The Bush Doctrine Began On Flight 93

September 11th was, according to CBS' special commemoration, "The Day That Changed America." Fox, slightly less passive, has gone with "The Day America Changed." But the best proof that nothing has changed are the networks' day-that-everything-changed specials themselves. My pleas not to Dianafy September 11th have fallen on deaf ears. The all-star sob-sisters will be out in force with full supporting saccharine piano accompaniment. The networks have decided America's anger needs to be managed. It's a very September 10th commemoration of September 11th.

So be it. Nations do not change in a day. The only change that occurred on September 11th was a simple one. When Osama bin Laden blew up the World Trade Center, he also blew up the polite fictions of the pre-war world. At Ground Zero, they've been working frantically to clear away the rubble. Likewise, at the UN, EU and all the rest, they've also been working frantically not so much to clear away the mess but to stick it back together and reconstruct the great fantasy world as it existed on September 10th, that bizarro make-believe land where NATO is a "mutual defence alliance" and Egypt and Saudi Arabia are "our staunch friends." Even in America, some people are still living in that world. You can switch on the TV and hear apparently sane "experts" using phrases like "Bush risks losing the support of the Arab League."

The easiest way to understand how little has changed is to consider this: A few weeks ago, Libya was elected to chair the UN Human Rights Commission. Washington doesn't expect much from the UN, but why did it have to be Libya? Okay, it's never going to be America or Britain, but how about Belize or Western Samoa? Why did it have to be something so utterly contemptible of reality as the elevation of Colonel Gaddafi's flunkey? If the multilateral world is irrelevant, it's because its organs -- the UN, EU, NATO -- are diseased and it has shown no willingness in the last year to address the fact.

So, whether or not the world changed, America's relationship with it did. A year on, there's still no agreement as to the meaning of September 11th. To some of us, it was an act of war. To European columnists, it was the world's biggest "but": Yes, it was regrettable, but it was also a logical consequence of America's "cowboy arrogance" blah blah. To the Muslims who celebrated openly in Ramallah, in Copenhagen, in Yorkshire and at Concordia University in Montreal, it was the most spectacular blow yet against the Great Satan. To other Muslims, it was obviously the work of Mossad. To John Lahr, theatre critic of the New Yorker, it was possibly the work of George W. Bush trying to distract attention from Democrat criticism of his missile-defence plans.

When an opinion-former's caught unawares, he retreats to his tropes, however lame, as Lahr and the other reflex lefties did. But the clearest way to understand the meaning of the day is to look at those who were called upon to act rather than theorize. We now know that the fourth plane, United Flight 93, the one that shattered across a field in Pennsylvania, was heading for the White House. Had they made it, it would have been the strike of the day. It might have killed the Vice-President and who knows who else, but, even if it hadn't, think of the symbolism: the shattered façade, smoke billowing from a pile of rubble on Pennsylvania Avenue, just like the money shot in Independence Day. Those delirious Palestinians and Danes and Montrealers would have danced all night.

But they were denied their jubilation. Unlike those on the first three flights, the hostages on 93 knew what their fate would be. They understood there would be no happy ending. So they gave us the next best thing, a hopeful ending. Todd Beamer couldn't get through to anyone except a telephone company operator, Lisa Jefferson. She told him about the planes that had smashed into the World Trade Center. Mr. Beamer said they had a plan to jump the guys and asked her if she would pray with him, so they recited the 23rd Psalm: "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: For thou art with me ..."

Then he and the others rushed the hijackers. At 9.58 a.m., the plane crashed, not into the White House, but in some pasture outside Pittsburgh.

The most significant development of September 11th is that it marks the day America began to fight back: Thanks to the heroes of Flight 93, 9/11 is not just Pearl Harbor but also the Doolittle Raid, all wrapped up in 90 minutes. Those passengers were the only victims who knew what the hijackers had in store for them, and so they acted. The improvisations of Flight 93 foreshadowed the extraordinary innovations of the Afghan campaign, when men in traditional Uzbek garb sat on horses and used laser technology to guide USAF bombers to their targets. The B2s dropped their load and flew back to base -- Diego Garcia or Mississippi.

