Victor Davis Hanson: The Eye of the 9/11 Storm [Post-9/11 Hubris, The war@home]

realclearpolitics.com ^ | September 06, 2007 | Victor Davis Hanson

[Tolik]

Another anniversary of 9/11 is near. It's been nearly six long years since a catastrophic attack on our shores, and we've understandably turned to infighting and second-guessing - about everything from Guantanamo to wiretaps.

But this six-year calm, unfortunately, has allowed some Americans to believe that "our war on terror" remedy is worse than the original Islamic terrorist disease.

We see this self-recrimination reflected in our current Hollywood fare, which dwells on the evil of American interventions overseas, largely ignoring the courage of our soldiers or the atrocities committed by jihadists. Our tell-all bestsellers, endless lawsuits and congressional investigations have deflected our 9/11-era furor away from the terrorists to ourselves.

All this tail-chasing comes only with the illusory thinking that the present lull is the same as perpetual peace. Have we forgotten that experts still insist that another strike will come, carried out by those already here or shortly to enter the United States?

<...snip...>

[Tolik]

excerpted because of the Tribune Media Services

also posted here: http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZTEyY2JiMDczOGFjZjJiMmRlN2M3ODc3NjZlNzg1NDQ=

 

[Tolik]

    Victor Davis Hanson Ping ! 

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Links:    FR Index of his articles:  http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/keyword?k=victordavishanson
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[Tolik]

Victor Davis Hanson:

...In short, six years of quiet at home since 9/11 have fooled some into thinking that terrorists pose little danger here - or that we may be doing far too much rather than too little to stop such killers. No matter that this past week a jihadist plot to destroy U.S. facilities in Germany was thwarted.

Others make the mistake of endlessly re-fighting the past six years - who let al-Qaida grow?; who "lost" Osama bin Laden?; who fouled up postwar Iraq? - instead of concentrating on the storm ahead.

Before 2001, the excuse for American complacence and in-fighting was naïveté. But what will be the reason for the next successful strike against us by the jihadists?

More naïveté - or is it simple hubris?

[princess leah]

Americans never see the train until they’re laying on the tracks after being run over! Six years may seem like a long time, but to Jihadist killers it is not much time at all. They are waiting to take advantage of our ADD mentality and “hate AMerica first” attitude by the media and democrats. Another democrat in the white house surely means another attack will be successful.

[Alberta's Child]

It's neither naivete nor hubris.

My guess is that it's a sense of total, abject resignation -- and we can thank the Bush administration for this one.

A government that sends 130,000+ troops halfway around the world to wage a so-called "war on terror" -- while at the same time calling for an unfettered invasion of this country across our southern border -- clearly has something other than the safety and security of its citizenry in mind.

[Tolik]

http://victordavishanson.pajamasmedia.com/2007/09/01/health_and_the_general_welfare.php

September 10th mentality in the post-9/11 world

This weekend I watched ads for new Hollywood movies detailing American evil, not jihadist killing. On C-Span there was a panel in Las Vegas for a libertarian conference; the speakers proudly praised isolationism and the “trumped” up war against jihadism. It was followed by a performance by a Glenn Greenwald at the Cato Institution, assuring us that we are all suffering the loss of our civil liberties (no examples how we are now unfree in our daily lives), due to a fake war against on terror.

I could go on. But I remember instead all the foiled plots since 9/11, the single-individual killings and attacks by radicals in Seattle, San Francisco, North Carolina, LAX airport and so on, and the number of al Qaeda kingpins who were trained or schooled or were living here. Or have we forgotten the careers of José Padilla (aka Abdullah al-Muhajir), Silicon Valley Al Qaeda recruiter Khalid Abu-al-Dahab, “Sheik” Omar Abdel Rahman, Ramzi Yousef, Abdul Rahman Yasin, and loudmouth Adam Gadahn?

Add in Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the Egyptian-American and U.S. army veteran Ali Mohamed, or the “20th-hijacker” Zacarias Moussaoui attended flight school in Oklahoma.

So here we have the ingredients for the looming other side of the present eye of the storm: we are doing too little to stop the jihadists among us while being accused for doing far too much. That’s a prescription for disaster. Perhaps the best example is Guantanamo where, despite Korans, Mediterranean food, and clean conditions, we are told it is a Nazi/Stalinist like Stalig/Gulag. The only mystery will be when we get hit big again—and what will these critics of the present war say?

......

Al Qaeda

Teaching a short class at Hillsdale on post 9/11 terrorism, and just did a Fox interview for an upcoming documentary to be aired on the network. In reviewing the leaders, it is amazing how many of the pre- 9/11 kingpins are either arrested, dead, or in hiding. Almost every single one. (Almost as interesting is the enormous number, as said above, who were visitors or students in the United States, or indeed citizens—and how that paradox is not discussed). A good start is to collate all the names in Peter Bergen’s The Osama Bin Laden I Know, and then ask ‘where are they now?’.

