Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Mark Steyn: We’re Winning This War
The Spectator ^ | September 13, 2003 | Mark Steyn

Posted on 09/11/2003 10:03:49 AM PDT by quidnunc

The remarkable achievements of the Bush administration, and his enemies’ remarkable refusal to give him credit

The emergency dispatcher wasn’t quite sure she’d heard correctly. ‘Sir, you have what jumping from buildings?’ ‘People. Bodies are just coming from out of the sky… .’

On a day like 11 September 2001, time is both accelerated and suspended. On the top floors of the World Trade Center, office workers who moments earlier had been scheduling lunch appointments and making plans for the weekend had a few seconds to determine the manner of their death — to stay and be burned alive, or to take one last gulp of fresh air as they plunged to the plaza below. For almost everybody else, time is halted: when you’re caught up in the middle of a terrible day, you don’t know that that’s what it is — a day. By 11 o’clock on that Tuesday morning, with the second tower collapsed and the Pentagon on fire and rumours of more missing planes and the White House evacuated, none of us knew how much more was to come. I don’t think you could find many Americans who went to bed that night expecting to get through the next two years without another major terrorist attack on US soil. Yet here we are.

That in itself is remarkable. Even more remarkable is the lack of credit that the Bush administration gets for it.

There are basically two lines on Bush these days. At home, the media and the Democrats argue that Americans are somehow reeling under a terrorist onslaught. As the New York Times’s elderly schoolgirl Maureen Dowd put it last week, ‘We wanted to get rid of Osama and Saddam and the Taleban and al-Qa’eda. We didn’t. They’re replicating and coming at us like cockroaches.’ Really? Osama is replicating? That’s news to me. Considering that the original hasn’t been seen in a year and three quarters, it looks more like he’s plicated. I said in these pages 15 months ago that he’s dead, he’s bin Laden to rest, he’s pushing up daisy-cutters, and I’m sticking with that.

Meanwhile, in Europe, the tinfoil-hat brigade has gone mainstream. Of course America hasn’t been attacked again. That’s because 9/11 was a neocon conspiracy to give Washington a pretext to grab Iraq’s oil and Afghanistan’s, er, rubble. The conspirazoids now include the Rt Hon Michael Meacher, MP, a man who until a few weeks ago was one of Her Majesty’s ministers of state, a fellow who sat at the Cabinet table with Tony Blair and discussed troop deployments. But now, with time on his hands, he’s frolicking merrily on the wilder shores of the Internet. In the Guardian on Saturday, he demanded to know whether US air-security operations had ‘been deliberately stood down on 11 September’ in order to facilitate the attack. Who would do such a thing? Why, Rummy, Cheney, Wolfie and the other sinister graduates of the Project for a New American Century.

Meacher is late to the Mad Hatter’s tea party. I’ve had a gazillion emails a day about this for almost two years. Condi Rice apparently warned all kinds of people not to fly on 11 September. If that’s true, it seems odd that Don Rumsfeld, one of the architects of the conspiracy, didn’t warn himself not to go to the Pentagon that morning. You’d think, being in on the plot, he’d warn himself not to be sitting at his desk as the plane sliced through the building. If Michael Meacher had had advance warning that a plane was going to slam into the Department of the Environment that day, would he have had the cojones to be sitting there dictating a memo to Miss Jones as the nose cone ploughed into the photocopier? Or maybe that’s just how well planned the conspiracy was: Rumsfeld knew the plane would hit the other side of the Pentagon well away from his office, so, if he coolly went to work as usual, he’d throw even expert conspiracy-sniffers like Meacher off the scent. Or maybe there was no Pentagon plane at all; it was a pure invention of the administration, as that French bestseller argued. Or maybe the Pentagon itself is just a thought-form generated by the microchip implanted in Meacher’s brain when he sat next to Dick Cheney at a G7 buffet lunch. Or maybe… .

Looking back at the columns I wrote in the first days after 9/11, I’m pleasantly surprised by how perceptive they were on the self-loathing of the West, the uselessness of the Cold War alliances, the duplicitousness of America’s ‘moderate’ Arab ‘friends’, etc. But I seriously underestimated the degree to which much of Europe would be unhinged by 11 September. If it’s a choice between Meacher or the Continentals who’ve turned down US requests for troop contributions because they want Iraq to go belly up so that Bush gets defeated in 2004 and some wimp Democrat gets elected who’ll treat them with the respect they deserve, I’ll take the latter. Chirac’s decayed cynicism is marginally less unmoored from reality.

