Posted on 09/13/2019 6:20:49 AM PDT by Louis Foxwell
Did We Learn Anything From 9/11?
Or are we still sleeping?
Wed Sep 11, 2019
Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is an investigative journalist and writer focusing on the radical Left and Islamic terrorism.
Two things happened in 2001.
Islamic terrorists carried out their most successful attack on America with the murder of 2,977 people. And the number of immigrants obtaining permanent residency passed a million for the first time in a decade. Before 2001, a million plus was a streak that might linger for a few years before falling back.
These days it’s the new normal. Aside from one blip, we’ve been riding the million plus train for over a decade. The resistance to that trend is currently the one thing we seem to have learned from 9/11.
After decades of being massacred by terrorists who have come here as tourists, refugees and immigrants, we are finally trying to close the door on travelers from Islamic terrorist states.
And it only took 16 years.
That’s because learning nothing from the past has been our specialty.
"A flag bearing a crescent and star flies from a flagpole in front of the World Trade Center, next to a Christmas tree and a menorah,” The New York Times reported in 1997.
Four years earlier, Muslim terrorists had bombed the World Trade Center in an unsuccessful effort to bring down the towers. Omar Abdel Rahman, the blind sheikh at the center of the terror plot, had urged, “We . . . have been ordered with terrorism because we must prepare what power we can to terrorize the enemy of Allah and your enemy. The Koran says ‘to strike terror.’”
Mohammed T. Mehdi, the Muslim activist responsible for the flag of Islam flying at what would become Ground Zero, had been an adviser to Rahman. The U.S. Attorney’s Office had listed Mehdi as an unindicted co-conspirator in the trial of the blind terror sheikh. And nevertheless, the flag flew.
Imam Sirraj Wahhaj, an unindicted co-conspirator in the bombing, who had testified as a character witness for Rahman, had already become the first Muslim cleric to present an invocation prayer to the House of Representatives. He was introduced by Rep. Nick Rahall who had proposed the idea. The invocation included a Koranic curse aimed at Christians and Jews.
That same year, President George H.W. Bush had taped his own Eid message for Muslims.
In 1996, Hillary Clinton inaugurated the first Eid event at the White House. Capitol Hill politicos held their own Iftar event that year. Regular Islamic prayers began to be held on Capitol Hill in 1998. The State Department hosted its first Iftar event in 1999. So did the Pentagon. All of this is still going on.
Not only haven’t things gotten better since then, they’ve gotten much worse.
The height of our counterterrorism efforts took place after September 11 with Operation Green Quest. That was our last serious effort at cracking the infrastructure of Islamist terrorism in this country. These days counterterrorism mainly consists of informants and undercover operatives catching lone ISIS supporters before they carry out an attack. Going beyond that was unacceptable even before Obama.
Under Obama, the Muslim Brotherhood was in the White House and Hezbollah had a free hand.
The War on Terror also reached its height in the creative and relentless attacks on Al Qaeda and the Taliban after 9/11. But, before long, that campaign degenerated into nation-building, endless legal proceedings for captured terrorists in the Bush era, and feeding thousands of soldiers into a meat-grinder with restrictive rules of engagement and negotiations with the Taliban in the Obama era.
By 2003, our response to Islamic terrorism had reached its peak. It’s been downhill from there.
It took 4 years for the lessons of the World Trade Center bombing to be so thoroughly forgotten that an unindicted co-conspirator was able to get the flag of Islam flown at the site of the twin skyscrapers.
It took even less time for the lessons of 9/11 to fly away leaving behind hollow memorials.
After Qari Yasin, a top Al Qaeda terrorist, whose terror plots had killed U.S. Air Force Maj. Rodolfo I. Rodriguez and Navy Cryptologic Technician Third Class Petty Officer Matthew J. O’Bryant, was taken out in an airstrike, there was no mention of the fallen American military personnel killed by his attacks.
Instead Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis, the point man for the tough bombing campaign against ISIS, declared, "The death of Qari Yasin is evidence that terrorists who defame Islam and deliberately target innocent people will not escape justice."
That was in 2017.
20 years after the flag of Islam flew at the World Trade Center, we were no longer killing Islamic terrorists to avenge our dead or even to defend ourselves, but to punish those who “defame Islam.”
Meanwhile, Kris Bauman, who had argued that, “the Obama Administration must find creative (but legal) ways to include Hamas in a solution” held down the position of Senior Director for Israeli, Palestinian, Jordanian and Egyptian Affairs from 2017 to 2018 until John Bolton took over the National Security Council. These days, Bauman heads the Eisenhower Center at the Air Force Academy.
The problem is structural.