As a footnote, watching the articulant and learned Peter Hitchens in an old pre-Bush adminstraton clip from 2000 explaining the phenomenon of anti-Americanism to Brian Lamb—all this before George Bush or the 2000 elections. My memory of the pre-9/11 Britain was one of deep anti-Americanism on issues like Ireland, Israel, and the Middle East in general. Polly Toynbee’s hysterical hatred of the U.S. in the days after 9/11 seemed to me to be expected. An odd complaint from Hitchens in his interview of 7 years ago was worry about growing US isolationism and withdrawal after the Cold War.

 

[khnyny]

I wouldn’t trust any of the Dems running for POTUS to handle the war on terror. They’re weak.

Seriously, can you imagine Hillary, Obama or Edwards striking fear into the hearts of Al Qaeda? They are all lightweights on every level.

[Tolik]

I see Afghanistan and Iraq as only battles in a bigger struggle against Islamists/jihadists. I don’t think we ever had a choice of acting versus not acting, but acting now versus acting later. In this bloody cold calculation I agree that it was better to act now then later (mistakes and miscalculations and all).

That said, I am puzzled and angered by this inexcusable stupidity of not closing the border. It always was number 1 on my to do list after the 9/11. When the administration failed to do this, they opened themselves to all kind of speculations about their sincerity. I am not going to defend Bush on this, because he is simply wrong.

[Rummyfan]

Off topic of VDH but....

Six years after 9/11 and the border is still open...

Six years after 9/11 and we still have Kabuki theater in place of real airport security...

Six years after 9/11 and ICE and the Department of Homeland Security are unwieldy, unresponsive bureaucratic colossi...

Six years after 9/11 and we have a Congress still fighting the Administration on conduct of the war, both militarily and wrt intelligence gathering (with the help of a hyper-active judiciary)....

Six years after 9/11 and we still have politicians and activists fighting for the rights of homicidal terrorists....

Six years after 9/11 and CAIR and ISNA and other muslim terrorist front-groups still spew theri propoganda daily....

I could go on, but you get the idea!

[ProtectOurFreedom]

Six years after 9/11 and we have tax-payer madrassas being opened in NYC
Six years after 9/11 and we have foot basins installed in the KC airport so our enemies can pray
Six years after 9/11 and public schools in San Diego set aside prayer times for our enemies, with the school board totally disregarding the objections of the citizenry

Yes, we could go on and on and on and on...

[expatguy]

Thanks - the ugly reality that Americans have yet to face is that they might be winning the battle, but losing the war.

From a recent post on my blog - as you can imagine I'm dumbfounded that the United States to this day still has not made ONE comment on the Hizb ut-Tahrir movement.

I've posted the propaganda videos on my site --

What Bush has been warning the West and America about is now becoming a reality and our response seems to be to ignore it and and hope it goes away -

"This past weekend's events in Jakarta, Indonesia should have been a start reminder and a wakeup call to the West of the terrible dangers the world is currently facing in the dark days ahead. To paraphrase Franklin D. Roosevelt, the experience of the past six years should have proven to us beyond a doubt that no nation can appease the the advocates of Islam. No man can tame a tiger into a kitten by stroking it. There can be no appeasement with ruthlessness. There can be no reasoning with an incendiary bomb. We should have, as a viable nation come to the realization that we can have peace with the Islam only at the price of total surrender.

And therein lies the first mental stumbling block that we have yet to overcome, which is the inability to name our enemy. To highlight the profound sophistry, if Islam is a religion of peace, then we seem to be at war with peace.

Historically, the fascism and totalitarianism of the past have for the most part been secular in nature whereas the fascism and totalitarianism that we face today is religious. In Islamic usage, civil society and the congregation of the faithful are conterminous and unlike other religions, Islam is and has always been as much a socio-political ideology as it is a religion. This isn't merely an opinion or speculation on our part, Hizb ut-Tahrir makes their intentions quite clear when they state --

"...living by Islam refers to all aspects of our relationships, all must be in line with Islam. Therefore downplaying the importance of the Khilafah/Islamic State/Imamah in order to emphasize personal rectification is akin to missing salah (prayer) in order to conserve energy for siyam (fasting)..."

What we witnessing now firsthand is not only historical rebirth of fascism and totalitarianism now on the march, but the culmination of our policies of accommodation and appeasement and the fateful consequences of Western fecklessness.

In the aftermath of the attack on Pearl Harbor, it's almost impossible for us to image that Americans would have found themselves on their knees constructing "giant penis-venerating shrines" in the nation's airports to accommodate pious Japanese travelers or that our president Franklin D. Roosevelt and the State Department would be donning kimonos and yukatas as they flitted around from sushi bar to teahouse shouting "kampai" and sipping sake and green tea. Surely none of us could ever imagine our President at the time profusely and tirelessly professing the glorious wonders of Shintoism as he removed his shoes and dedicated a plethora of new Shinto shrines around the country.".../i>

continued at...

An American Expat in Southeast Asia

[Tolik]

Excellent.

I went to your website and found a ton of very good stuff. Sincere thanks!

[TopQuark]

COuld not be said better. BTTT>