But, as the descent into madness of Mr Meacher illustrates, there’s no longer any agreement on what reality is. Last Sunday, the Observer ran a story headlined ‘Bush Seeks An Exit Strategy As War Threatens His Career’: ‘The President will make a dramatic U-turn on Iraq in a TV broadcast tonight to try to salvage his hopes of re-election amid Americans’ growing hostility to the casualties and chaos …approval ratings plummeting …another Vietnam …sons and daughters dying daily …bogged down… .’

Did Bush seek an exit strategy? Did he make a dramatic U-turn? Au contraire. ‘We have carried the fight to the enemy,’ he said. ‘The surest way to avoid attacks on our own people is to engage the enemy where he lives and plans. We are fighting that enemy in Iraq and Afghanistan today so that we do not meet him again on our own streets, in our own cities.’

Are America’s sons and daughters dying daily in guerrilla attacks? No. As I write, no American serviceman has died in Iraq for nine days. Whatever that is, it’s not Vietnam.

Are Bush’s approval ratings plummeting? Gallup has him at 59 per cent. In any case, he always takes August off and his numbers always slip as noisy Democrats run around filling the vacuum. Then September arrives, he comes back to work and they rise again. It’s now an established seasonal variation.

(Excerpt) Read more at spectator.co.uk ...


TOPICS: Editorial; Extended News; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: 2ndanniversary; marksteyn; marksteynlist; wot
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-4041-6061-8081 next last
Quote:

Don’t ask me what the long-term strategy behind these biennial attacks is supposed to be. But, from oh, say, November, it becomes harder with each passing week for the doom-mongers to argue that the lack of activity is consistent with bin Laden’s modus operandi. To be sure, I still read the in-depth reports by experts who say he’s alive and well and living on the Northwest Frontier. But, if he doesn’t show himself, then inevitably those ‘experts’ begin to sound like the fellows who claim to know the whereabouts of Lord Lucan or the truth about the Loch Ness Monster. It’s all very scientific, I’m sure, but sooner or later Lucan and Nessie have to do a bit of work and put in an appearance themselves.

Instead, Osama makes audio cassettes, and he licenses his subordinates to make audio cassettes, and they issue bloodcurdling threats against everyone from the Great Satan to hapless bystanders like Ireland and Canada, and none of those threats comes to pass. They’re all turban and no jihad. They were at it again the other day: ‘We announce there will be new attacks inside and outside [the US] which would make America forget the attacks of 11 September,’ said an al-Qa’eda spokesman.

Maybe he’s right, and by the time you read this Chicago and Atlanta will be ablaze. Or maybe it will be like all the other empty threats. Even in the Hindu Kush at the all-U-can-eat scorpion buffet, you can’t dine out on 9/11 for ever. This is a long war — but for America, with victories at home, in Afghanistan, in Iraq and elsewhere, it’s been a pretty good start.

Good writing, that!

1 posted on 09/11/2003 10:03:49 AM PDT by quidnunc
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: quidnunc; xm177e2; mercy; Wait4Truth; hole_n_one; GretchenEE; Clinton's a rapist; buffyt; ...

Mark Steyn MEGA PING!


2 posted on 09/11/2003 10:06:01 AM PDT by JohnHuang2
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: quidnunc
bookmark for later read
3 posted on 09/11/2003 10:08:29 AM PDT by prairiebreeze (God rest the souls of the 9-11 victims. We Will Never Forget.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: quidnunc
"All turban and no jihad" Classic
4 posted on 09/11/2003 10:08:33 AM PDT by Cuttnhorse
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: quidnunc
Excellent, thank you.
5 posted on 09/11/2003 10:11:33 AM PDT by kimmie7 (Stand up, stand up for Jesus ye soldiers of the Cross! Pray for Terri Schiavo!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: JohnHuang2; seamole; Miss Marple; BOBTHENAILER; Pokey78; prairiebreeze
. As the New York Times’s elderly schoolgirl Maureen Dowd put it last week, ‘We wanted to get rid of Osama and Saddam and the Taleban and al-Qa’eda. We didn’t. They’re replicating and coming at us like cockroaches.’ Really? Osama is replicating? That’s news to me. Considering that the original hasn’t been seen in a year and three quarters, it looks more like he’s plicated. I said in these pages 15 months ago that he’s dead, he’s bin Laden to rest, he’s pushing up daisy-cutters, and I’m sticking with that.

LMAO!

Steyn at his best

6 posted on 09/11/2003 10:11:47 AM PDT by Dog
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: quidnunc
They’re all turban and no jihad.

I think I just found my new tagline...for awhile, anyway.

