25 posts tagged “terror”
A lot of hay has been made this election season about such piffling matters as healthcare, the environment, taxes and war. Our candidates endlessly repeat the same old garbage, never saying anything remotely new or interesting to the average person. One wonders if they even walk in the same world as we normal folks.
For instance, I have yet to hear a single word about the threat posed by zombies to this nation...to this very world, actually. Not one stinking syllable uttered to condemn this virulent menace. That is simply unacceptable, my friends.
Zombies, also known as ghouls or the walking dead, are animated corpses which seek to consume the flesh of still-living victims. They lack reason, relying on numbers and an untiring pursuit to corner their quarry. Zombies, by virtue of their status as dead, feel no pain and need not draw breath. They may be dismembered, but their disparate parts retain what passes for life so long as the central nervous system remains intact. Essentially, a blow to the head of sufficient force will disable their processes and finish the job the Grim Reaper was too lazy to do.
Zombies, in addition to being mindless killing machines, spread a particular contagion which causes zombifaction (side note: I much prefer the term "zombifaction" to "zombification" primarily for the similiarity to liquifaction which has a decidedly runny sound to it ~Ed.) in otherwise healthy living humans. The bite causes death, and the corpse is then reanimated through some as yet unknown mechanism. There are many theories, one being that the zombie plague is an actual virus which hijacks the mechanisms of the body to spread to more hosts. If so, it is very efficient. Another theory is that some sort of cosmic radiation affects dead tissue. What controls this radiation and the shambling denizens of the crypt is beyond man's knowledge. Yet a further theory is that this is God's punishment upon mankind for our many and varied sins. A popular television pastor, before his untimely death, posited that when Hell itself is full the souls of the damned will once again inhabit the earth. Clearly, metaphysical questions such as the capacity of Hell and the volume of a damned soul have yet to be answered to the satisfaction of the major world religions.
One thing is clear, and that is the devastation that would be wrought if there was an uncontrolled incident of zombie activity. So far, zombies have been reported in remote areas of the country and quarantined with a relatively small number of deaths (and subsequent reanimations). To date only about 2300 people have been killed by zombies nationwide. I say that's 2300 too many!
Knowing what we know about this threat, the solution seems like it would be fairly obvious to everyone, doesn't it? But wouldn't you know that certain people can't quite wrap their minds around this rather simple concept. Unbelievable as it sounds, some among us argue that these decayed devils are still humans, perhaps in the final stages of a crippling disease. By their logic, we actually shouldn't kill these things whenever we find them. Rather, they seek a policy of live and let live, so to speak. Poppycock! No zombie has ever been found to retain even a rudimentary intelligence beyond simple associations - mostly related to the consumption of flesh.
Don't be fooled by these hucksters! I believe, deep down, that they only want to find a way to get the dead back on the voting rolls. Mark my words, if they get their way it won't be long before someone tries to let the damn things get married. What kind of world is this? Will we let it come to that?
No, my friends. The time has come to seek out our foe, to name him and his evil. Our foe is the zombie, the ghoul, the walking dead, and the motto for all must be aim for the head.
We leave Iraq without finishing the job, you can expect a massive upswing in violence. These people bombed a mosque on a holy feast day. Their own people.
Essentially, the Palin interview needs to be evaluated on two fronts. First, and most important, is Palin’s performance as an untried national candidate. The ABC piece was not a first impression, but a substantive discussion after the first impression…an impression which, I don’t think anyone can argue, was pretty forceful.
The second and only slightly less important rubric for evaluating this interview is the quality of the reporting. I am sad to say that I would judge the journalism involved in this exposition of a relative unknown to be less than stellar. Charles Gibson is generally a decent sort, but his style in this interview bordered on contemptuous.
