Sunday, September 11, 2011

Decimation

I thought after last year that our long national indulgence in the compounded delusions of self-pity and self-righteous anger were starting to fade.But for the tenth anniversary of the events of 11 SEP 2001 has brought out all the usual idiots parroting all the usual tropes; It's was all about US! OMFG it was Pure Evil! It was Such a Shock 'Cause We were just Minding Our Own Business when We were viciously mugged!Well, okay, so we've had ten years and we're STILL thinking about this.

(Anybody want to make a bet as to whether Pearl Harbor was still front page news on 7 DEC 1951? No? Didn't think so. It was a very different war in a very different time, and in many ways were were a cruder, harder, simpler...but more sensible people fifty years ago.)

So let's get a couple of things out of the way first.

That an Islamic attack of some sort was successfully completed on U.S. soil was an entirely rational and expected result of the Middle East policies we had been pursuing for decades; since 1948, at the very least. This doesn't make OBL or AQ any more loveable or "justified". But you bankroll, arm, and act as consigliere for one of the local mobs in a bad part of town, don't be surprised to wake up with a horse's head in your bed some morning. It ain't an "if", it's a when, goombah, capisce?That it succeeded beyond the wildest dreams of its Saudi maker is unquestionable. If 9/11 was a battle and you looked at it trying to define "Who won 9/11?" the world's tallest dead Saudi would have to be the winner, hands down. For the cost of a relatively small number of expendable fanatics (and the bombing and occupation of a stone-age tribal wasteland back into the stone age) he sent his target rampaging through the Middle East, bombing, shooting, and - worst of all - acting like the least competent imperial power in history. Too meek to conquer, too clueless and viciously self-protective to woo, too stupid to realize the difference...Osama must look back at the past ten years and the present position of his target, exchange incredulous looks at the demons tormenting him, and all three of them must collapse in helpless laughter. Satan in all his genius couldn't conceive of a richer foul joke.That the most significant, durable, and successful effect it has had has been the erection of a monstrous internal and external surveillance and propaganda contraption that extends across multiple agencies and continents, absorbs billions of dollars and tens of thousands of careers and lives...and all in pursuit of this chimera. Al posted the link to a Naval War College journal article in the preceding post. In it the author bemoans the costly, inept behemoth we know as the Department of Homeland Security.Because it is a massive boondoggle ginned up by the world's last superpower to oppose the efforts of a handful of raggedy-assed clerics and Muslim fabulists dreaming of Caliphate in dumpy rooms in Third World shitholes that, even if successful, would be unlikely to do better than 9/11 - that is, kill a relative handful of Americans compared to the number who drive into utility poles while texting every year?

No.

Because "...we need a longer term strategy for dealing with terrorism overall. Perhaps the most disappointing non-event of the past ten years has been the complete failure of America's intellectual infrastructure, including its colleges and universities, to create a reserve of expertise similar to that funded by the U.S. government in the wake of the Soviet challenge in the 1950s."

Got it?

The threat from a tiny band of poorly-funded, tactically-incompetent, Islamic boneheadsis and should be considered the modern equivalent of the challenge posed by the world's only other global superpowermassively armed with blue-water fleets, intercontinental bombers, an trained army of spies and assassins, and, oh, yeah, fucking nuclear ICBMs.

So one would think that this tenth anniversary of the moment we started the geopolitical equivalent of slamming eleven vodka and Red Bull shooters, stripping down to our skivvies, and leaping into the beer tub down at the local lesbian softball victory party swinging a length of tire chain and shouting "I can whip any bitch in the park!" we'd be looking around sheepishly at all the angry bull daggers, picking our saggy wet Jockeys out of the crack of our stinging ass and wondering what the fuck we had been thinking.

(Stops. Sighs. Shakes his head.)

Instead of indulging in an orgy of self-pity, maudlin sentimentality, and self-righteous victimhood.

But we won't.

37 comments:

  1. Nice post Chief.

    As to why we act this way?

    In a word, "faith". We have to believe the official version of what is presented us since to start questioning at this point would begin a never ending cycle which would dissolve the last thing that holds us together as a political community, since it is surely not any of our traditional ideals which have withered away.

