Free Republic

The Lessons of 11 September 2001 A.D. Many will write over the next few days regarding the events of 3 years ago. Most such writings, no matter how good they are, will fall into a fairly predictable set of bounds and few will be truly challenging or discomforting. Well, so much for that. I will launch straight into what I believe to be the most critical lessons learned from the events of 11 September 2001 as well as their precursors and their aftermath. Lesson 1: Silence the Utopians As early as 1943, Western liberal intellectual utopians were hard at work...

Suddenly, a far-away country about which most of us know little has shot to the very forefront of our minds and consciences. In a new century already steeped in horror, what happened at the Russian school in Beslan plumbs new depths of barbarity. The carefully planned slaughter of hundreds of children, a massacre of innocents mown down inside their school by zealots who bayoneted one when he asked for water and who blew others up or shot them in cold blood, is a monstrosity which has had a profound effect upon those who watched in horror as the tragedy unfolded....