Our national security infrastructure and our entire strategic apparatus is run by people who think like Mattis and Bauman. It’s run by them under Democrat and Republican administrations. Their views represent the consensus that terrorism can’t be defeated, it can only be defused or appeased.
There’s been some debate over whether we should be negotiating with the Taliban.
We’ve been officially negotiating with the Taliban since at least 2013. That’s a long time to be holding talks when there’s nothing to actually talk about. We will eventually withdraw from Afghanistan. The Taliban will eventually take over Afghanistan. What then is there to talk to the Taliban about?
And yet our foreign policy apparatus insists that we can’t pull out until we get the Taliban to commit to respecting Afghanistan’s constitution. Why do we care about the Afghan constitution anyway? Did thousands of Americans really die in Afghanistan to uphold a constitution that upholds Islamic law?
Or did we begin this war to avenge our dead and to punish the perpetrators and their allies?
The debate over interventionism and appeasement has left September 11 behind. The interventionists insist that we have an obligation to spread democracy and the appeasers claim that we’re warmongers
Neither side likes this country very much. And neither side cares about what happened on this day.
If we are to have a meaningful strategy, it has to begin on a fall Tuesday. It has to start in the cockpit of one of the hijacked planes. It has to start with a prayer from a terrorist and from one of his victims.
“In the name of Allah, the Most Merciful, the Most Compassionate,” a terrorist declares on the Flight 93 cockpit recording. That’s followed by the sounds of the terrorists assaulting a passenger.
“Please don’t hurt me,” he pleads. “Oh God.”
Flight 93 is a reminder that we are a brave and courageous people. But that we have to wake up first.
And to wake up, we have to understand what it is we’re facing. On September 11, 2001, hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands, and eventually millions of Americans were forced to wake up.
Some died. Most went back to sleep. And some still remember.
9/11 was neither a beginning nor an ending. The war we are in has gone on for over a thousand years. It might go on for another thousand making a mockery of the appeasers who lecture about “endless war.”
Wars go on for as long as one side is willing to fight them. The nightmarish reality is that the other side is willing to fight forever. That is a truth too troubling for most people to come to terms with.
But until we understand that, we will have learned absolutely nothing from September 11, 2001.
This is not WW2. It’s not the Cold War. It’s a clash of civilizations. Technology, jet planes and the internet, have allowed our civilizations to overlap each other. War is the inevitable result.
Immigration, not bullets and bombs, is the main weapon of a clash not between armies, but civilizations.
16 years later, we have only begun, not to fight, but to defend ourselves against a clash of civilizations.
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Louis Foxwell
Did we learn anything from 9/11? The short answer is:No.
Yep. We learned the Stockholm Syndrome is real. Many vapid Americans have come to identify with the Muslim jihadists and resist the efforts of righteous Americans who are trying to defend their nation, culture and heritage.
No. We learned nothing.
We admitted swarms of Moslems into the country. Would we have admitted Nazis into this country during WWII?
We allow CAIR to operate in the US instead of shutting it down and imprisoning its leaders as we did with German-American Bund.
We have morons constantly supporting Islam and enabling Islam.
We’ve learned nothing. in fact, we have worked hard to avoid learning anything.
Yep. Islam is a religion of peace. El presidente taught me that. The MSM amplified it. It must be true.
We have learned that we SHOULD have expelled every single practicing Muslim from the US, including those born as US citizens who have converted to Islam. Non-practicing Muslims are acceptable, but only on condition they do not later choose to resume practice of their cult.
Not many Muslims in Japan.
We have many problems our current government cannot acknowledge, much less address. Not a big problem. Our NEXT government will.
Islam began in 610 AD.
It has been a blight on mankind ever since.
Even Genghis Khan thought it was bad.
In conquering civilizations, all were allowed to keep their religions and local governments and pay annual taxes, except Islam. The Khan had so many problems with Islam and its followers that his only option was to raze their cities and enslave or kill their populations.
Too many people fell for the Mighty Mouse cartoon schtick: allow evil enemies who want to kill you to fly away, heal, and grow stronger so that they can come back to attack you again. I never did understand that philosophy.
I thought/hoped that at the very least, the USA would become more isolationist in relation to the Islamic world after 9/11. Instead the opposite happened. Funny how the opposite often happens. When the AIDS crisis began in the early 80's one would have thought there would be a backlash against gays and their abhorrent lifestyle. Instead, the whole country is becoming gay.
I remembered thinking the USA was lucky to have G.W. Bush as president rather than Gore in 2001. Now I don't think it would have made any difference if Gore had been POTUS.
“Yep. We learned the Stockholm Syndrome is real. Many vapid Americans have come to identify with the Muslim jihadists and resist the efforts of righteous Americans who are trying to defend their nation, culture and heritage.”