    Fear-based "faith" is what holds us together, provides at the same time the yoke around our necks allowing us to be driven this way and that . . . imo of course.

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  2. Chief,
    Yesterday i cmt'd to Aviator and now to you.
    I think we need to redefine what national security entails, and what it means.
    Everything else is the cart before the horse..
    jim

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  3. I'll leave the polemic to others. Today is for family but I am taking some time here and there to remember LCDR Vince Tolbert and his family. I served with him in the Navy and he died in the Pentagon attack.

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  4. " . . . The great lie of the war on terror is not that we can sacrifice a little liberty for greater security. It is that fear can be eliminated, and that all we need to do to improve our society is defeat terrorism, rather than look at the other causes of our social, economic, and political anxiety. That is the great seduction of fear: It allows us to do nothing. It is easier to find new threats than new possibilities.

    A decade after 9/11, we look backward and find ourselves in all-too-familiar surroundings. We have, in fact, accomplished very little. We have yet to do any of the serious thinking that might carry us beyond the banal, stifling quest for security. That kind of thinking would require us to have a different relationship to fear: a willingness to accept it, even cause it.

    Radical demands for justice are dangerous—they inspire fear in those committed to the injustices of the present."

    http://chronicle.com/article/Era-in-Ideas-Fear/128492/

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  5. "I'll leave the polemic to others. Today is for family but I am taking some time here and there to remember LCDR Vince Tolbert and his family. I served with him in the Navy and he died in the Pentagon attack."

    Aaaaaand the winner is..?

    Polemic.

    In Andy's nicely passive-aggressive little comment we see the perfect storm of aggrieved bereavement and bloody-shirt waving that have kept us where we are - nowhere - as seydlitz points out.

    Andy, I'm sorry your friend is dead. But I'm also sorry for all those other friends, relatives, husbands, wives, lovers, and sons who died in the moron-grade adventures ginned-up by those who insist that we not only "remember" the people who died in these attacks but keep the memory evergreen by ensuring that more people die every day because of them.

    So, Andy, now that LCDR Tolbert has been underground these ten years, how about try this guy's presecription for dealing with your losses?

    "And he said unto another, Follow me. But he said, Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my father.

    Jesus said unto him, Let the dead bury their dead: but go thou and preach the kingdom of God."

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  6. Funny thing. Today, our little village had our annual commemoration of of the Burning of Smyrna in September 1922. Our village was settled by three refugees of the Turkish purge of Christians. Rather than the maudlin approach in NYC, we celebrated the culture of the ancestors of our villagers, with folk music and traditional dancing by descendents in traditional garb. Each year, we host a choir and dance group from another settlement in Greece descended from Greek refugees from the Turkish terror. Of course, what we commemorated today pales in light of 9/11. In Smyrna, the entire Greek and Armenian sections of the city were burned to the ground, and about 150,000 perished. The Bishop of Smyrna, Saint Chrysostomos was tourtured and lynched by Turks, who also tortured and executed 350 of the 370 Orthodox clergy in the area as they conducted a campaign of rape, pillage and murder.

    The difference between the Greeks of the "Kastrophie" and post 9/11 Americans is that victimhood has become a noble state in the US, whereas these descendants of the Katastrophie are joyful survivors. Fear of terror permeates the US, while the joy of life infects the Greeks. And, in the US, stirring fear and a sense of victimhood is good political theater that gets people elected.

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  7. Paul Krugman's view is one I share . . .

    http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/11/the-years-of-shame/

    If one considers the whole narrative tapestry woven by our government since 9/11, how would one rate it? How much is truth and how much lies? Taking the whole thing together - which most do through a combination of outrage, self-pity, selective amnesia, blatant doublethink, crass self-interest, cowardice, all driven/covered by fear . . . since this precludes critical thought - how has there been anything honorable in our national response?

    The Greek disaster of 1920-22 Al mentions is illustrative. The Greeks started the war but misjudged both the extent of Turkish weakness and allied support. France and Italy saw a resurgent Turkey as in their interest. The Turks defeated the Greek army and then took advantage of the situation to lay waste to the Greek communities of western Asia Minor, murdering tens of thousands, in fact nobody knows the actual number (I doubt if the Turks were keeping count). The destruction of Smyrna was one of the great atrocities of history prior to WWII.