7 posted on 09/11/2003 10:12:00 AM PDT by HiJinx (They’re all turban and no jihad.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: HiJinx
Darn I missed a great tagline...
8 posted on 09/11/2003 10:17:57 AM PDT by Dog
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 7 | View Replies]

To: quidnunc
But the advantage of sour oppositionism is that whatever happens there’s always something to sneer at.

This applies to a few Freepers as well.

9 posted on 09/11/2003 10:20:07 AM PDT by Warren_Piece (Dont Panic!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

Comment #10 Removed by Moderator

To: Dog
You missed another one. "he’s bin Laden to rest"
11 posted on 09/11/2003 10:23:08 AM PDT by AGreatPer (he’s bin Laden to rest)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 8 | View Replies]

To: quidnunc
Hour by hour, day by day, the jihadists are getting killed and captured. The invasion of Iraq is attracting the deadheads like lambs to the slaughter, has put enormous pressure on Iran, Syria and SA to stop supporting terrorists, and has taken enormous pressure off Israel. SA for the first time is taking effective action against local terrorists, terrorism supporters among the royal family are meeting mysterious deaths, and there is hint that the inciting to violence by the imams will soon be dealt with. Pakistan is quietly aiding in the search for AQ leaders in its tribal regions. And these are only the things we hear about. It will take years for the truth about all the clandestine operations going on to surface.

Yes, indeed, we are winning. In spades.
12 posted on 09/11/2003 10:24:11 AM PDT by B.Bumbleberry
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: quidnunc
If it’s a choice between Meacher or the Continentals who’ve turned down US requests for troop contributions because they want Iraq to go belly up so that Bush gets defeated in 2004 and some wimp Democrat gets elected who’ll treat them with the respect they deserve, I’ll take the latter.

Tears in my eyes on this one, because it's true. But "all turban and no jihad" is destined to become immortal.

13 posted on 09/11/2003 10:24:48 AM PDT by Billthedrill
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: seamole; quidnunc
seamole, thanks for posting the entire article. This excerpting is getting totally out of hand, eh, quidnunc?

quidnunc, you have been around for a while, come on, you know that the only thing that needs to be excerpted is the WP and LAT articles.

14 posted on 09/11/2003 10:25:24 AM PDT by mattdono
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 10 | View Replies]

To: quidnunc
Steyn is, of course, absolutely correct...yet the sqad fact is that the Bush administration cannot, or perhaps fears, claiming credit for the fact that there has not been ONE single terrorist incident in the USA since 9/11, because, if the next day, a Moslem farted in Times Square, the entire media and the Dem candidates would be accusing W of hubris, and wailing that the administration was funding Homeland Security enough..
15 posted on 09/11/2003 10:28:19 AM PDT by ken5050
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Dog; JohnHuang2
At home, the media and the Democrats argue that Americans are somehow reeling under a terrorist onslaught.

That onslaught was just reduced by 80 foreign terrorists captured north of Baghdad, by the 101st.

16 posted on 09/11/2003 10:31:20 AM PDT by BOBTHENAILER (One by one, in groups or whole armies.....we don't care how we getcha, but we will)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: JohnHuang2
Bump and read later.
17 posted on 09/11/2003 10:31:24 AM PDT by LiberationIT
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: quidnunc
"...pretext to grab Iraq’s oil and Afghanistan’s, er, rubble"

I love this liberal nonsense. My sister wanted to take me to an Afghani restaurant and I asked her why she would want to dine at a place that made high cuisine from......dirt.

18 posted on 09/11/2003 10:32:52 AM PDT by Grammy
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Cuttnhorse
That one had me LOL as well. :-)
19 posted on 09/11/2003 10:34:22 AM PDT by Flashman_at_the_charge
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: mattdono
mattdono wrote: seamole, thanks for posting the entire article. This excerpting is getting totally out of hand, eh, quidnunc? quidnunc, you have been around for a while, come on, you know that the only thing that needs to be excerpted is the WP and LAT articles.

Thge reason WP and LAT articles must be exerpted is because they sued Free Republic for violation of copyright — i.e. theft of intellectual property — and won.

Those same same protections extend across the spectrum to all copyrighted materials.

Why do you think the recording industry has decided to sue music downloaders right and left?

It is not beyopnd the realm of possibility that if publications continue to get their stuff stolen, content will either be not available on-line, or will be posted as non-copyable PDFs.

I post some articles in their entirity, but not conservative-friendly stuff.

Those people deserve the courtesy of a page-view hit.

20 posted on 09/11/2003 10:40:09 AM PDT by quidnunc (Omnis Gaul delenda est)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 14 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-4041-6061-8081 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson