Don't Commemorate Sept. 11

Slate ^ | September 8, 2003 | Christopher Hitchens

[WarrenC]

If there is anything to mark or commemorate, it is the day when that realm of illusion was dispelled—the date that will one day be acknowledged as the one on which our enemies made their most truly "suicidal" mistake.

[Starrgaizr]

"Remember September 11th" is like "Remember Pearl Harbor:"

The point is not tears and yellow ribbons, it is to recall the events to renew the fury before it fades and resolve weakens, as it tends to do in our free and generous country.

Remembrance archive of 9-11 FR posts:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/620413/posts

[Coop]

Sorry, Chris. I'll be flying my flag at half staff, wearing a flag lapel pin, and observing a moment of silence at 8:46 EDT. It's not much, but I will never forget.

"We will not tire, we will not falter, we will not fail."
President George W. Bush, 20 Sep 01

[dead]

The time to commemorate the fallen is, or always has been, after the war is over. This war has barely begun…Dry your eyes, sister. You, too, brother. Stiffen up.

Well put, Hitchens.

We’ve got more killing to do.

[dead]

Beautiful article about the final service for a fallen 911 fireman in today’s NY Post:

Child's Voice A Resounding Reminder Of Greater Hope

[apackof2]

The French had a saying during the period when the provinces of Alsace and Lorraine were lost to them: "Always think of it. Never speak of it."

Unlike the French we can 2 things at one time

Remember AND not tire, not falter and not fail

I will be waving my flag

GOD BLESS AMERICA

[omega4412]

It's time to recall the schoolchild in NYC asking the teacher "Why are those birds on fire?" as people jumped from the towers. To remind us why we've got more killing to do.

[Wacka]

I think they should show the graphic pictures they sanitized from the American public. They should show them at least once a weeek and run the french filmakers 9-11 documentary at least once a month to remind people what we are fighting for.

[Howlin]

I'll be right with you!

[Hank Rearden]

Anyone here remember all the FReepers who tried to stimulate fake weepiness on Oct. 11th, Nov. 11th, Dec. 11th ad nauseum?

"Oh, it's been 7 months to the day - sob! I just don't know how I'm going to cope."

Me? I cope by watching terrorists die.

[Terridan]

Well put...
Never forget!

[Billthedrill]

I'm with him. My idea of commemoration is a smiley-face drawn on the nose of a Daisy Cutter about to be deposited somewhere in Pakistan.

Leave aside the glaring and germane fact that Saddam was and is in partnership with the forces of jihad; not even the sorriest illusion is in the same category as a book published by The Nation, written by Gore Vidal and flaunted at "anti-war" rallies, which argues that it was essentially George Bush who helped organize and anticipate the atrocity. That's a level of degeneration unplumbed by any other faction.

Sure wish I could write like that...

[Fred Mertz]

Last year I did everything possible to avoid commemorating such a horrible day. I had to watch a baseball game on TV to avoid most of it.

I'll be doing the same this year. I'll never forget but I don't like being pandered to.

[91B]

Instead of which, the posturing loons all concentrated on a masturbatory introspection about American guilt, granted the aura of revolutionary authenticity to Bin Laden and his fellow gangsters...

WHACK-a homer, WHACK-another homer.

[teletech]

THIS American will STAND at 8:46AM EDT on 9/11 and I will renew my resolve to bring to justice EVERY murderer responsible for this horror! I WILL NEVER forget!!!

[Mr. Jeeves]

My second-strongest memory of that week is still the moaning and bleating and jeering of the "left." Reflect upon it: Civil society is assaulted in the most criminal way by the most pitilessly reactionary force in the modern world. The drama immediately puts the working class in the saddle as the necessary actor and rescuer of the said society. Investigation shows the complicity of a chain of conservative client states, from Pakistan to Saudi Arabia, in the face of which our vaunted "national security" czars had capitulated. Here was the time for radicals to have demanded a war to the utmost against the forces of reaction, as well a full house cleaning of the state apparatus and a league of solidarity with the women of Afghanistan and with the whole nexus of dissent and opposition in the Muslim world. Instead of which, the posturing loons all concentrated on a masturbatory introspection about American guilt, granted the aura of revolutionary authenticity to Bin Laden and his fellow gangsters, and let the flag be duly seized by those who did look at least as if they meant business.

Wow, that's the greatest paragraph on the subject I've ever seen.

[Old Sarge]

Pardon me if I'm wrong, but isn't this the same Chris Hitchens who, as a reporter for the NYT, got himself booed off the stage for an anti-Bush/anti-war/anti-US "commencement" agenda speech?

If so, then it's no dice. You're not forgiven. Once a Clintonista, always a Clintonista.

[weegee]

The left cries that to air such footage would be "propaganda" and "insensitive to the families of the victims".

Of course, airing (or seeking to promote) pictures of dead/captured American soldiers is also propaganda (antiwar prop) and is done without the consent of or respect to the families.

Rachel Corrie fell in front of a tank. The left continues to show the pictures of her bloody corpse to rally people behind their movement (supporting the Palestinian war effort).

The left considers the circulation of antiwar propaganda and 9/11 conspiracy theories as "free speech" but when someone dares to show the other side of the coin, it is a "terrifying" attempt to mobilize Americans to nationalism in opposition to some if not all of the rest of the world.

Show the photos of 9.11.2001. The truth must be known. Don't show us the rest of the world's dead or our fallen soldiers until we can see our slain civilians and know what is at stake and the true unspeakable horror of that day.

[mikeb704]

Two years doesn’t ease the horror