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  8. I'm fairly certain that this will be the last year that we do the full wailing and gnashing of teeth.

    The big difference between Pearl Harbor and 9/11 is the everlasting war. We only just bagged OBL and are still hunting down the last elements of AQ. This discussion wouldn't be happening if we'd categorically defeated AQ in every possible way 6 years ago as we did in WWII.

    If, as I suspect, AQ is now a faded memory with a last few inept lunatic followers then we can finally put this behind us and grow in new directions. Otherwise we get to keep doing this until we get it right.

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  9. Al mentions "victimhood." So true. This nation has been engaged in a pity party for the past ten years. "Oh, woe is us."

    And predictably, the victim then lashes out at any possible malefactor, regardless of culpability, in the hope that it will ease the pain.

    Richard Nixon, 4/30/70: "If, when the chips are down, the world's most powerful nation, the United States of America, acts like a pitiful, helpless giant, the forces of totalitarianism and anarchy will threaten free nations and free institutions throughout the world."

    Nixon never meant it this way, but there is a case to be made for the fact that military strength abroad and abject weakness on the home front (could we term it any other way?) will surely "threaten free nations and free institutions throughout the world."

    What's truly disappointing is realizing just how weak we have become as a nation.

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  10. Chief,

    I love your filleting of the average, unawares and texting citizen -- that image sums up our entitlement and oblivion well.

    As Pluto suggests, something there is about us, something mawkish, which loves to celebrate failure. Perhaps it is a collective guilt and a desire for penance, and if so, over what?

    Seydlitz is right when he mentions the seduction of fear. Hard-wired into us is the desire to identify friend from foe; fear is a more sturdy companion than belief.

    I like your image of faith as a yoke allowing us to driven hither and thither (though I don't like the behavior.)

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  11. "If, as I suspect, AQ is now a faded memory with a last few inept lunatic followers then we can finally put this behind us and grow in new directions."

    But it doesn't really matter if AQ is a burgeoning franchise with adherents in every corner of the world. We have no real option other than to grow up and get over ourselves. We cannot kill enough foreigners to make them fear and obey us; there's just not enough Americans and enough bullets for that. If the current orgiastic spasm of vengeance hasn't changed enough people's minds that OBL and his coterie were 14th Century dead-enders how will spending the next decade doing the same thing over again?

    It's time to remand 9/11 to the griefs of those who lost their loved ones on that day. To do otherwise is to give the grasp of our future over to the dead hand of the past, and to continue fighting the futile wars of history, much as places like the Balkans and the Horn of Africa have done.

    I'm not sure why I'm so adamant about this, but I suspect that it has to do with the fact that unlike Andy I knew no one killed on 9/11...but I'm known a fistful of others killed trying to force the rest of the world to grieve along with the mourners of that day.

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  12. p.s. --

    Just wanted to give mike, et. al., a heads up that Col. Paul Longgrear (Lang Vei) just wrote a reply to some comments @ Ranger's 9.6.11 post, "How I Lost The War".

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  13. Chief,

    Thanks for the sermon, but I don't need you or anyone else to tell me how I should spend my time or how I should feel or act on this anniversary. No, it is you that sees "the perfect storm of aggrieved bereavement and bloody-shirt waving that have kept us where we are." Amazing that you managed to somehow pour that interpretation into my comment. If there's anyone waving a bloody shirt around here it's you and your reaction ends up saying a lot more about you than it does me.

    Back in reality, I spent the day with the family - just like I said I was planning to do. I watched some football, played with my kids, mowed the lawn and worked on the honey-do list. But I did spent some time remembering my shipmate, LCDR Tolbert, who wasn't a friend but was a good man nonetheless who deserves to be remembered. I also spent some time reflecting on "what it all means." Waving the bloody shirt my ass.

    I thought it might be nice to have one day free from all the political bullshit, coup-counting and retrospective finger-pointing regarding 9/11 so it was definitely my mistake for dropping by the pub today. I should have known better. About the only redeeming thing I did read was excellent essay over at Zenpundit's place which is the best thing I've read on 9/11 in a long time and should have run in the NYT instead of Krugman's little bitter rant. But whatever, I'm going to pop open a beer and forget this little drama for the last few hours of what's been a pretty good day.

