Althouse: 9/11.

September 11, 2016

9/11.

48 comments:

ndspinelli said...: I was teaching middle school history on 9/11. It's an overused phrase, but it was quite the teachable moment. I'm sure many PC teachers didn't and don't feel the same.; 9/11/16, 7:04 AM
rhhardin said...: I thought it was impressive, stupid and self-defeating. Immediately said issue guns to all airline passengers.

That doesn't seem to have caught on.; 9/11/16, 7:10 AM
David Begley said...: And 15 years later we are still at war.

Just saw one of the Bengazhi guys, Tig. He said winning hearts and minds ain't working. They will never change. As war historian Victor Davis Hanson has written many times, we have to defeat the enemy so that they know they are defeated. Such has been the case from when man first started warring.; 9/11/16, 7:11 AM
rwnutjob said...: If you kill enough of them, they stop fighting.
~Curtis LeMay; 9/11/16, 7:14 AM
Curious George said...: For many the tagline isn't Never Forget, it's Never Learn. Despite what happened on 9/11, and since, and he daily terrorist incidents in Europe, the left want to bring more of this vermin here. Insanity.; 9/11/16, 7:19 AM
MisterBuddwing said...: Despite what happened on 9/11, and since, and he daily terrorist incidents in Europe, the left want to bring more of this vermin here.

"Vermin" = Muslims, is what I presume you're saying?; 9/11/16, 7:36 AM
Kevin said...: "Petrov’s shift ended at 8 A.M. Usually, he stuck around to have coffee with the morning staff but on September 11, 2001, he decided to go straight home. He went down to the parking lot in the basement to get his car, and, as he was driving out, the first plane hit the building. He saw debris but nothing else and thought little of it until he got home and turned on the news. He called his friends at the restaurant. It was the last time he spoke with them."; 9/11/16, 7:40 AM
Quayle said...: The left in the west is so tragically blind. They can't see that when the towers came down as they did, at the hands of murderous religious fanatics, so did the entire western left's political and social world view.

Their pat Marx inspired answer for why people attack the west was contradicted. These were not proletariat farmers and workers flying Boeing planes. These were educated men funded by money from oil, made valuable by the development, use, and purchases of the west.

The left's instinctive rush to embrace the attackers as "warriors in the struggle against the capitalists" was and is bizarre and self destructive, as the violent attackers were as much or more attacking the libertine decadence so fiercely defended by the left as they were attacking wall street. The more Muslims the left allows into the country (and don't mistake my personal position - have no issue living with 99.9% of Muslims) - the more Muslims the left allows into the country, the more votes they amass against gay rights, abortion, the western version of women's rights, etc.

My daughter lived three block off of Tahrir Square in Cairo, just after the Arab spring. I have video she took and sent to me of Egyptians demonstrating in Tahrir Square shouting against Obama. They don't view the American left with any more love than they necessarily do the American right. But the left flatter themselves that if they embrace Muslims and condemn conservatives as "Islamophobes", that the love will be returned from Muslims to the left.

But it won't. And except for a few like Christopher Hitchens, who had this point nailed, the left is spectacularly and, it would seem, fatally blind to the dangers to themselves of this disarming "political aids virus" thinking. They don't even attempt a defense against their own intellectual opponents from Islam, choosing to focus their ire solely against the western conservatives.

They miss, apparently, that the Muslims are closer to Mormons than they are or ever will be to Marxists.; 9/11/16, 8:01 AM
traditionalguy said...: The day Muslims start to love Jews is the day that Muslims will also become safe people for Americans. Wishful thinking time is over.; 9/11/16, 8:10 AM
viator said...: A gripping read; 9/11/16, 8:13 AM
Anonymous said...: Fifteen years on and nothing has been learned. Nothing.

At least the Bourbons remembered things. In the eternal 1968 of Clown World, history is without form, and void.; 9/11/16, 8:15 AM
Robert Cook said...: "Just saw one of the Bengazhi guys, Tig. He said winning hearts and minds ain't working. They will never change. As war historian Victor Davis Hanson has written many times, we have to defeat the enemy so that they know they are defeated. Such has been the case from when man first started warring."

Who, exactly, is the enemy? What drives them? What are their goals? How and when have we even tried to win hearts and minds?

"If you kill enough of them, they stop fighting.
~Curtis LeMay"

Do you suggest we obliterate the entire Middle East? This seems to be the way it's going.

"For many the tagline isn't Never Forget, it's Never Learn."

