They Remain at War With Us

The Left (mostly the Left, but let's not forget that pitiful excuse of a Congresscritter Ron Paul in this category of idiots) used to say that 9/11 was directed at us because of what we did abroad (all that "why do they hate us?" blathering was about figuring out what we did to provoke the attack). They used to say we were falling for al Qaeda's clever plot to get us to over-react by fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq. How kicking their asses was falling for their clever ploy is still beyond my nuance capabilities. But I digress.

Now, with the tenth anniversary of 9/11 approaching, I'm starting to hear a growing theme of the Left wanting us to move on. Why? Because the attack wasn't really directed at us and instead reflected an attack against the entire world as indicated by the many nationalities who died in the World Trade Center that morning.

So when did the September 11, 2001 attacks change from being an understandable response against America that doesn't justify our armed response to an attack against the entire world that doesn't justify our armed response?

But I call this progress even if it is merely a painfully obvious exercise in killing the last remnants of what was once the "good war" against al Qaeda. At least this line of retreat effectively admits that we didn't "cause" the attacks. How could we be responsible if 9/11 was an attack against the entire world?

Unfortunately, the excuse that we shouldn't take the attacks personally because the jihadis hate the entire world misses a couple crucial points.

One, just because the jihadis hate the entire world doesn't mean that it is irrelevant that they also hate us. Focusing on the World Trade Center for this thinking ignores that the World Trade Center was here and not somewhere else. And it ignores the inconvenient fact that no amount of mental gymnastics can disguise the truth that the Pentagon was struck (let's hear them describe that as a multinational target!) and that Flight 93 was intended for the White House or Congress.

And two, whether or not we'd like to move on after a decade of fighting jihadi terrorism and take down all those ugly concrete barriers (and more importantly, spend that security money on domestic programs with no guilt that we are lowering our defenses), as long as our jihadi enemies keep trying to kill us, we have no choice but to fight. We don't get to deem the war won and just walk away. After a decade of us killing jihadis, they'd be happy to have free runs at killing our people (again).

And since we have to fight, it should be on offense so we don't lose more than we gain. After ten years of fighting, perhaps we should examine how to better defeat our enemies rather than coming up with new excuses to retreat from the fight.

When you consider that we can spend decades "defending our currency", why is protecting ourselves such a time-limited endeavor?