Some more 9/11 notes from around the web

I didn't get a chance to post a roundup of 9/11 related stories and notes the other day. Here are a few I thought were worth pointing out:

From Mark Steyn:

With allies like these...

23% of Germans, 30% of Mexicans and 36% of Turks believe the United States government was behind the 9/11 attacks.

Click here to read an excellent column from Victor Davis Hanson over at National Review:

A highlight [emphasis added]:

While many rightly point to lapses in the conduct of the Iraq war, faulty intelligence, and wrongheaded emphasis on supposed arsenals of WMDs rather than the casus belli outlined in the 23 writs authorized by the Congress, few can answer a more existential question: Had we not met, defeated, and humiliated tens of thousands of jihadists on the battlefields of Iraq, where else might we have inflicted such a terrible defeat on our enemies — given the nuclear sanctuary of Pakistan, the bellicose governments of Iran and Syria, and the duplicity of the Gulf monarchies? And if we had not killed, captured, scattered, and turned our enemies abroad, how then might we have prevented them from coming back here to attack us at home? And are the governments of Afghanistan and Iraq, as in the past, aiding anti-American terrorists, or helping to hunt them down?

RedState.com has a fine take on the kooky Left's attitude towards 9/11 called "September 11th for Demmies":

Highlights:

This attitude shouldn't be a surprise to us. Perhaps the particular viciousness of the mocking graphic will catch you off-guard, but the "sick of 9-11" routine is hardly new. "Progressive" folks have been telling America to get over 9-11-01 since 9-12-01. (Well, 9/13, 9/12 was reserved for mealy-mouthed columnists to bleat about the "danger" of reprisals against Muslims in America which the New York Times kind of American was all too certain would be swift, abundant, and heinous from the bitter, gun-toting, religious nuts in flyover country.)

Take, for example, this article by Chris Thompson, currently of the Village Voice, published at East Bay Express on the first anniversary of 9/11. The essential point of his article was that it was all too dramatic and, really, oughtn't we just treat it like a fluke and never the more fret? "What really happened one year ago? Some bad men got lucky and hurt us, so we bombed the s**t out of some caves they were hiding in. Now what's on TV?" That wasn't snark. It was his point.

Joan Smith at The Independent/UK said it in February of 2003. She wonders when we'll get over it, and summarizes her position by saying, "If the world has become a more dangerous place since 11 September 2001, it is not solely because of the activities of a bunch of Islamic terrorists." It's America, you see. Sort of like, when a person is being mugged, and they punch the mugger in the face; well the mugger isn't really the only one bringing violence to the street is he?

Another great Mark Steyn piece called "Being Sad isn't Enough":

Highlights [emphasis added]:

Seven years is a long time in a present-tense culture, and attitudes to the war - if, indeed, it is still a war to most people - evolved pretty quickly. Here's what I wrote on the third anniversary, marked by the Beslan massacre, in The Spectator, September 11th 2004:

On the eve of this week’s anniversary, hundreds of children were murdered in their schoolhouse by terrorists. Terrible. But even more terrible was the reaction of what passes for the civilized world, the reluctance to confront the truth of what had occurred. The perpetrators were “separatists”, according to The Christian Science Monitor – what, you mean like my fellow Quebecers? They were “commandoes”, according to Agence France-Presse – you mean like the SAS?

“We have been confronted with a deep human tragedy,” said Dutch Foreign Minister Ben Bot, speaking for the European Union. “I am appalled that a school and its pupils are being used for political ends,” said UNESCO’s Director-General Koichiro Matsuura. A “tragedy”? “Political ends”?

Five days after the slaughter, The New York Times finally got around to using the I-word, and then only in paragraph 24:

While the extent of international support may be debated, the attacks bear some trappings of Islamic militancy. Officials here in Beslan said they had found notebooks with Arabic writing, and witnesses reported hearing Arabic exhortations, though the attackers mostly spoke Russian.

Any Arabic exhortation in particular? Only the slogan of the age, “Allahu Akbar.” Nothing to worry about, folks. They may kill kids, but they’re just “separatists”, “radicals”, “activists”. No connection with any events you may have heard about in Madrid, Istanbul, Bali, Tel Aviv or New York. The approved tone in polite society is that of my Telegraph colleague Adam Nicolson: keep it tasteful, keep it elegant, lots of exquisitely honed over-written allusions - each dead child was “a Pietà, the archetype of pity. Each is a Cordelia carried on at the end of Act V…” Lovely stuff, may even be an award in it. But not a word about the killers or a hint of their identity. Only a limpid, passive sadness. Nicolson is sedated but, unlike Clinton, not arousable.

Three years after September 11th, the Islamist death cult is the love whose name no-one dare speak. And, if you can’t even bring yourself to identify your enemy, are you likely to defeat him? Can you even know him? He seems to know us pretty well. He understands the pressures he can bring to bear on Spain, and the Phillipines, and France, too. He’s come to appreciate the self-imposed constraints under which his enemy fights – the legalisms, the political correctness, the deference to ineffectual multilateralism. He’s revolted by the infidels’ decadence but he has to admit it’s enormously helpful: the useful idiots of the pro-gay, pro-feminist left are far more idiotic and far more useful to him than they ever were to Stalin.

Monica Crowley talks about the anniversary in this column over on her blog:

In the seven years since the attacks of September 11, 2001, there has been a movement to call the enemy by an euphemism, to strip away any label describing them as they really are: radical Islamic terrorists.

These Islamists believe they are engaged in a holy war against us. Listen to them. They have declared war on us. Listen to them. They routinely tell us what they believe, what their intentions are, and how they plan to carry them out. Listen to them. They tell us they are coming back for us. Listen to them.

Finally, check out this post from Crush Liberalism which I found particularly good:

Highlights [emphasis added]:

To those of you on the left: Feel free to Google that date if it doesn’t ring a bell for you.

It’s hard to believe that it’s been seven years since that fateful day. All of us remember what we were doing when we heard about the attacks on the WTC and Pentagon, as well as United Flight 93 going down in Shanksville, PA. The face of this country changed forever.

See, gone were the days of Clintonian capitulation. Gone were the days of Reagan’s scamper out of Beirut. Gone were the days of bombing an aspirin factory in the Sudan, or trying to serve an warrant to Osama bin Laden or reading him his rights. That fateful day marked the turning point in this country when we looked at the backwards savages who slaughtered in the name of their god and said “We will hunt you down like the couscous-sucking dogs that you are and snuff you out, for however long it takes!” We meant it, too.

At least, we meant it back then.

There's much more out there obviously. But the anniversary has come and gone now. You can go back to watching 90210 and burying your head in the sand.