Since I haven't been able to find a place to view the whole interview all at once, I'm making one here. I'm still not entirely certain this is a comprehensive collection. And the thing that is now confusing me is that the first clip I've loaded there seems to contain footage that I was told was edited out of the interview. So...in essence I'm not sure what is going on with this interview and why it's so hard to find the whole thing online, but I'm confident that in its original airing it was in fact edited to hell. I shall be running with that knowledge.
The Substance
She's a deceptively simple woman. But I saw her in the gubernatorial debates back in 2006, and she was one tough lady. I admit to underestimating her then, as I have a stubborn sexist streak. The course of that debate was enough to make me question whether a woman should ever win the White House. To my mind, the thing to remember about Palin is that even if you don't like her you need to acknowledge her strength. And let's be clear: This is a woman who enjoys an approval rating in her state of something like 86%, and who beat out an incumbent of her own party and a former Democratic governor for the job. She ain't a pushover.
There are a number of different ways to measure strength. There is the strength that Obama possesses, which is the ability to build others up and make them believe that they can achieve their goals. There is the strength that McCain has, which is the strength of experience and conviction. One of the great strengths which I see in her is that she has a clarity of vision, and can apply concepts of leadership to different situations even in the absence of direct firsthand knowledge. That's something that every leader has to know how to do...set the agenda and tap the experts.
As the Vice-President, she will be an advisor and an advocate. She will meet with foreign leaders to promote the agenda of the POTUS and she will meet with domestic leaders to advance the causes of reform and increased prosperity.
This interview was a chance for her to showcase her knowledge of world events and some of her views on domestic matters. As a relative unknown who has been making the stump speech circuit (a stump speech being defined as the same speech over and over again in different places, for all the snarky commentators out there who are viewing that as a lack of depth), Palin had much to tell us about herself and her views of government, foreign policy, the environment and social issues.
Foreign policy is perhaps her weakest subject, and so it's fitting that Gibson would devote a lot of time to it. Much hay has been made by liberal bloggers and pundits about her answer to the "Bush Doctrine" question. Firstly, to be clear, her "In what respect" was perfectly justified in the context of the question. Gibson didn't offer any idea about which Bush Doctrine he meant, or to what aspect of said doctrine he was referring. His attempt to clarify was slightly lame, as he certainly sensed a "gotcha" moment. But we'll cover him more in depth in the "Style" section of this blog post.
Palin's answer to the Bush Doctrine question was definitely not a help. However, it should be clear by now that the Bush Doctrine is an amorphous kind of thing, but among its precepts is the idea that America should take pre-emptive action if necessary to safeguard American citizens. The problem here might be a fundamental matter of academics versus leadership. The idea of a Bush Doctrine is an academic one, a political science paper gone global. People will debate the implications of a Bush Doctrine for years, evaluate it and perhaps decide that it never really existed. But in a practical sense the existence or non-existence of the Bush Doctrine as an enumerated set of principles is unimportant to a leader, who needs only a clear vision of how they will interact with the world.
Palin made it clear, I think, that America's defense would be a primary concern of hers and John McCain's should they be elected. They have identified Islamic terrorism as the preeminent threat to global security in this era, and rightly so. To my mind, having a clear idea of who you're fighting is a good part of any battle.
As to Russia, I believe Palin offered a unique perspective, and one that was probably left on the cutting room floor. Her main point in speaking about Russia and NATO wasn't to rattle her saber, but to call for awareness that Russia is trampling on democratic states in the region. States which, until recently, were doing quite well. The edited transcript mentions Ukraine as well as Georgia, and fleshes out the Russia conversation quite well. I would say she has been studying the issue and applying her formidable intellect to the subject of international relations, and woe betide the man who underestimates her in a live debate...no edits.
A lot of the interview was a simple confirmation that she in fact holds the conservative line on topics like Israel. But one particular thing leapt out at me about the criticism of her, and that was the inevitable God-problem.