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  14. Tom Engelhardt says we should grow up and move on:

    http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175437/tomgram%3A_engelhardt%2C_tear_down_the_freedom_tower/

    But this 'Christian Nation' is still pretty much stuck in the Old Testament.

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  15. Since Andy is off having a beer it seems unfair to beat up on him. But he's a poster child for the America I'm pissed off and fed up with, so I'm going to get my licks in.

    He starts by saying he's going to "leave the polemics to others"...and then trots out the Dead Friend. I ‘m not sure why; this post was very obviously a polemic already. There was no need to drag the dead friend in. He might have simply said “I lost friends that day, and so it is intensely personal to me.” That’s fine; the dead bury their dead. Personal griefs are one thing; this was about the annual ritual of public grief we seem to be unable to get past.

    I have no doubt that his grief is genuine. But in case he didn't notice, this post isn't about the grief of the survivors of the dead. Those are and will always be there, just as the grief of the family of the kid killed in a bombing raid on Baghdad in 2003 will always be there, or of a family shot down in a mistaken night raid in the Peshawer valley last week will be there.

    By dragging the Dead Friend into a political polemic Andy made that Friend part of the polemic and, thus, made him part of the Shouting of the Griefs that has characterized this damn nonsense since sometime about early 2002.

    That's pissed you off, Andy, but frankly, if you drag your dead into the public forum and talk about your grief you have made your grief, and your friend, part of that political process that takes place there.

    This entire business is sickening.

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  16. And for the record, here is (I think) the Zenpundit post Andy refers to:

    http://zenpundit.com/?p=4311

    The parts I enjoy are:

    "From this day flowed terrible consequences that are still unfolding like the rippling shockwave of a bomb."

    It was a bomb, get it? It just sorta...exploded. No, there was no cynical push by unscrupulous men - men who knew better, who had the intel that told them different - to turn this act, these personal tragedies, into a series of rippling shockwaves to serve their interests and the interests of the geopolitical faction they belonged to.

    And this, the concluding paragraph:

    "I can think of no better way to honor the dead and refute the current sense of decline than for America to collectively step back from immersion in moment by moment events and start to chart a course for the long term."

    Which is different from "...picking our saggy wet Jockeys out of the crack of our stinging ass and wondering what the fuck we had been thinking...(i)nstead of indulging in an orgy of self-pity, maudlin sentimentality, and self-righteous victimhood." only in that my post at least had the honesty to state the obvious - that we fucked up our national response to 9/11 and the repeated ball-slappings we're receiving are nothing more than our just desserts because of that.

    Which is entirely in keeping with the national mood about all of this. We can't even take the first step, which is to put the deaths of 9/11 into the mausoleum of history and move along, much less accept that along with some successes and some brilliance sparked by the events of that day we also committed a series of massive miscalculations and fuckups that have all but negated the former.

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  17. Pluto: This discussion wouldn't be happening if we'd categorically defeated AQ in every possible way 6 years ago as we did in WWII.

    And our national psyche (not to mention budget and personal freedom) would be much healthier if our so called "leaders" had not propagated the myth that a categorical defeat could be achieved or even approached.

    We are a culture of vicarious experience. 9/11 and what followed are grand for vicarious experience. People actually chose to believe they were fighting AQ by going shopping. For the vast majority of the population, 9/11, Afghanistan and Iraq are just another X-Box cartridge in which they have become totally absorbed at no real personal risk.

    As one viewer Tweeted to al Jazeera yesterday, in Iraq, the civilian fatalities of 9/11 have been suffered every 83 days since 2003.

    Memory Eternal to those who have died as a result of all this.

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  18. I don't get all the zenpundit worship, major Reagan fanboy and a bunch of commenters emoting the chart for the long term is exactly what the Neocons were screaming about on 9/10/2001: "The Chinese are coming right for us, we need a bigger Navy!"

    As the kids used to say, so 9/10.

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  19. I liked Zen's post. Sometimes I don't agree with his politics, but then I'm kinda lone wolf anyway, a Southern small town conservative who thinks radical right-wing nihilism is one of our greatest threats. On the other hand, in terms of social issues, many would label me a "reactionary" . . .