Yes, but the lesson not learned isn't what you think it is.; 9/11/16, 8:20 AM
Meade said...: 15 years ago, I was reading NYT when our friend Molly phoned to tell us to turn on the TV.; 9/11/16, 8:20 AM
Quayle said...: "The day Muslims start to love Jews"...

Well, a lot of Muslims appear to have been cooperating across the Jordan River and across the northern Sinai for a few decades now.

Which is one of the chief complaints of other Muslims, but that is another point.; 9/11/16, 8:27 AM
MisterBuddwing said...: I live in Arlington, Virginia. On the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, I was briefly awakened in the middle of my night (as a second-shift office worker) by a horrible screeching sound of some kind.

To this day, I wonder if that was the sound of American Airlines Flight 77 smashing into the Pentagon.; 9/11/16, 8:30 AM
Anonymous said...: Robert Cook: Yes, but the lesson not learned isn't what you think it is.

True, but it's probably not what you think it is, either. Well, maybe half of what you think it is.; 9/11/16, 8:30 AM
Bob Boyd said...: @ viator

Thanks for linking that. An extraordinary account.; 9/11/16, 8:44 AM
Ann Althouse said...: @meade

Yes, me too. I was reading the NYT as I did every morning with no thought of turning on broadcast media. I didn't k ow what was happening until I went into work and greeted someone with my usual sunny "good morning" and got a "haven't you seen the news? response.

And yes, I did read that awful Bill Ayres thing, the worst-timed career restart ever.; 9/11/16, 8:57 AM
Paco Wové said...: "that awful Bill Ayres thing, the worst-timed career restart ever."

That poor, poor man. How he suffered so.; 9/11/16, 9:07 AM
Bob Ellison said...: Sample the Koran. Islam is a death cult, hater of women, hater of gays, hater of freedom, hater of religious liberty, sponsor of pedophilia, hater of Jews, killer of tribes, totalitarian.

9/11 was the result. Even George W. Bush got this wrong.; 9/11/16, 9:07 AM
David53 said...: I was teaching a class of fourth graders in San Antonio. We had a tv in the room so I turned it on and we watched some. I was stunned, shocked, overcome with emotion. I wonder how my kids remember it? It was the last year I taught.; 9/11/16, 9:09 AM
Bob Ellison said...: It sounds so nice to say that we should respect all religions.; 9/11/16, 9:09 AM
AllenS said...: About 2 weeks before 9/11 I had just bought my first computer. On that morning, I had the TV on one of the news shows, and was trying to learn more about the computing world, when in the other room where the TV was, I heard about the first plane hitting the tower. Eventually that morning, I found a website (actually it was a blog) that was run by Megan McArdle called Jane Galt. I slowly quit watching the TV and graduated to the computer to learn what was going on in the world. The simple fact that the TV shows eventually refused to show that person who jumped to his death from the burning tower was the main reason that I refused to watch anything on TV for my news. Cowards.; 9/11/16, 9:16 AM
Curious George said...: "Robert Cook said...
Yes, but the lesson not learned isn't what you think it is."

Why don't you enlighten us Cookie?; 9/11/16, 9:33 AM
todd galle said...: Watched the event from a work TV. State (PA) let staff out early. Oldest child had a grade school swim event at the district natatorium. School staff were at the door to tell attendees that the kids knew nothing about the attacks, we should tell them after. Our families end of innocence.; 9/11/16, 9:37 AM
viator said...: BREAKING: Hillary Has Medical Issue At 9/11 Event – Faints While Leaving

https://twitter.com/RickLeventhal; 9/11/16, 9:37 AM
jaydub said...: Regarding Hillary: Supposedly, she left the 911 ceremony undexpectedly, was escorted tot he curb to wait for her van where her knees appeared to buckle and she lost a shoe under the van before her detail got her into the van. Significantly, the reporters who are assigned to her campaign have been prevented from following her and the campaign has not responded to questions. It was described by police there as a "medical event."; 9/11/16, 10:04 AM
exiledonmainstreet, green-eyed devil said...: Paco Wové said...
"that awful Bill Ayres thing, the worst-timed career restart ever."

It doesn't seem to have hurt him in the long run, as it. His friend got elected President and Ayers and Dohrn have visited the WH. No word as to whether or not Ayers got to trample on a flag there.

On 9/11, I was at work. The physicians' lounge down the hall had a TV and I was running back and forth to watch the reports. I walked in to the lounge just as the second tower came down. Needless to say, very little work was done that day.