If you don't know, liberal bloggers and pundits have been trying like hell to get traction out of a statement she made in church one day about the war (the one her son just left to fight) being God's will. And I think any sensible leftist would accept the explanation I'm about to proffer, but I know that there are those who aren't interested and never will be in the subtle nuances of a spiritual life.
When Palin was talking about God's will, she wasn't praying that God's will would conform to our actions. No, instead she was praying that our actions, made in our imperfect human wisdom, would conform to God's ultimately unknowable will. It's a distinction that is lost in this age of mass communication, lowest common denominators, and fifth-grade reading levels. "Not my will, but Thine be done," is the actual saying. A mature Christian recognizes that not only can he or she never achieve God's perfection, they can hardly even be sure that they are acting in accordance with His wishes. If we thought we had to do everything perfectly, we'd be paralyzed with indecision or abandon the effort entirely...so a mature believer proceeds with the business of living and does the best he can with the knowledge at hand.
In summary, I found Palin's performance to be a solid indicator of the type of person she is, the type of leader she is, and the type of advocate she'd be for President McCain's agenda. She is in need of improvement in some key areas of foreign policy and dealing with the press, but in time she will have learned all she needs to. I read an article which made the point that the President or Vice-President as an individual can have a lot of knowledge, but certainly can't be expected to know everything. That is why they have subordinates and advisors. Collectively, our government knows quite a lot of stuff.
For this reason, and because I feel she is an effective leader who would be able to delegate and call upon experts to bolster her own knowledge, I have no qualms about her becoming the next Vice-President. I believe, strongly, that this election is about ideology moreso than any real qualifications for the job. Palin is ideologically conservative, and that is infinitely preferable to me. A liberal might go so far as to concede that she is not a dunce, but I don't believe I will see anyone admit she'd be a good Vice-President.
Part II will consist of my thoughts on Charlie Gibson's interview style and the quality of the journalism in this piece (I didn't like it, in case you were wondering).
There is an article out there about some lawyer, representing the terrorists in Guantanamo, who dropped his pants at a press conference in Yemen to demonstrate how humiliated and tormented the poor dears must feel.
Color me unimpressed. While I certainly understand the point he was trying to make to a Yemeni audience ("for a Muslim man that is a thousand times more cutting than a Westerner can imagine."), I can't help feeling like he's missing the point.
His statement about "corn-fed" American soldiers doesn't help me feel any better about granting those terrorist sons-of-bitches access to our slow, ineffective courts. Prosecution didn't work in the 1990s, it won't work now.
A number of years ago, we had the case of Yaser Hamdi, born in the US and caught in Afghanistan aiding the Taliban. Denied counsel, he was one of the first cases that probed the status of "enemy combatants" in our legal system. The Norfolk District Court Judge, one Robert Doumar, decided that because Hamdi was still a US citizen de iure (and because of many other considerations that I am not qualified to speak on) the US government's detention of him without due process was incorrect. Illegal, even. I saw Judge Doumar speak on the subject while in school, and respect his position and reasoning. Hamdi, for your reference, is now living in Saudi Arabia having renounced his US citizenship.
But the men in Guantanamo are not entitled to representation in our civilian courts, and they are not worthy of their lawyer's sympathy. They do in fact deserve a lawyer stupid enough to "drop trou" in front of a live audience. The thing to keep in mind is that these men were taken in combat against the US, or supporting terrorist efforts against the US, serving no recognized state and wearing no military uniform.
One of the responses to the article was hilariously apt:
Comment by - July 16, 2008 at 10:40 am
National Review Online has a tremendous piece by Frederick W. Kagan on Iraq. Specifically, the common myths associated with the war that many on the left side of the spectrum continually cite as reasons we have lost, will lose, or must withdraw from the present conflict.
Do the nattering nabobs really know the counterpoint to their arguments? I would think not. So often I see a parroted claim about the war that can be no more supported than the rantings of a 9/11 conspiracy theorist. Conservatives who have conviction but not the knowledge to back it up must educate themselves so as to better exploit this weakness. Liberals who wish to better defend themselves may also find the article useful.