    I've guest posted on Zen's blog and my comments there are seemingly appreciated. He has a nice team of co-bloggers who post on a variety of interesting topics, just as we do. He's open to dialog, and I'll be participating in the next roundtable discussion he sponsors if invited. I would invite everyone here to comment of that discussion if interested.

    Personally, I find that all very positive, don't you Chief?

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  20. Al-

    "We are a culture of vicarious experience."

    Yes, and this leads to life choices based on superficial social constructs (essentially the result of advertising?) . . . we all wish to fit the "image", the glorified version of ourselves - attractive, appealing, rich, witty, clever - all very much based on an appearance provided by commodities . . . and of course the whole world is very jealous, and hates our "freedom" . . . In the end this is all found to be meaningless, which can lead to some very nasty reactions . . .

    Btw, my comments on fear were developed from your own insights in regards to the fundamental fear of death . . .

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  21. Aviator,

    And not only are we a cultural of the vicarious and the virtual experience, the majority (like Pluto) do believe we can "categorically defeat AQ in every possible way". That we are big enough, and bad enough, and for some improbable reason, restrain ourselves from delivering the ultimate killing blow (as in Vietnam).

    In our largeness, we fail to appreciate the power of those with the faith of a mustard seed. Because we value the might of things (like weapons and materiel) so much, we are flummoxed when people don't roll over after taking a humbling. We've got the weapon thing down like mad, but we come up short on understanding the human at the other end of the gun.

    We're very good Bam-Bam Flintstones, but I'm not sure that is the future.

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  22. erratum:

    "Bamm-Bamm Rubble" (Barney's kid).

    The title, decimation, is also strictly an error (in the Latin sense), but it suggests the irony of the response to the actuality.

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  23. Publius-

    "Nixon never meant it this way, but there is a case to be made for the fact that military strength abroad and abject weakness on the home front (could we term it any other way?) will surely "threaten free nations and free institutions throughout the world."

    What's truly disappointing is realizing just how weak we have become as a nation."

    Much like the Soviet Union before us . . .

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  24. Chief,

    Perhaps you should revisit the definition of polemic:

    - an aggressive attack on or refutation of the opinions or principles of another

    -the art or practice of disputation or controversy —usually used in plural but singular or plural in construction

    - an aggressive controversialist


    Who knew that merely mentioning the name of a guy I served with who was killed on 9/11 constitutes polemic? Not only that, but mentioning his name also makes me a poster child for the America you're pissed off at! None of that makes any sense at all to me. I spent yesterday hanging out with my family doing normal weekend things, not lying in a pool of tears weeping over 9/11. Was that not clear? So what, you're pissed off at the America that watches football and plays with their kids? Or are you pissed of that America would choose to memorialize 9/11 at all, even if it's merely remembering someone you knew who died during the course of an otherwise normal day?

    And yes Chief I thought Zen's post was better than yours, but I haven't exactly taken issue with anything you wrote in this post have I? Interesting that you are assuming that I have or that I do. Interesting that you are assuming a whole ton of stuff....


    That's pissed you off, Andy, but frankly, if you drag your dead into the public forum and talk about your grief you have made your grief, and your friend, part of that political process that takes place there.

    Well, it wasn't meant to be political. I made the same comment on Facebook and other places (and several of my FB friends also knew him and were genuine friends of his). LCDR Tolbert is my tie to 9/11 and mentioning him was my way to memorialize this anniversary in a small way without getting political. Mission not accomplished I suppose! Like I said, had I known you'd blow a fracking gasket I wouldn't have bothered.

    Lastly, I think that's all I'm going to say about 9/11 because if you're going to FFE on this then perhaps this is a topic we can't discuss reasonably. More than that, though, I'm done with it generally since yesterday brought an epiphany of sorts and I've moved on from 9/11 and the last decade. Zen's affirmative call to look to the future was part of that. "The next ninety years being molded by the last ten is not a future I care to leave to my children. Damn straight. After a decade I'm tired of it all and I'm going to spend my time on the future my kids will live in and not refighting past battles and playing anymore coulda-shoulda-woulda games on the internet or anywhere else. And just to be clear this new direction for me is not about you, it's not a response to you and is not meant to say anything at all about you, so don't get your panties in a twist.