I vividly remember the jumpers, as well as the Palestinians cheering and passing out candy. That's another scene that has disappeared from the airwaves forever.; 9/11/16, 10:23 AM
Big Mike said...: And yes, I did read that awful Bill Ayres thing, the worst-timed career restart ever.

@Althouse, wouldn't it have been awful, regardless of the timing? How does one justify killing random people to make a political point? Anyway the awfulness of Bill Ayers' timing didn't stop you from voting for his protege.; 9/11/16, 10:26 AM
Big Mike said...: @Cookie, I would have thought that the "winning hearts and minds" thing was thoroughly disproven by Vietnam.

You win a war by destroying the enemy's ability to wage war. End of story.; 9/11/16, 10:31 AM
Mark said...: If you kill enough of them, they stop fighting.
~Curtis LeMay

Yeah, how did that work out in Vietnam? Whose running the country now - and has been for 40 years?

He said winning hearts and minds ain't working. They will never change.

The most potent weapon in warfare is the will. Not nuclear missiles, not smart bombs on drone aircraft, not carriers or tanks or rifles. The will. Whoever has the superior will is going to prevail. The communist Vietnamese had the will to fight and continue fighting regardless of cost. They knew that the U.S. did not have that will - and they were right.

Osama bin Laden said, with respect to the 9-11 attacks, that he expected that the U.S. might respond fairly heavily, but that we lacked the will to continue and that eventually we would give up. History has proven him right.

The Islamists have the will to engage in perpetual war with anything and anyone that does not submit to the religion of Submission (Islam), especially their historic enemy - the Christian West. Perpetual war. Unlike the Nazis or Soviets, both of whom were fairly rational in that they valued their lives, the Islamists are a death cult. Killing them will not extinguish the will.

Meanwhile, to see the efficiency of winning hearts and minds, just take a look around. The enemy seems to be doing a pretty good job of undermining the hearts and minds of Americans. It's working pretty well for them.; 9/11/16, 10:42 AM
David Begley said...: Jaybub

Now her campaign says Hillary became "overheated." 82 degrees. She went over to her daughter's multi-million dollar apartment.; 9/11/16, 10:45 AM
Mark said...: While I was drafting the above, this was posted --

You win a war by destroying the enemy's ability to wage war.

No, you win a war by destroying the enemy's will to wage war. What kind of war-waging ability does it take to destroy a 100-plus story building? It takes a box cutter and the will to give your life.; 9/11/16, 10:46 AM
Rusty said...: "Yeah, how did that work out in Vietnam?"

Actually quite well. We beat both the NVA and Vietcong on the ground. General Giap admitted that the north had no more men and materiel to wage war. America lost in the living rooms of the American people.

You wage war to win, by any means necessary. The side with the means and the will to use it will prevail.; 9/11/16, 10:59 AM
Big Mike said...: @Mark, yes and no. There were plenty of Southerners ready and willing to fight on as guerillas after Lee's surrender, so the will was there. After Sheridan burned the Shenandoah Valley to cinders and Sherman's march, the ability to wage war was gone. But I will mostly take your comment as a friendly amendment.; 9/11/16, 11:00 AM
jaydub said...: @ David Begley - I think it's time for Hillary to put the rumors regarding her health to bed by releasing her autopsy report.; 9/11/16, 11:07 AM
Sydney said...: I was seeing patients that day. I remember one of the staff members asking me where the World Trade Center was, then saying an airplane crashed into it. I thought it was a little private airplane with a bad/lost pilot or something. Between every patient visit when I came out of a room she would update me. It was an airliner. Another plane crashed into another tower. A plane crashed into the Pentagon. A plane went down in a field. The reality of what happened slowly sunk in in 15-20 minute intervals. After that it was surreal. Very hard to concentrate on minor patient complaints like bunions or warts or sniffles.
My husband was home in our back yard. He saw an unusually low flying jet airliner go over our house. We now know that Flight 93's flight path went over our area on its way to PA.
My children's school cancelled recess and told them there were bees on the playground.; 9/11/16, 11:41 AM
eric said...: Hillary does not look well today. I've been rather dismissive of all the Hillary is sick stories, but I'm not so sure now.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kr4-msfE6Mw; 9/11/16, 1:03 PM
mockturtle said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 9/11/16, 1:05 PM
Sebastian said...: Hill is ill.