Let's just ignore for now the sobering fact that no amount of information will make any of us actually change our minds, and just enjoy the opportunity to learn.
The article's long, as something like this would have to be, but it's not overlong. Five years of the left pulling out every conceivable objection to the war have left Kagan a big job. He tackles it handily and you should read the whole thing. However, I provide a snippet to draw you in:
The War Costs Too Much
An increasingly popular talking point of the antiwar party is that the war simply costs too much and that we must end it and refocus on domestic priorities. This talking point has a number of variants:The “$3 trillion war.” Simplistic economic analysis declares that the war has cost the taxpayers $3 trillion since its inception, implying that this is a $3 trillion dead loss to the economy — a price too high to pay.
- Modern economics has long understood that the notion of a one-for-one guns-versus-butter trade-off is simply wrong. A high proportion of money spent on defense goes back into the U.S. economy in the form of salaries paid to the more than 5 million Americans employed directly or indirectly by the Defense Department, and payments to the defense industry and the long and complex supply chains from which they draw their raw materials. Military spending has traditionally been a form of economic stimulus, and wars more commonly end recessions or depressions than start them. That’s not a good reason to start a war, but neither is it a good reason to lose one. The impact of the current war on the U.S. economy, finally, is far smaller than the impact of previous major conflicts. Military spending in World War II ranged from 17.8 percent of GDP to 37.5 percent; in Korea from 5.0 percent (in 1950 — 7.4 percent in 1951) to 14.2 percent; in Vietnam from 7.4 percent to 9.4 percent. Current expenditures on the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars bring total defense expenditures to something well below 5 percent of GDP. Even granting the simplistic and misleading $3 trillion figure, $3 trillion is about 5 percent of the nearly $60 trillion American GDP over the five years of the war.
Occasionally, e-mail forwards are worth reading. But only rarely.
Dream Team
Last night I had the strangest dream. It was so real, so life-like and so
vivid. Let me describe it to you briefly...1. Hillary wins the Democratic Party nomination for President of the
United States
2. Naturally, she wants to choose as her running mate someone with a lot
of knowledge and experience in government and foreign affairs, someone who
is a seasoned campaigner who could bring a lot of strength to the ticket.
Who better than Bill, her husband?!!!
3. Hill and Bill go on to win the election in November and the Democrats
maintain control of the House and the Senate.
4. Hillary is sworn in as President on January 20, 2009. The next day,
after all the inauguration parties are over, she calls a press conference to
make an announcement: she is resigning as President!!! Bill, as the Vice
President, immediately becomes President!!! This is all perfectly legal
under the 22nd Amendment to the Constitution, for it states that 'no person
may be elected as president more than twice'.Bill is not being elected for a third term but is merely serving out the
remainder of Hillary's term---all 4 years of it.
5. But wait! There's more! The following day Bill calls a press conference
to make an announcement. He has chosen someone to fill the now-vacant office
of Vice President. Guess who he p icks? Why, Hillary, of course!!!
6. And one last thing, Bill could resign just before the elections and
that would make Hillary the incumbent President. She could run for
re-election and we could do it all over again and she would never serve out
her two terms... Bill could be President for life....
Please forward this e-mail to all of your Republican friends and to as
many others as you wish to cause sleepless nights...
So, once more we find that our European friends exist in a world of delusion and self-absorption. Here's hoping that this woman never wins another Oscar, ever. But even aside from that, let's hope that Europe scrapes up the resolve to save its own culture from radical Islam. It's a special kind of intellect that can observe the work of terrorists and then without irony assert that the destruction was all an inside job. Astoundingly special.
You may be aware that Mohammed is quickly becoming the most popular boy's name in Britain and France. And anyone who has followed the news in Denmark may be aware that things are getting hairy. I'd like to believe that people like Mark Steyn are wrong. I'd like to believe that a culture will, when faced with things like the Sept. 11th attacks, rally its disparate parts and commit to preserving its way of life.
