In my view, in their gut, too many Americans simply don't think 9/11 was all that bad!
My suspicions started shortly after 9/11 in New York, the city hardest hit. Nobody said it with these exact words and melody, but what I distinctly heard from so many New Yorkers was: "Oh, it was awful. Brutal. Treacherous. Cruel. But, WOW, how ABOUT all that!"
Breathtaking spectacle triumphed over dastardly deed.
Strange! When Poland was invaded by Nazi Germany, did Poles say to each other: "Awful. Brutal. Treacherous. Cruel. But, WOW, did you see the speed of those German Tiger tanks? And how those Stuka dive bombers leveled off at not much more than treetop high?"
When South Korea was invaded by North Korea, did South Koreans say to each other: "Awful. Brutal. Treacherous. Cruel. But, WOW, look how they cut through our pitiful defenses like a hot knife through butter!"
Football may help explain this better. Imagine the quarterback faking a pass and, with the flair of a good stage magician, handing off to a running back, who darts through a gaping hole for 26 yards.
Would the defensive players smile and say, "Man, he really faked us out of our jocks, didn't he"? No way. They'd frown and vow to go charging in and sack him for a 10-yard loss on the very next play.
Grudging admiration of the atrocity suggests insufficient outrage on the part of the victim.
Consider the complaints battering President Bush:
"Where are the weapons of mass destruction?"
"Where's the connection between Saddam and al-Qaeda?"
"They're picking our troops off one by one and two by two."
"Afghanistan is a mess."
"We're making a hash out of building democracy in Iraq."
"What exactly was the threat Saddam posed to the United States?"
Even the great Arthur Schlesinger, no Republican, to be sure, but brilliant and usually well worth reading, comes across like a junior speechwriter for Howard Dean, kvetching about Bush "manipulating" America into war.
Consider what all those lamentations have in common.
They would all be reasonable. They would all be valid. I would have agreed with every one of them â PROVIDED THERE HAD NEVER BEEN A 9/11!
If so many Americans amplified by so much media can perseverate endlessly on those issues AFTER 9/11, then I'm convinced we're not, in our gut, at "war." We're at "foreign policy." When a population is at war they coagulate together. When they're at foreign policy, it's business as usual for every opportunistic dart aimed at the administration.
A radio talk host who invited me on his show to heckle me about my last column, which called for an American attitude similar to that of World War II, zeroed in on my line about having been raised on "Remember the Alamo!" "Remember the Maine!" and "Remember Pearl Harbor!" I asked in that screed, "When's the last time you were exhorted to 'Remember 9/11?' "
"Our historians have done a pretty good job," he said, "discrediting any remembrance of the Alamo and the Maine. Those are bad examples."
"Right you are," I said. "Let me give you some better ones. How about 'Remember Khobar Towers!' 'Remember the Cole!' 'Remember the East African embassies!' Have you heard much of that, before or since 9/11?" His guns fell silent.
Things are NOT going as well as we planned, hoped or expected in Iraq. But things are blessedly and mercifully far from disastrous, too!
During World War II when the Nazis stormed through Belgium, outflanking France's famous Maginot Line defenses and threatening to expose all of Britain's forces fighting Hitler on the continent of Europe to annihilation or capture, England's Prime Minister Winston Churchill told the British people (I hope you can imagine his accent!), "The news from France is verry baaaad tonight!"
How could Churchill get away with that? Because the British people were united into one clenched fist. There weren't nine or 10 prime minister wannabes with blood in their breath saying to themselves: "Hot dog! Disaster! Now, how can I best use that disaster to further my campaign?"
President Bush does not have that Churchill luxury. If Bush were to say "Look, my fellow Americans, we are experiencing difficulties in Iraq we did not anticipate," the ceiling would collapse upon his war effort, his re-election effort and his administration. And that's because 9/11 did not really GET to us the way Pearl Harbor did.
An outstanding California Republican, Bruce Hershenson, said: "Too many people think 9/11 is past tense. 9/11 is NOT past tense. 9/11 is PRESENT tense." Bravo, Bruce!
Where is the gut awareness that we are under attack by relentless and resourceful forces that hate us â just as we were in 1941? And as in 1941, we will survive only by removing from those killer forces everything they require for victory.