The Flight 93 hijackers might have got lucky. They might have found themselves on a plane with John Lahr ("You guys are working for Bush, right?") or an Ivy League professor immersed in a long Harper's article about the iniquities of U.S. foreign policy. They might have found themselves travelling with Robert Daubenspeck of White River Junction, Vermont, who the day after September 11th wrote to his local newspaper advising against retaliation: "Someone, someday, must have the courage not to hit back but to look them in the eye and say, 'I love you.' " But, granted these exceptions, chances are any flight full of reasonably typical Americans would have found a group of people to do the right thing, to act as those on Flight 93 did. When you face these terrorists, when you "look them in the eye," you see there's nothing to negotiate. Flight 93's passengers were the first to confront that -- to understand that what they were up against was not "courage" (as I erroneously identified it a year ago) but a psychotic death-cultism in which before committing mass murder one carefully depilates and cleans one's genitalia because paradise is a brothel. They are dangerous only insofar as they're used by wily dictators, cheered on by many of their fellow Muslims and regarded ambivalently by much of the rest of the world.

But, on Flight 93, Todd Beamer, Jeremy Glick, Thomas Burnett, Mark Bingham and others did not have the luxury of amused Guardianesque detachment. So they effectively inaugurated the new Bush Doctrine: When you know your enemies have got something big up their sleeves, you take 'em out before they can do it.

Everything that mattered after September 11th -- Bush's moral clarity, the Afghan innovations and the crystal-clear understanding that this is an enemy beyond negotiation -- was present in the final moments of Flight 93. They're the bedrock American values, the ones you don't always see because everyone's yakking about Anna Nicole or the new "reality-based" Beverly Hillbillies. But we know that when you need them in a hurry they're always there.

Bush will need them in the years ahead because he has chosen to embark on the most ambitious change of all, a reversal of half-a-century of U.S. policy in the Middle East. The polite fictions -- Prince Abdullah is "moderate," Yasser Arafat is our "partner in peace," the Syrian Foreign Minister is as respectable as New Zealand's -- will no longer do. They led to slaughter.

Europe, for one, hasn't caught up to September 11th: When it comes to Saddam, the Continentals are like the passengers on those first three planes; they're thinking he's a rational guy, just play it cool and he won't pull anything crazy.

But America learned the hard way: it's the world of September 10th that's really crazy.

© Copyright 2002 National Post ======================================= Naomi Ragen Please visit my Web page at: http://www.NaomiRagen.com and subscribe to my mailing list by sending an empty email to: naomiragen-on@mail-list.com email:Naomi@NaomiRagen.com

"Let's Roll" has become the motto of 9-11 for a good reason. Americans love winners and hate losers. Gen. George Patton would have approved. When the odds are against you, you fight back. Even lost causes are worth fighting fighting for and what the heroes of Flight 93, in particular Todd Beamer, Jeremy Glick, Thomas Burnett, Mark Bingham and the others well understood was that their deaths were not in vain. They saved their country the shock of an even deadlier blow, which would have happened had the Capitol or the White House been blown to smithereens. We might have never recovered. As it is their quiet anger is exactly what we need to steel ourselves in the fight against the evil that would wipe us out utterly. No, we did not begin our enemies fight but we resolve to finish it. Now let's roll on Iraq as the heroes of Flight 93 look upon us from the heights of Heaven.

the new Bush Doctrine: When you know your enemies have got something big up their sleeves, you take 'em out before they can do it.

The most significant development of September 11th is that it marks the day America began to fight back: Thanks to the heroes of Flight 93.

When it comes to Saddam, the Continentals are like the passengers on those first three planes; they're thinking he's a rational guy, just play it cool and he won't pull anything crazy.

But America learned the hard way: it's the world of September 10th that's really crazy.

All sad, all true. RIP to our Brave Heros. And may God bless our President and everything he touches. May he continue to be guided, strengthened, and comforted by our Lord. Amen.

These people were true hereos. See:

THE HEROES OF FLIGHT 93

Their story should be told to every American child (and adult for that matter).