But Sick Hillary! will protect us from the next 9/11.; 9/11/16, 1:10 PM
wildswan said...: Watched The Man in The Red Bandana as I usually do on 9/11.; 9/11/16, 4:21 PM
rhhardin said...: Illary, as the Brits say.; 9/11/16, 4:38 PM
rhhardin said...: If you can't take the heat, get out of the kitchen.; 9/11/16, 4:50 PM
gadfly said...: So the New York Times headline read "U.S. ATTACKED" with the subhead
"HiJACKED JETS DESTROY TWIN TOWERS AND HIT PENTAGON IN DAY OF TERROR."

Had the subsubhead read "Women, Minorities, Hardest Hit," we would have been better prepared for the coverup that has completely entrapped us in an unwinable "War on Terror" against immaginary terrorist groups known by such names as al Qaeda, Muslim Brotherhood, Islamic State (ISIS, ISIL), Hamas, Hezbollah, the PLO, and the beat goes on.

What if terrorism was “what states want to happen or let happen?” And what if the likes of the CIA, through Director George Tenet, floated the story that bin Laden and his rag-tag band of mujahideen, represented unexpected evil power that explained "everything" and thus refocused the public attention on a picture and a face to hate and to blame.

In an American Spectator article, "Osama bin Elvis" dated in 2009, respected writer Angelo Codevilla, who formerly worked in military intelligence, exposed the misinformation foisted upon the American public concerning Osama bin Laden as the most dangerous rich man in the world and al Qaeda as his manifest independent and indestructable force that would take over the world.

Cutting to the chase, it turns out, according to Codevilla's research, that 9/11 was planned and financed by none other than a group of Pakistani Baluchs headed by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM) and included the perpetrators of the 1993 World Trade Center bombings.

And contrary to popular belief, as subsequently imposed upon us in 2011 with Obama regime videos, OBL really died and was buried in December 2001, which means people died to get Obama reelected in 2012.; 9/11/16, 5:57 PM
Robert Cook said...: "I remember one of the staff members asking me where the World Trade Center was, then saying an airplane crashed into it. I thought it was a little private airplane with a bad/lost pilot or something."

I work downtown a few blocks from the Towers and went out to see what was happening after a woman came into our building, sobbing that a plane had crashed into the World Trade Tower. I walked to the corner--which was exactly due north of the towers, with the North Tower half-obstructing the view of the South Tower--and I saw the jagged hole in the north face of the Tower, with flames and smoke billowing out. The size of the towers from the ground was always deceiving--they were bigger and taller than one perceived them to be--and even seeing the damage first hand, I and others gathered around me all thought it was just that, a small private plane, perhaps a business jet that seated a dozen or so people, at most. It didn't look--from the ground--like the sort of damage a full-size jet-liner would have caused. We also thought it had to be an accident.

As we were standing there, the second plane hit the South Tower. Standing due north, we couldn't see the plane...we just saw the South Tower suddenly explode into a fireball. Some wondered aloud if the electrical systems between the two towers were connected in such a way that the damage to the first tower had caused the secondary explosion in the second tower. We couldn't conceive that a second plane had just driven itself into the building. (I recall someone in the periphery of the small group having said "Oh, no," just a milli-second before the explosion. He must have glimpsed the second plane heading toward the tower from his slightly more oblique viewpoint.); 9/11/16, 6:25 PM
narciso said...: well there was an operational cell of baloch, as laurie mylroie has pointed out, like ksm who was the planner, another one ammar, was the finance guy, almost all are at gitmo, but there was a infrastructure of mostly saudi financiers, ex? intelligence operatives who were the facilitators, in sarasota and san diego,and many places in between, that the 28 pages touched on,; 9/11/16, 6:56 PM
MadisonMan said...: I was working, same desk as I have now, and my office-mate said that a plane had hit the WTC. What an odd thing to have happened. By the time we saw the second plane live on TV hit tower #2, well you knew something was up. I was out of my office then, watching a TV. (Where? I don't recall)

Got very little done that day.; 9/11/16, 7:23 PM
mockturtle said...: It was still early here on the west coast when my daughter called and asked:
Mom, do you have the TV on?
No, why?
A plane just flew into the World Trade Center!

I seem to recall that I put it on CNN and they were showing 'Style with Elsa Klensch' so I put it on NBC, I think.

Still on the phone, and as I watched, the second plane hit the other tower. Then we knew it was no accident. The horror of it took a while to absorb.; 9/11/16, 8:59 PM