But it seems that as the threat from militant Islam increases, European nations only bury their head in the sand with yet more vigor. They attack those critical to Islam as bigots, blithely refusing to do anything about the imams who preach violence and conquest to impressionable, disenfranchised young immigrants. They acquiesce to Muslim demands that demean women. A recent example? Giving tax breaks to men with multiple wives. The Archbishop of Canterbury proposes that some form of shari'a law in Britain might be a good thing. When some commentary is made, it is generally not productive. Comes to mind the Danish Cartoons -- worldwide riots erupt and still the Europeans blame themselves. They are committing cultural suicide. If only we could let them.
But in their place would rise a threat to America that is unprecedented in this age of unbelief. A militant religion that would fill the void in Europe made by the excoriation of Christianity, that would within a few generations be poised to seriously impede American influence.
Because if you think the French don't like America now, wait until the French take their cues from the imams who are preaching today.
'9/11 attacks made up, ' says French best actress Oscar-winner
Last updated at 01:08am on 2nd March 2008
Oscar-winner Marion Cotillard has accused America of fabricating the 9/11 attacks
Actress Marion Cotillard sparked a political row yesterday after accusing America of fabricating the 9/11 attacks.
The 32-year-old French actress, who received an Oscar last month for her performance as singer Edith Piaf in La Vie En Rose, openly questioned the truth behind the terrorist atrocity in an interview broadcast on a French website.
"I think we're lied to about a number of things," Cotillard said, singling out the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center as an example of the US making up horror stories for political ends.
Referring to the two passenger jets being flown into the Twin Towers, Cotillard said:
"We see other towers of the same kind being hit by planes. Are they burned? They [sic] was a tower, I believe it was in Spain, which burnt for 24 hours. It never collapsed. None of these towers collapsed. And there [in New York], in a few minutes, the whole thing collapsed."
She added that the towers, planned in the early Sixties, were an outdated "money-sucker" that would have cost more to modernise than to rebuild altogether, which is why they were destroyed.
She said: "It was a money-sucker because they were finished, it seems to me, by 1973, and to re-cable all that, to bring up-to-date all the technology and everything, it was a lot more expensive, that work, than destroying them."
Cotillard's stardom and increased earning power looked assured following her Oscar win.
But after her outburst, in which she also queried the 1969 Moon landings, a successful future in Hollywood appears to be in jeopardy.
She said: "Did a man really walk on the Moon? I saw plenty of documentaries on it, and I really wondered. And in any case I don't believe all they tell me, that's for sure."
Cotillard, who was born and brought up in Paris, made the comments on Paris Première - Paris Dernière, a programme broadcast a year ago.
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Stars in their eyes: Elton John and partner David Furnish cosy up to the hottest new actress in Hollywood
Celebration: Marion celebrated her win with Hollywood's A-listers - including Sharon Stone - at Elton John's party in Hollywood
At the time her remarks were largely ignored, but their appearance yesterday on the French magazine website Marianne2 comes at a time when Cotillard's profile is sky-high.
She is shortly due to fly to Chicago to star alongside Johnny Depp in Public Enemies, a gangster movie expected to be her first big money-spinner.
Cotillard's film career began in Luc Besson's 1998 film Taxi - a huge hit in France but less so around the world.
She is slowly becoming a household name in France, in a list most recently topped by her close friend Audrey Tautou and previously by women such as Catherine Deneuve and Brigitte Bardot.
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'I think we're lied to about a number of things' Cotillard said, singling out the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center as an example of the US making up horror stories for political ends
But Cotillard, who lives with actor and director Guillaume Canet, frequently tells interviewers she has no interest in money or prestige.
Denying that she had any kind of "Anglo-Saxon ambition", she said she prefers to "choose roles which suit me".