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  25. chief and andy,
    Both of you tighten up-we're all friends here.
    I believe there's a generational thing going on here.I'm rather sick of 9-11 and won't get into that crap. And crap it is.I've been thinkin' on the use of hero to describe the actions of that day. What is heroism? In my book it takes you somewhere- just like a good book or work of art.
    There was no heroism on 9-11, it was all just courageous acts of desperation. There's a difference.But i wander. Back to the generation thing.
    The older dudes here know desperation and fear. We grew up fearful and refuse to be so anymore b/c of a bullshit group or their atks. When i was a child we didn't have fucking duct tape-WE WERE TAUGHT TO HIDE UNDER A CRUMMY SCHOOL DESK.
    We had Nike sites in our backyards-literally.
    This is a long shot from Patriot missiles guarding against Hitlerian V2 type bombs in Israel.
    Then we grew up after watching the Korean war. I learned to read by the headlines that said-RED HORDES ATTACK KOREA. I remember this until today-i still wonder what the fuck a Red horde is but i'm sure it's worse than a guy with a few grams of petn in this shorts or shoes.
    Then we went to RVN and were in an Army that fought communisn and we returned to serve in a Army that was trained and expected to fight on a nuclear battle field.Somehow i understand what Chief is saying, but i doubt that Andy would get it.
    No offense or slam on Andy.
    I personally can't stand reading the stories of heroism that just isn't. A war that is not about freedom or democracy, but yet everybody wraps their sorry asses in that justification.
    Chief- i get it. I hope.
    I'm afraid to have said anything since there's so much testiness here.
    Chief-I TOLD YOU TO TAKE A 72 hour pass.
    jim

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  26. Jim,

    No offense taken (and Chief, I'm more flummoxed than pissed off at this point). I agree there's a big generational gap, but I grew up with some of the same "commie fear" that you did. "Red Dawn" and "Wargames" were the two most memorable movies from my early teen years.

    What I don't get is why people are so hostile over how others choose to memorialize an event. Memorials aren't about logic and reason, they are about emotion and you can't change how others feel about it, so what is the point? Live and let live I say.

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  27. Pluto here, technical difficulties are keeping me from logging in.

    Lisa - "And not only are we a cultural of the vicarious and the virtual experience, the majority (like Pluto) do believe we can "categorically defeat AQ in every possible way"."

    I was not trying to say that we can categorically defeat AQ, Lisa. The Chief was commented that we didn't celebrate Pearl Harbor 10 years after the event the way we are 9/11. I pointed out that we had totally defeated the Japanese and the Germans 6 years before so there was no need to emotional need to commemorate the catalyzing event the same way.

    In fact, I subscribe to Ranger's PWOT (Phony War on Terror) theory. We aren't fighting terror, we are ripping apart our Constitution because we are afraid of pain and fear.

    That's just plain stupid because people need to feel pain and fear in order to learn from their experiences.

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  28. pluto and chief,
    We do have PEARL HARBOR tags here in Fl.
    jim

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  29. Pluto: I pointed out that we had totally defeated the Japanese and the Germans 6 years before so there was no need to emotional need to commemorate the catalyzing event the same way.

    Did we have them before we defeated the Germans and Japanese? Sorry, but I see a sad pathology of sorts with our obsession with 9/11. We saw a couple of family members of those who died on that day being interviewed, and they said it was time for people to "move on".

    It's not that an effort hasn't been made to make a gesture to address the families of 9/11 victims:

    There have been 2,983 families of those who died and received an average of just over $2 million tax-free per claim, according to Kenneth Feinberg, former pro bono administrator of the fund.

    In addition, 2,300 physically injured 9/11 victims or those who suffered from respiratory problems cleaning up the World Trade Center were each awarded $400,000 tax-free, on average, Feinberg said.


    Has any other catastrophe in our history seen such an act of compensation? Our troops only get a max of $400,000 SGLI (for which they pay premiums) for voluntarily going in harm's way to "defend us all".

    I grieve for the victims of this act. I grieve for people killed by people driving drunk or texting while driving. 9/11 has gone over the top IMHO.

