I'm just as likely to find myself reacting to idiotic commentary as the attack fades from our collective memory.
Or like this piece by E. J. Dionne, who is such a partisan hack that it is hard to stomach his voice. He thinks we need to leave behind 9/11, as if our enemies will leave us alone if we don't fight them. Seriously, he thinks:
Our nation’s future depended on far more than the outcome of a vaguely defined “war on terrorism,” and it still does. Al-Qaeda is a dangerous enemy. But our country and the world were never threatened by the caliphate of its mad fantasies.
Well, yes, E. J., our government needs to do more than protect us from whackjob jihadis. But I seriously doubt that the war on terror is much on the minds of 90% of our federal bureaucracy as they go about their daily work. And why does it matter that our jihadi enemies believe that killing lots of us to create a Moslem caliphate that they will lead won't realistically succeed? Remember that "killing lots of us" part in the middle?
The jihadis will keep trying to kill us until we stop them. And one day, if we don't stop them, they'll have weapons of mass destruction to kill us with. Will E. J. still draw comfort that a contaminated zone in New York City that has to be sealed off for a thousand years won't lead to the caliphate and al Qaeda jihadis eating peeled grapes on a divan while Swedish blond women fan them with feathers?
Our war on terror is perhaps "vaguely defined" only in the liberal world because they don't want to define our enemies as Islamo-fascists who draw too much support from the Moslem world. Until Islam controls the jihadis, this war will continue. I don't know if they can win with our help, but they haven't been capable or willing to try without our help.
OK, I gave in and commented on the idiocy that I fear will come to define this day. Sorry. But Dionne is a partisan hack. And I made the mistake of scheduling this post days in advance, so I had time to see the idiocy flow by me. (And let me note a couple days later in my own defense that I'm hardly the only one to be simply offended by Dionne's idiocy. Tip to Instapundit.)
Mark Steyn, too, is distressed that this could become a holiday of weepy liberalism where we celebrate bake sales to fund a new bike path or something (OK, I said that and not him. I'll let him speak for himself). So I went to the memorial site he expressed concern over and staked my claim on remembering. Mad Minerva cites a good article in this vein of Westerners trying oh so hard to explain why we deserved to be attacked on 9/11.
I stand by my initial reaction to the attacks, written within a few days of the attacks, if you want my views in more depth. I think it holds up pretty well. The updated views of our liberal opinion leaders don't hold up nearly as well.
In the end, I will remember that this is just another day for our military and intelligence people to kill jihadis and keep them away from us--with my deepest thanks to them. And although we seem to still be mired in how to build memorials to the 9/11 attacks, as far as I am concerned, we already built the monument and it sends exactly the right message. It is too soon to "remember" the day this war started. That should be left for after victory.
And that is why I refuse to fly my flag at half-staff this day. Fly it high as a symbol that we follow into battle. We can get weepy when the war is over. Only then will I fly my country's flag at half-staff on this day.
UPDATE: Ah yes, as I suspected, today is just another day for idiocy by the usual suspects. Like Krugman. Yeah, we were attacked, Bush worked tirelessly to defend us, and we rewarded him by re-electing him. By this logic, FDR "cashed in" on the Depression. And maybe World War II, too. He says we should have been unified, but apparently he doesn't mean uniting to defeat our enemies. No, only one side has splintered on that issue. I get the impression that Krugman wanted us to unite in guilty shame, retreating from the world so we do no more harm and stop giving foreigners justifiable reasons to kill us, and settle in to a united center-left project to spend money on enlarging the state into every sphere.
Krugman is the one who should be ashamed for poisoning our debates. Idiot, Useful: one each.
UPDATE: I'm not the only one upset with that malignant troll, Krugman.