Despite her low-key image, Cotillard is an environmental activist who once worked as a spokesman for Greenpeace.
News of her anti-Americanism comes as Franco-American relations appear to be thawing, following Paris's refusal to show support for the invasion of Iraq.
President Nicolas Sarkozy insists he is pro-American, even supporting so-called "Anglo-Saxon" economic reforms.
Comments (11)
John McCain made a stop in Norfolk, VA today to discuss foreign policy issues and receive some glowing praise from a number of his colleagues. Always keen to learn more about international relations and, well, see famous people, I managed to weasel my way in and was treated to a sensible, realistic acknowledgment of the threat of radical Islam. This is from some of the most knowledgeable authorities on national security in Congress.
Chief among these in my eyes was John Warner. A Southern gentleman in the truest sense, Senator Warner has been a strong advocate for the military and if he believes that John McCain will do well as the President then I am prepared to believe him.
The major point today was that we absolutely must confront radical, militant Islam. I agree with that sentiment 100%. Senator Sam Brownback made some very excellent statements, bringing the focus onto Africa where a significant amount of Muslim extremism is fomented. Brownback is also extremely prominent in the pro-life community. His endorsement of McCain puts any doubts about McCain's pro-life credits to rest.
In addition to these two men, the endorsement of former Secretaries of the Navy William Ball and John Lehman spoke volumes about their beliefs in McCain's strong military stance. Rebuilding the military is key, as the Clinton years saw too much military reduction. Rumsfeld made an error before Iraq and Afghanistan by not focusing more effort on building up force levels to avoid long, repeated deployments. But another point made today was that we must maintain the All Volunteer Force by increasing recruitment and increasing opportunities for soldiers. As McCain said, there is a market out there and young people have to know their needs will be met should they choose military service.
It is well within the interests of my region of Virginia to elect a man like John McCain.
McCain is strong on the social issues. Period. McCain is obviously strong on foreign policy (his strong language regarding Iran was particularly impressive), though conservatives still need more assurance about the illegal immigration issue. When I informed my good friend W that I was in attendance, he cut to the heart of the matter quite succinctly: "...if they serve lunch order the enchiladas. I hear they taste really good with a side of amnesty." No lunch, but it is important to keep from getting star-struck. Thanks W!
On a side note, I just saw myself on TV. Some guy blocked my handshake with McCain and the annoyance on my face is pretty obvious. I wish I had a picture. It's ok, because I did get to shake Sam Brownback's hand and let him know I appreciate his pro-life stance. He said we've got to push harder on that issue. Agreed.
I got a picture of McCain answering questions from the press, which I have provided. Forgive the quality. I didn't think I'd actually be allowed inside and neglected to bring a camera! If I can locate a bit of that video with my handshake fiasco, I'll post that too. UPDATE: Here's that video...Note the disappointed looking young man at 56 seconds in. That old guy in front of me was such a fanboy, he jostled me out of the way just to tell McCain something the man wouldn't remember in 10 seconds anyway.
Saudi punishes gang rape victim with 200 lashes
Nov 15 10:51 AM US/Eastern
156 Comments
View larger imageA court in the ultra-conservative kingdom of Saudi Arabia is punishing a female victim of gang rape with 200 lashes and six months in jail, a newspaper reported on Thursday. The 19-year-old woman -- whose six armed attackers have been sentenced to jail terms -- was initially ordered to undergo 90 lashes for "being in the car of an unrelated male at the time of the rape," the Arab News reported.
But in a new verdict issued after Saudi Arabia's Higher Judicial Council ordered a retrial, the court in the eastern town of Al-Qatif more than doubled the number of lashes to 200.
A court source told the English-language Arab News that the judges had decided to punish the woman further for "her attempt to aggravate and influence the judiciary through the media."
Saudi Arabia enforces a strict Islamic doctrine known as Wahhabism and forbids unrelated men and women from associating with each other, bans women from driving and forces them to cover head-to-toe in public.