When the time came to act, they did not worry about their political or physical future, they did not check their pollster, they did not check with lobbyists ... they acted forthrightly and simply did what was right ... what they knew they had to do ... despite the costs. Their victory in the air over Pennsylvania was the first in the war and portrayed what a free, virtuous and moral people can do when pitted against extremeist monsters schooled to kill Americans. It is why:

WE MUST DEDICATE A NATIONAL MONUMENT TO THE HEROES OF FLIGHT 93

... and we, in our turn must act. Forget the UN, forget the naysayers ... Iraq, Iran, Syria, Lybia and others have been abetting, training and financing terrorists who have been killing Americans for years. All of them need to come down. And if ...

RED CHINA or N. KOREA STEPS IN

Then they must come down too. We should be prepared for it. Those two should come down anyway IMHO.

LET'S ROLL!

"...the clearest way to understand the meaning of the day is to look at those who were called upon to act rather than theorize"

When you face these terrorists, when you "look them in the eye," you see there's nothing to negotiate..."

What a powerful message! I know I have prayed these past months that God will give our President the wisdom to know when to strike back, the restraint not to act too quickly in anger. I have feared that acting in haste might start something awful. But I must say reading these words today and thinking about what they mean has changed my thinking. The "something awful" has already been unleashed. There is no going back at this point. There is nothing left to negotiate. When I think about Tod Beamer and the other passengers acting BEFORE it was too late. Now I think the rest of the nation needs to also recite the 23rd Psalm together and without fear go ahead and "ROLL" on Iraq and any other nation that is supporting this radical twisted Islamic Jihad.

joe, thanks for finding this great article.

The enemy knows how important the bravery of our "Lets Roll" people on Flight 93 was.

Immediately, the phoney conservatives here, tried to say the plane was shot down by our fighters and other Bravo Sierra. Some still try it.

What was done by our "Lets Rollers", was the beginning of the end of several decades of brainwashing that we can't do anything about the Islamakazi Terrorism.

As long as we continued to believe that there is nothing we can do about Islamakazi Terrorism, they will be effective in their terrorism.

We had a 9/11 memorial at our church at noon on the Friday following 9/11. It was a very moving service. After the services the women were gathered in small circles, holding each other, hugging each other and crying.

A group of men were discussing the tragedy. Then, someone brought up flight 93. At that time we could only guess what had happened. However, it was enough that we swore that if we were on a plane and the Islamakazis tried to take it over to kill others, we would never allow that happen while we were still alive. The group included vets from WWII, the Korean War, the Cold War, Nam, and Desert Storm, and we knew that if this happened to us. We were back on active duty until we stopped the terrorists.

I sure what happened to us around our church that day, has happened millions of times in America on an individual or small group basis.

Never Again!

Steyn is always good. This time, he is great. Inferentially, he raises the right question to ask of Li'l Tommy Daschle, Kofi Annan, the editors of the New York Times and all the other nay-sayers:

What would you have done, on Flight 93?

Congressman Billybob

Click for major article on turnover in the House of Representatives: "Til Death Do Us Part."

Click for latest column: "The Star-Spangled Banner, Part II, & More Lies from the Media"

Thanks. Sadly, it is an effort that has not gained to traction or mementum that it should IMHO.

We simply MUST create a monument to these people. Their story is a story that all Americans should hear, and that as many as possible should be able to visit there in the countryside of Pennsylvania.

God bless and may we committ ourselves to the same determined fight for liberty that those folks on Flight 93 gave their all for.

Well, I know my sons are very familiar with and have been touched by the valor, bravery and honor showed by these heroes.

They, in turn, shall pass it on to their own.

I pray millions upon millions will not only hear of this story, but make the same commitment in their heart to stand up, be counted and to be active in the defense of liberty and the values that define it in this great Republic like these heroes did on Flight 93.

There is no going back at this point. There is nothing left to negotiate.

Amen to that. If you get the chance, please read this site about the heroes of Flight 93.

There's more direct transcript and quotes about the people who acted that day ... at least from the ones who called in as quoted by those who listened to them. It is likely that a number of others acted with them who simply did not have cell phoness, and.or did not take the time to call.

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