Poll

Did you lose anybody in the attack?

Yes
0 (0%)
No
12 (100%)

Total Members Voted: 11

Voting closed: September 11, 2005, 12:35:31 pm

Author Topic: Never Forget...  (Read 15527 times)

Lord J Esq

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« Reply #15 on: September 11, 2005, 05:42:25 pm »
Quote from: Sentenal
I don't want to argue here.  I really don't.  I had to force myself to stop reading half-way through.  I'll only say that by not attacking these people who come agianst us is wrong.  It shows weakness.  It shows that you can do whatever you want to us, we will ignore you.  These terrorist arn't out for attension.  Us ignoring them will not stop them from attacking us.

Good thing you stopped halfway through. The first half is simply my recollections of September 11 and the immediate aftermath. The second half is...accusatory. =P

Striking at an enemy is fine. But real life is not as simple as we would have it be given our current foreign policies. Ask yourself, who our enemy really is. Today's easy answers are tomorrow's colossal woes. A good foreign policy understands the times, the customs, and the intentions of people everywhere.

Sentenal

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« Reply #16 on: September 11, 2005, 05:50:46 pm »
Our enemy right now are the radical Islamics who want to destroy us.  And we have taken the fight to them.  And I think we have been successful in many respects, though not all.  If a country harbors one of these radicals, and will not turn them over, we will forcefully do it.  Otherwise, they will conspire to attack us.  Our leadership has an obligation to do whatever they feel nessisary in order to protect this country.

Lord J Esq

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« Reply #17 on: September 11, 2005, 06:02:09 pm »
Quote from: Sentenal
Our enemy right now are the radical Islamics who want to destroy us.

I agree that Islam is one of our most prominent enemies. We have no argument here.

Quote from: Sentenal
And we have taken the fight to them.

This is not so. Just or unjust, our war against Iraq has inspired thousands of people who were not terrorists before, both inside Iraq and outside. They have rejected our war and have taken up terrorism to propel the insurgency against us. Now our only choice is to defeat them by force or guile, or to submit to them and withdraw from the country. Neither is a very good choice because of the costs involved; the correct strategy would have been to never make terrorists of them in the first place.

Quote from: Sentenal
And I think we have been successful in many respects, though not all.

When I look at Iraq, my heart sinks. My stomach fills with a cold dread. Why is this? Because we brought democracy to Iraq, and look what they're doing with it: They are creating an Islamic republic. And the reason this angers and dejects me so, is because of what this entails for Iraq's women. We have brought untold misery to that country, much of which is yet to come.

Success? We attacked a country to stop it from using weaopns of mass destruction against us...Those weapons never existed. We attacked to bring freedom to the Iraqi people...They are now embracing Islamic rule of the state. We attacked to depose a dictator and bring peace to the Iraqi people...The insurgency is killing more Iraqis than Saddam ever did. We attacked to fight the terrorists abroad so we wouldn't have to fight them at home...The occupation has created tens of thousands of terrorists. And let's not forget the American casualties, the enormous drain on our economy, the deficit spending, and the terrorist bombings in London, which debunks the premise that we have erected a containment shield around the Middle East. Iraq was a failure. You are right that the underlying goal of making Iraq a closer U.S. ally than it was under Saddam Hussein was certainly a good idea. But the way we went about doing it...was utterly, miserably wrong.

Quote from: Sentenal
If a country harbors one of these radicals, and will not turn them over, we will forcefully do it.

If nothing else, Sentenal, we can learn from our mistakes so as not to repeat them. Iraq was a failed war. Why on Earth should we launch further wars under the same policy? Why not change the policy first...and then we'll talk about war.

Quote from: Sentenal
Our leadership has an obligation to do whatever they feel nessisary in order to protect this country.

Our leadership has an obligation to uphold the prosperity of this country and the wellbeing of its citizens. It has succeeded in neither.