Last year, the court sentenced six Saudi men to between one and five years in jail for the rape as well as ordering lashes for the victim, a member of the minority Shiite community.
But the woman's lawyer Abdul Rahman al-Lahem appealed, arguing that the punishments were too lenient in a country where the offence can carry the death penalty.
In the new verdict issued on Wednesday, the Al-Qatif court also toughened the sentences against the six men to between two and nine years in prison.
The case has angered members of Saudi Arabia's Shiite community. The convicted men are Sunni Muslims, the dominant community in the oil-rich Gulf state.
Lahem, also a human rights activist, told AFP on Wednesday that the court had banned him from handling the rape case and withdrew his licence to practise law because he challenged the verdict.
He said he has also been summoned by the ministry of justice to appear before a disciplinary committee in December.
Lahem said the move might be due to his criticism of some judicial institutions, and "contradicts King Abdullah's quest to introduce reform, especially in the justice system."
King Abdullah last month approved a new body of laws regulating the judicial system in Saudi Arabia, which rules on the basis of sharia, or Islamic law.
Now I know what you liberal jackinapes will say: Oooh, aren't these our allies the Saudis? Ooooh! Well, here's news for you folks. After we stop the ones with guns we need to move on to the ones with whips.
I get into so many arguments about the superiority of Western civilization when compared to this crap. People actually try to argue that we are not superior to these animals when it comes to our laws, treatment of women and tolerance of other religions.
Give me a break.
I believe that nobody says it better than Steyn, so I won't try. Suffice it to say that anyone who believes that September 11th was an inside job will not be welcome on this blog should they air that view.Where’s the War?
By Mark Steyn
The placidity of the domestic front.
Oh, it’s a long, long while from September to September. This year, the anniversary falls, for the first time, on a Tuesday morning, and perhaps some or other cable network will re-present the events in real time — the first vague breaking news in an otherwise routine morning show, the follow-up item on the second plane, and the realization that something bigger was underway. If you make it vivid enough, the JFK/Princess Di factor will kick in: You’ll remember “where you were” when you “heard the news.” But it’s harder to recreate the peculiar mood at the end of the day, when the citizens of the superpower went to bed not knowing what they’d wake up to the following morning.
Six years on, most Americans are now pretty certain what they’ll wake up to in the morning: There’ll be a thwarted terrorist plot somewhere or other — last week, it was Germany. Occasionally, one will succeed somewhere or other, on the far horizon — in Bali, Istanbul, Madrid, London. But not many folks expect to switch on the TV this Tuesday morning, as they did that Tuesday morning, and see smoke billowing from Atlanta or Phoenix or Seattle. During the IRA’s 30-year campaign, the British grew accustomed (perhaps too easily accustomed) to waking up to the news either of some prominent person’s assassination or that a couple of gran’mas and some schoolkids had been blown apart in a shopping centre. It was a terrorist war in which terrorism was almost routine. But, in the six years since President Bush declared that America was in a “war on terror,” there has been in America no terrorism.
In theory, the administration ought to derive a political benefit from this: The president has “kept America safe.” But, in practice, the placidity of the domestic front diminishes the chosen rationale of the conflict: If a “war on terror” has no terror, who says there’s a war at all? That’s the argument of the Left — that it’s all a racket cooked up by the Bushitlerburton fascists to impose on America a permanent national-security state in which, for dark sinister reasons of his own, Dick Cheney is free to monitor your out-of-state phone calls all day long. Judging from the blithe expressions of commuters doing the shoeless shuffle through the security line at LAX and O’Hare, most Americans seem relatively content with a permanent national-security state. It’s a curious paradox: airports on permanent Orange Alert, and a citizenry on permanent …well, I’m not sure there’s a homeland-security color code for “Gaily Insouciant,” but, if there is, it’s probably a bland limpid pastel of some kind. Of course, if tomorrow there’s a big smoking hole where the Empire State Building used to be, we’ll be back to: “The president should have known! This proves the failure of his policies over the last six years! We need another all-star Commission filled with retired grandees!”