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  30. Al,

    As I recall the purpose of the payments was to save the airlines and others from lawsuits.

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  31. Also, I never understood the national obsession with JFK and the Kennedy's in general. Who wants to bet that if Pres. Obama gets reelected that he'll give a speech at the 50th anniversary of JFK's assassination in 2013?

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  32. Pluto,

    Roger that.


    Andy,

    Check on Obama (or whoever) commemorating JFK's assassination. Another bad scene to feel maudlin about: "Where were you when your president got iced?"

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  33. p.s. --

    I should never write so bloody late (as last night). I posted Col. Longgrear's reply to the wrong post. It should have been on "How I Lost the War" [8.20.11], where a discussion of Lang Vei cropped up in comments.

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  34. I watched the second plane hit on television live, right behind the reporter who was standing on a roof trying to describe the one tower burning when a distant "Boom!" was heard.
    Someone off mic said, "hey, I think another plane just hit the building!"
    And that was when the shit hit the fan...

    ten years later...we're still mourning, and so I sat in church expecting the usual bowl of bile about liberty, freedom, and booyah we're murica, USA, USA, USA!

    Well, instead, we got a message about the lost of life...american lives...so, I thought, "well, it's not the usual pap...that's a start."
    However, I then began to think.

    less than one square mile of America was damaged.
    3k lives lost.
    Terrible.
    very-sad.
    lets mourn.

    And then we screamed vengeance, turned our noses to the wind, set the ailerons to take off, pulled back on the stick, pulled the throttle all the way, and went screaming into that head wind.

    Awesome.

    And in exchange for our lost honor we destroyed, laid to waste, scoured, murdered, tortured, crushed, burned, raped, and slaughtered our way across hundreds of thousands of miles of land in Iraq and Afghanistan, to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dead...and we feel what?

    I look at the people who think this shit is justifiable, shake my head, and wonder when G-d is going to finally say, "you know guys, I'm really done with you. So.very.done." And just black us out like a bad notation in a cosmic ledger of accounting.

    People die each day, but we, the US, took it way too far this time, and we're paying in spades for our arrogant angst.

    Pity us...I said to G-d in church, because we still don't get it.

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  35. Andy : As I recall the purpose of the payments was to save the airlines and others from lawsuits.

    Yes. In order to receive compensation, you have to waive the ability to sue the airlines in connection with the events of the day. A totally unprecedented act by the federal government. It was passed 11 days after the attack, and is indicative of the scramble to "do something - anything" in response to 9/11.

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  36. Al: Did we have them before we defeated the Germans and Japanese? Sorry, but I see a sad pathology of sorts with our obsession with 9/11.

    I don't know the answer about celebrations during WWII, there was probably a 10 minute celebration in 1942 but we were so busy fighting the war that we didn't have time for much.

    This gets back to my main distaste for this so-called War on Terror; the message that we, the citizen soldiers of the US, should go shopping to defeat terrorism while the real warriors go fight the war.

    I will say that Bush should have won an award for creativity. I don't think any other leader in history has advocated winning a war by increasing his own trade deficit, but it was a stupid, stupid way to fight a war and had predictable results.

    I will not be able to vote for Obama in 2012 for using the same tactics as Bush to fight this godawful stupid war against our rights (the real target, not terror). Don't worry about me voting Republican, the way that slate of candidates is shaping up, I can't vote for them either. I'll just have to find a third party candidate to vote for.

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  37. Yes, Sheerah, that's how I feel. Perspective is all.

    What a wonderful experiment was this democracy, but our reactivity, arrogance, pride, anger and fear were bound to trip it up. Such a hard time bridging the gap with my conservative friends, who point to the "evil" of the WTC attack.

    We've been watching some of the old Twilight Zones, and Rod Serling's drumbeat is as prescient as ever: Our own superior ability to inflict damage will be our undoing. SF often does a good job of looking at our predicament objectively.

    Per your thoughts on God: You may know Lester del Rey's 1954, "For I Am a Jealous People", which addresses God's abandonment of his fighterly people.

    More sci-fi:

    Kirk: Well, there it is - war. We didn't want it, but we've got it.

    Spock: It is curious how often you humans manage to obtain that which you do not want.

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