In August 1942, American Navy ships shelled the Solomon Island of Guadalcanal and U.S. Marines stormed ashore, taking the almost-completed Japanese airfield and eventually the whole island.
Nobody said or even DREAMED of saying: "Those Solomon Islanders didn't attack us at Pearl Harbor. Why are we bombing them and destroying their island?" And that's because, at that time, we accepted the message of Pearl Harbor in a way that we do NOT today accept the message of 9/11.
We knew that the Japanese were building that airfield on Guadalcanal preparatory to an invasion of Australia. We were weak. The Japanese were strong. Unless we could wrest that airfield from them, they might successfully invade Australia before Gen. Douglas MacArthur could build enough of a force there for a comeback.
The question was never "Did those pleasant Pacific Islanders aid our enemy in attacking us?" The only question was "Does Guadalcanal have what our enemy needs to destroy us?"
The answer was yes. In we went. Conquer we did. War we won.
Regarding Iraq today, we should ask NOT "Did Iraq help al-Qaeda pull off 9/11?" but rather, "Is Saddam our friend, a neutral or our foe?" (Saddam had more reason to be our enemy than Osama did. We ARMED Osama against the Soviets in Afghanistan. We destroyed Saddam's army after we chased it out of Kuwait in 1991.)
We should ask NOT "Where are Saddam's weapons of mass destruction?" but rather, "Has Saddam over his career shown an appetite and aptitude for developing and USING weapons of mass destruction, or is he a conventional and small-arms man?" (Raise your hand if you remember Israeli planes destroying his NUCLEAR WEAPONS plant in 1981!)
We ask NOT "Does Saddam threaten America?" but rather, "Will those who DO threaten America have a harder time of it with Saddam in power; or with a U. S./British-OCCUPIED Iraq?"
Fires need oxygen. Terrorism needs STATES, actual countries with embassies and sanctuaries and training camps and supportive police and national treasuries with easy ATM codes and opportunity to phony-up whatever documents are necessary for their kill-Americans operations.
We have already deprived terrorism of two nation states: Afghanistan and Iraq. Iran, whose freedom-starved youth are in the streets against the mullahs, may not be a haven for terrorism much longer. And when that blessed event happens, make sure our Afghanistan and Iraq policy gets its due credit.
If you were little Syria right now, would you clench your little fist and say, "America can't intimidate ME?" Or would you more likely smile, clear your throat and seek out a new national hobby other than supporting world terror?
So, you say Afghanistan's new chief hardly controls everything within the capital's city limits and nothing outside? And you say the situation with Iraq's water, electricity, etc., was better off under Saddam Hussein. You're correct. And I'm sorry about that and I hope it improves rapidly.
But the overwhelmingly important point, though it hardly gets whispered, is that neither Afghanistan nor Iraq is controlled any longer by forces eager and able to harm the United States of America.
My first adventure with this argument against an American leftist was fascinating. When I proposed that Americans aren't really gut-wise embroiled in 9/11 in the way that Poles were against the Nazi invasion or that South Koreans were against the invasion from the north in June 1950, he suggested: "Well, when Poland and South Korea were invaded, that was kind of permanent. Nine-eleven was a hit that left us free and functioning and, therefore, wasn't really all that bad!"
In other words, that gentleman assumes Osama bin Laden's word to his forces preparatory to 9/11 was "Let's hit America real good one more time, and then we'll go back to the mosque and stay there!"
The hijacked planes hit the World Trade Center towers just before 9 a.m. on 9/11. Do you believe Osama bin Laden told his suicide killers: "Look. Try to book planes that will let you slam into the twin towers around 8:45 a.m. Americans work 9 to 5, so if we hit before 9 a.m. we'll kill about 3,000 Americans there, which is about what we have in mind. If we hit half an hour later, when everybody's at work; we may kill 50,000, and that's a bit much!"
Who was the famous poet who said, "The flea, the lowly flea does not kill, but it does as much damage as it can arrange to do?"
During World War II, a field hand on a farm in South Carolina got his draft notice. His boss asked, "Mose, are you ready to go?"
"No, sir," answered Mose. "But I'm willing to go unready."
I ask all of you who hate Bush, crave regime change here, despise militarism in general, lament everything military from shooting to saluting: "Are you ready to join America's war on terrorism?"
I'd love â but do not expect â to hear the reply: "No. But I'm willing to join unready."
Barry Farber
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RS