And that would be the relatively sane reaction. Have you seen that bumper sticker “9/11 WAS AN INSIDE JOB”? If you haven’t, go to a college town and cruise Main Street for a couple of minutes. It seems odd that a fascist regime which thinks nothing of killing thousands of people in a big landmark building in the center of the city hasn’t quietly offed some of these dissident professors — or at least the guy with the sticker-printing contract. Fearlessly, Robert Fisk of Britain’s Independent, the alleged dean of Middle East correspondents, has now crossed over to the truther side and written a piece headlined, “Even I Question The ‘Truth’ About 9/11.” According to a poll in May, 35 percent of Democrats believe that Bush knew about 9/11 in advance. Did Rumsfeld also know? Almost certainly. That’s why he went to his office as normal that today, because he knew in advance that the plane would slice through the Pentagon but come to a halt on the far side of the photocopier. That’s how well-planned it was, unlike Iraq.
Apparently, 39 percent of Democrats still believe Bush didn’t know in advance — or, at any rate, so they said in May. But I’m confident half of them will have joined Rosie O’Donnell on the melted steely knoll before the Iowa caucuses. If Iraq is another Vietnam, 9/11 is another Kennedy assassination. Were Bali, Madrid, and London also inside jobs by the Bush Gang? If so, it’s no wonder federal spending’s out of control.
And what of those for whom the events of six years ago were more than just conspiracy fodder? Last week the New York Times carried a story about the current state of the 9/11 lawsuits. Relatives of 42 of the dead are suing various parties for compensation, on the grounds that what happened that Tuesday morning should have been anticipated. The law firm Motley Rice, diversifying from its traditional lucrative class-action hunting grounds of tobacco, asbestos and lead paint, is promising to put on the witness stand everybody who “allowed the events of 9/11 to happen”. And they mean everybody — American Airlines, United, Boeing, the airport authorities, the security firms — everybody, that is, except the guys who did it.
According to the Times, many of the bereaved are angry and determined that their loved one’s death should have meaning. Yet the meaning they’re after surely strikes our enemies not just as extremely odd but as one more reason why they’ll win. You launch an act of war, and the victims respond with a lawsuit against their own countrymen. But that’s the American way: Almost every news story boils down to somebody standing in front of a microphone and announcing that he’s retained counsel. Last week, it was Larry Craig. Next week, it’ll be the survivors of Ahmadinejad’s nuclear test in Westchester County. As Andrew McCarthy pointed out, a legalistic culture invariably misses the forest for the trees. Senator Craig should know that what matters is not whether an artful lawyer can get him off on a technicality but whether the public thinks he trawls for anonymous sex in public bathrooms. Likewise, those 9/11 families should know that, if you want your child’s death that morning to have meaning, what matters is not whether you hound Boeing into admitting liability but whether you insist that the movement that murdered your daughter is hunted down and the sustaining ideological virus that led thousands of others to dance up and down in the streets cheering her death is expunged from the earth.
In his pugnacious new book, Norman Podhoretz calls for redesignating this conflict as World War IV. Certainly, it would have been easier politically to frame the Iraq campaign as being a front in a fourth world war than as a necessary measure in an anti-terrorist campaign. Yet who knows? Perhaps we would still have mired ourselves in legalisms and conspiracies and the dismal curdled relativism of the Flight 93 memorial’s “crescent of embrace.” In the end, as Podhoretz says, if the war is to be fought at all, it will “have to be fought by the kind of people Americans now are.” On this sixth anniversary, as 9/11 retreats into history, many Americans see no war at all.— Mark Steyn is the author of America Alone: The End of the World as We Know It.
I get really fighting mad on this day every year.
You know what is really “a thousand times more cutting?”
Being beheaded.
Now that’s cutting.