We have become country where a significant portion of the population is begging the government to come and take our guns. What else needs to be said?
I learned that a LOT more of our politicians are NOT on our side as I thought.
They really don’t mind of thousands of we “little people” get slaughtered... as long as it helps THEM accomplish their goals of power and personal wealth.
I don’t know who “we” is but anyone with half a brain learned quickly that we are dealing with a deadly enemy in Islam and its goal of Worldwide Islamic Supremacy.
Patriots should not flinch at fully defeating Jihadism in and toward America.
Christians should be aware that the century of 2000 being the the beginning of the third millennium AD and the overall seventh millennium of man will be the millennium of Rest on Earth as God rested the seventh day for his works (Heb 4:3,10) - the Day of the Lord (”day” being 1000 years) begun with Islam’s “wake-up call”.
The End of the Age and the Day of the Lord is at hand. On the horizon is the first thing that happens - the seven-year Tribulation of the Wrath of the Lamb towards those on the earth who have rejected Christ as their Savior and Redeemer, God using Islam and Satan himself to dominate and kill. Such unimaginable horror as the earth has never nor will ever see (Matt 24:21).
But after the seven years comes 1000 years of the reign of the Prince of Peace - peace and happiness for 1000 years as the world has never known. Contrast God’s love with his love, grace, and mercy - seven years of wrath versus 1000 years of peace and mercy.
These things will launch soon IMO in the latter part of this century I think. These are the things we should be learning form 911 and beyond.
The nation elected partially Muslim-raised Barack Hussein Obama just 7 years after 9/11/01, and reelected him despite the harm he had already done to the country. Obama was and is a self-described Marxist and ally of the Islamists. Yes, he had crappy opponents in McCain and Romney, but that’s an excuse. The Left continues its long March. So the resounding answer is no, we haven’t learned a thing.
Sure we did.
We learned Islam is peace.
The Saudis are close and warm allies.
We learned to get groped and felt up at airports.
We learned that we can only be safe if the Government can hoover up every single phone call, letter, email, text message etc.
we learned that we need a new government agency (DHS) with a creepy nazi name, the manpower of the USMC and twice the budget.
We learned that when a nation attacks you, you should launch wars in 5 or 6 other countries but maintain warm relations with the one that attacked you.
We learned that the best way to investigate the attack was to pit Gorelick on the commission even though she was directly responsible for one of our biggest weaknesses.
We learned that after the cold war ended we needed a new enemy to replace the USSR until Russia could be properly cultivated as a new enemy.
We learned that we could smash Germany and Japan in 3.5 years, but that after 18 years in Afghanistan, we are about to hand over power to the same people in charge when we were attacked on 9/11.
We learned that the best response to a Sunni attack is to send soldier to spread Sunni influence over secular middle east nations like Syria, to import 2 million moslem enemies into America, and build 1000 new wahabbist Sunni mosques in America.
Yeah... I’d say we’ve learned a lot.
Never forget... sadly, America never learned anything from what took place.
Just look at what has taken place since 9/11 and where we are now as a nation concerning the threat of Islam and Muslim terrorists within our midst.
After all the Kumbaiya, flowery speaches, and “memorial services” were over, Islam and the socialist/communist left in and outside of America began a concerted, well laid, well financed campaign to promote Islam, NUTTER and SILENCE everyone proclaiming the FACTS and TRUTH about Islam, its blood thirsty founder Mohammed, its doctrine of violence, terror, conquest, and hate, and its blood soaked history.
While making Islam the wronged “victim,” and turning those expressing concern and exposing the genuine threat Islam poses into “the ‘REAL THREAT”: dangerous, “enemies of progress and enlightenment”; crazy Christians, and American flag waving “zenophobes” and “Islamophobes”,
Today, all over America, public schools and universities are openly, actively promoting Islam and indoctrinating our children and young people, while doing everything within their power to reject and stigmatize Christianity and America’s Judeo-Christian founding and heritage.
And the penultimate insult to everyone who died on 9/11, their families, and all of America: we now have Muslim congressmen who openly proclaim their antisemitism, and hatred for America, Christians, Christianity, Jews, and the nation of Israel while suffering no blowback, condemnation or consequences for their vile, hate-filled beliefs and rhetoric.
“Never Forget”... we never REMEMBERED. Tagline
1. Islam is a religion of peace.
2. Americans should respond to 9/11 by going shopping.
There was no reason to take anything from my government seriously anymore after hearing that idiocy.
Yes we did. We learned the U.S. is full of appeasers who would not be unhappy to find their heads getting lopped off.
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