Thursday, April 27, 2006
United Flight 93
This film further reminds us of the nature of the enemy we face. An enemy who will stop at nothing to achieve world domination and force a life devoid of freedom upon all. Their methods are inhumane and their targets are the innocent and unsuspecting. We call this conflict the "War on Terror." This film is a wake-up call. And although we abhor terrorism as a tactic, we are at war with a real enemy and it is personal.
There are those who would hope to escape the pain of war. Can't we just live and let live and pretend every thing is OK? Let's discuss, negotiate, reason together. The film accurately shows an enemy who will stop at nothing in a quest for control. This enemy does not seek our resources, our land or our materials, but rather to alter our very way of life.
I encourage my fellow Americans and free people everywhere to see "United 93."
Be reminded of our very real enemy. Be inspired by a true story of heroic actions taken by ordinary people with victorious consequences. Be thankful for each precious day of life with a loved one and make the most of it. Resolve to take the right action in the situations of life, whatever they may be. Resolve to give thanks and support to those men, women, leaders and commanders who to this day (1,687 days since Sept. 11, 2001) continue the counterattacks on our enemy and in so doing keep us safe and our freedoms intact.
May the taste of freedom for people of the Middle East hasten victory. The enemy we face does not have the word "surrender" in their dictionary. We must not have the word "retreat" in ours. We surely want our troops home as soon as possible. That said, they cannot come home in retreat. They must come home victoriously. Pray for them.
There will be many people of goodwill and spirit who will persistently encourage us to negotiate, to seek peace and to avoid war. Mr. Beamer reminds of us of the implacability of our enemy. As we weigh the severity of the threat posed by an expansionist Islamic totalitarian philosophy, we must remind ourselves that their philosophy is permanently incompatible with our liberty. This suggests that the question relevent to the conflict isn't if, but when.
12 Comments:
By 
Lanky_Bastard, at
Thu Apr 27, 10:49:00 AM:
Can we have a list of countries that shouldn't be negotiated with? Because if you're going to conflate Al-qaeda and Arab governments you should specify which ones you're talking about up front. We don't need another UAE ports debacle from being unable to tell the good Arabs from the bad ones.
By TigerHawk, at
Thu Apr 27, 11:03:00 AM:
Lanky,
I love you like a brother, but I don't see any such conflation in CP's post. If your point is that we need to do a better job both of defining the enemy and creating a dynamic that polarizes our enemies from the enemies of our enemies, I agree entirely. I think we have done a poor job of the former, but a pretty good job of the latter.
By Cardinalpark, at
Thu Apr 27, 12:06:00 PM:
There aren't too many countries which embrace islamic theocratic imperialism -- Iran and Hamastan at the moment. Sometimes its better to leave the stark raving rabid dogs out in the cold too - that was Qaddafi until recently and types like him. The looney tuney in NK is a good one - let the locals negotiate with him. Why should we bother?
The point of the post was to focus on the fact that the islamic imperialists are not negotiable. They don't cave and find a mutual win win, you know? So it's all about your own concessions until you just give in. Might as well tell em just to piss off, you know. Flip 'em the bird. Laugh at them; make fun of them. And prepare to whack them on the head if we determine they are a mortal threat.
By 
, at
Thu Apr 27, 12:21:00 PM:
I read the article and thought it was a good reminder of what our priorities should be, and what made it very compelling is that it was written by someone who suffered one of the worst kinds of losses. On a parallel note, have you read Phillip Roth's "The Plot Against America"? It's very well written, and I think that both TH and CP would find it compelling reading.
The Centrist
By Dawnfire82, at
Thu Apr 27, 07:10:00 PM:
I'm not sure that I want to see this movie. I remember that day very well, and I think that paying money to see what is essentially a re-enactment is kind of... dirty. My wife said it'd be like picking at a half healed scab. I think I agree with her.
By , at
Thu Apr 27, 08:41:00 PM:
If you think you're own sensitivities are the most important thing here, then for goodness sakes, don't pick at the scab--it might hurt, poor thing.
If you think the clone-like fanatics that hijacked those planes may just try something worse--inevitably will try something worse--then it's important to keep the risks in mind, and what might be asked of you someday.
... kind of . . . dirty? You poor thing . . . .
By Lanky_Bastard, at
Thu Apr 27, 09:04:00 PM:
CP, thanks for the list. Krazy Kim's not an Islamic totalitarian, but I know what you're getting at.
Tiger, the enemy in Flight 93 is the terrorists, no? And when CP uses the words "negotiate" and "war" he means with nations, right? Isn't the point that the lessons of 9/11 are applicable to relations with nations?
