Administration went wrong. Less motivated types will be convinced - like British public opinion after the Glasgow attack and the sailor kidnappings - that it's blowback for Iraq. And a big chunk of the rest may even plump for the Spanish option post-Madrid: Oh, dear, we seem to have caught your eye. What would it take for that not to happen again? The split in this country is real. The so-called "singular purpose" of Fall 2001 was mostly illusory. Lightning won't strike twice, even if the Halliburton Tsunami-Hurricane Machine wants it to. |
| Posted by:Sherry |
| #9 So why are Americans so complacent about Islam? Bush spewing the Religion of Peace [spit] Kool-Aid certainly doesn't help. |
| Posted by: Zenster 2007-08-11 16:08 |
| #8 I don't know what we did to deserve you, Fred (probably nothing at all) - but I'm SO grateful for you and Rantburg. Author! AUTHOR! AUTHOR! |
| Posted by: Zenster 2007-08-11 16:06 |
| #7 Muslims are planning on nuking us. They were in Minnesota inspecting our Three Mile Island nuke plant just days after 9-11. It is coming. So why are Americans so complacent about Islam? It is going take another huge attack before we deal with Islam like we did the Nazis and Japanese during WWII. Sad but true. |
| Posted by: Icerigger 2007-08-11 13:18 |
| #6 What happened after 9/11 was that a) most of Europe celebrated or thought to themselves that we brought it on ourselves somehow That, and the expectation that a humbled US would come on bended knee and offer apologies, then its assets and unbridled cooperation to that grand organisation at Turtle Bay. When that didn't happen ("thanks for your expression of concern, Francois. But we have work to do")we ended up with the vituperation and 'lack of cooperation' from France and the rest of the Euro ilk. |
| Posted by: Pappy 2007-08-11 11:56 |
| #5 I don't know what we did to deserve you, Fred (probably nothing at all) - but I'm SO grateful for you and Rantburg. Notwithstanding trolls and flamewars, Rantburg is an island of sanity in the slough of despond we call the Left™ and the Rest of the World™ (with some notable exceptions*). *Australia comes immediately to mind. |
| Posted by: Barbara Skolaut 2007-08-11 09:32 |
| #4 The advantage of Rantburg is that I never throw anything (but spam and trolls) away. Along the top of the main page there are links for 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 years ago. A month from now I'll add the link for 6 years ago from the current date. Or you can click on the Archives link to see what was going on for any given day. We have our cliches on Rantburg, our running jokes, occasional flamewars, and what have you. We don't have any myths. You can always look it up, and I don't mean in the Koran someplace. |
| Posted by: Fred 2007-08-11 09:03 |
| #3 Within hours of the massacre I heard an hallucinatory range of evil nonsense. Even of those who were horrified there was not one who I could convince the attacks were by al Qaeda and not "the Palestinians", the latter reacting due to poverty, etc. |
| Posted by: Excalibur 2007-08-11 08:28 |
| #2 "For a start, the author overstates the immediate unity post-9/11. The so-called "singular purpose" of Fall 2001 was mostly illusory." I posted to this effect yesterday. Within a day of 9/11, a now ex-friend e-mailed me saying his biggest concern was backlash against Muslims living in the U.S. Huh? What happened after 9/11 was that a) most of Europe celebrated or thought to themselves that we brought it on ourselves somehow, and that b) about 40% of Americans agreed. The rest of us who weren't already awake, got woken up. |
| Posted by: no mo uro 2007-08-11 07:09 |
| #1 Nuking Cleveland won't help Doesn't mean it's a bad idea. |
| Posted by: Phil_B 2007-08-11 05:59 |