Mostly, when someone suggests that we should not seek peace or avoid war, and says conflicts are a matter of when not if...well it's time to contextualize.
Also a list might be helpful, because to my knowledge, we still get along fine with Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Egypt: where the terrorists were from. The 9/11 Middle Eastern good-guy/bad-guy pinata gets messed up if you don't track it regularly.
By Lanky_Bastard, at
Thu Apr 27, 09:16:00 PM:
And by the by Mr. Annoymous, people here are generally civil in their disagreements. If you're going to show up and be a dick, could you at least come up with a pseudonym so we can distinguish you from reasonable annoymous posters?
By Assistant Village Idiot, at
Thu Apr 27, 10:34:00 PM:
It is an article of almost religious faith by some that any situation can be negotiated, and war does need to be resorted to, if we could only be wise enough and patient enough. They take as inspiration the non-violent Gandhi, ignoring the half-billion countrymen who were simmering behind him, or MLK, ignoring the role that National Guardsmen played in bring civil rights.
United 93 is a good reminder that some individuals can not be negotiated with, and by extension, whatever organization they are running cannot be negotiated with. Lanky Bastard is correct that the ground keeps shifting, and it pays to update the scorecard frequently. There are people in every nation who cannot be negotiated with - including our own and even negotiation-addicted Europe.
It's a percentage measure, not an either-or, with every nation. When belligerent non-negotiators are in the ascendancy, they have to be removed until there is a sufficient percentage of reasonable people to do business with.
By Tom, at
Fri Apr 28, 06:17:00 AM:
"but rather to alter our very way of life."
No, that is not true. The 9/11 terrorists were motivated by the desire to end specific foreign policies. When President Bush said "America was targeted for attack because we're the brightest beacon for freedom and opportunity in the world" he simply was not telling the truth. See 9/11 motives
When Nat Turner committed acts of terrorism, the same game was played. In 1831, the game was to pretend Turner's terrorism wasn't about the policy of slavery. Today, the game is to pretend that the 9/11 attacks were not about U.S. support of Israel and other oppressive regimes in the Middle East.
Telling the truth in 1831 didn't mean that you thought school children deserved to have their heads chopped off. Being honest about the motives and opposing the policy of slavery didn't mean you thought Turner's terrorism was justified. Can that be any more clear?
The 9/11 Commission reported on the motive of the "mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks." On page 147 of the 9/11 Commission Report, it says "By his own account, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's animus toward the United States stemmed not from his experiences there as a student, but rather from his violent disagreement with U.S. foreign policy favoring Israel."
The two terrorist pilots who crashed the two planes into the WTC shared the same motivation: Mohammed Atta, the pilot who flew into WTC 1, was described by one Ralph Bodenstein, who traveled, worked and talked with him, as "most imbued actually about Israeli politics in the region and about U.S. protection of these Israeli politics in the region. And he was to a degree personally suffering from that." Marwan al-Shehhi, the pilot who flew into WTC 2, was focused on the same thing, telling a friend, "How can you laugh when people are dying in Palestine?"
The facts point to a motive for attacking the WTC in 2001 that is consistent with the motive expressed by terrorists in a letter sent to the New York Times after the 1993 bombing attack of the WTC, "We declare our responsibility for the explosion on the mentioned building. This action was done in response for the American political, economical, and military support to Israel the state of terrorism and to the rest of the dictator countries in the region."
By , at
Fri Apr 28, 07:33:00 PM:
How ironic that the moronic terrorists who killed thousands because of their idiotic desire to change US foreign policy, only succeeded in bringing the US closer to Israel, getting al qaedas base operations in Afghanistan taken away, and getting hundreds of thousands of infidel US troops stationed in Iraq for the indefinite future. What morons.
By Rich Casebolt, at
Sat Apr 29, 09:38:00 AM:
Tom ...
... regarding those "dictator countries", two big reasons we played footsy with them were:
A> enough Americans did not have the political will to deal with these nations directly and decisively over the years, so instead we proxified some to oppose the worst.
B> since we would not intervene directly a la Iraq 2003, many of these governments, without our support, would have been replaced by Islamofascist regimes ...
... regimes that have no claim to the anti-Zionist "freedom fighter" implication you are (unwittingly?) promoting here ...
.. as true freedom fighters do not target innocent noncombatants, nor do they deny their citizens their inalienable rights to live free and pursue happiness as a centerpiece of their policies.
That is why the vast majority ouf our violent opposition in Iraq is illegitimate ... and why blaming our support for the one true democracy in the region for the violence rings quite hollow.