BlueThunder

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« Reply #18 on: September 11, 2005, 06:14:28 pm »
Today is a sad day for people who lost family and friends in 9/11.We should all wish the best for the familys who lost loved ones on this sad day.  :(

Lord J Esq

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« Reply #19 on: September 11, 2005, 06:19:31 pm »
Quote from: BlueThunder
Today is a sad day for people who lost family and friends in 9/11.We should all wish the best for the familys who lost loved ones on this sad day.  :(

Aye, it is a sad anniversary. There is no doubt of that. But wishes are for the powerless and hope is for the weak. If your ambition is to never let such a disaster happen again, then you must seize the power to do more than simply wish and hope for it. The victims of September 11 are dead and gone forever. The best way to honor their memory is to aspire for a better country, and make it so.

BlueThunder

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« Reply #20 on: September 11, 2005, 06:25:55 pm »
I agree with you. We can't wish them back.I personaly didn't lose anyone.If you did that would make you more correct.

Sentenal

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« Reply #21 on: September 11, 2005, 06:26:29 pm »
Like I said, I really don't want to argue here, so I'll just respectfully disagree.

Daniel Krispin

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« Reply #22 on: September 11, 2005, 06:27:14 pm »
Quote from: Lord J esq
I was just going to sleep... I lost no family, no friends, but perhaps I lost my country.


That was well written. Admittedly, I only skimmed through it, but you do make some interesting observations of a transition in American culture. I may not agree with you in absolutely everything you said, but you did indeed bring up some valid points - obviously I belong to the religious right, and I know that you stand on the liberal left and thus I am by my ideology mostly opposed to you, but I cannot deny that when one brings religion into politics and foreign policy it is dangerous ground. It used to be, two thousand years ago, that Christians abstained from even joining the armies of Rome - I wonder when that changed... with Constantine, I suppose. But anyway, as a Canadian, I've never been quite sure if I'm for or against Bush; certainly, I was wary of his invasion of Iraq, and absolutely against it when the UN disallowed it. I'm glad that, in the face of the rule of Canadian people, that our Prime Minister kept us from it. Follow the UN I say - it is there for a reason.

Anyway, I found several of your points rather insightful, especially that which regarded it leading to the obscurity of America on the world stage is rather interesting, a fear that only time will prove to be right or wrong. Maybe its my position as a foreigner (ie. Canadian), but I cannot fully disagree with you as Sentenal did. I stand more in the middle, a little unsure, I think. And if nothing else, you DID write it well.

One more thing regarding what you said.
Quote from: Lord J Esq
It was like something out of Nazi Germany, except the U.S. wasn’t evil yet.


An interesting point, here. My grandfather fought in the very last days of WWII on the Eastern front for Germany (in the last ditch efforts of the Germans, and as they broke and fled west again - he was injured and evacuated in the wake of the Russian advance). But what he has told me, that the politics after September 11 struck him as in some measure similar to that in 1939 Germany. I doubt history will directly repeat itself - and certainly they have yet to - but nonetheless, there is an interestingly slight parallell there, I think.

BlueThunder

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« Reply #23 on: September 11, 2005, 06:34:45 pm »
I know you didn't say anything bad about Bush but he's delt with alot of tradgities.First 9/11 now Hurricane Katrinia,for all of that it makes him a good president.

Silvercry

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« Reply #24 on: September 11, 2005, 07:27:54 pm »
I was 22.  

I remember it quite well.  I was brushing my teeth, having just showered after coing home from PT.  I was wearing my BDU pants and brown undershirt, fuming silently about another crappy day as a soldier in the US Army.  My wife called out to me form the kitchen where she had just turned on the news while making me breakfast: A plane had hit the World Trade Center.

Being a career aviation man, the thought that someone would crash a plane into a building intentionally never occurred to me.  Instead, I was marveling at the level of stupidity required and all the things that would have to fail and go wrong before a plane would even came close to clipping the antenna at the top of the WTC  (I must have left my Occam's Razor in the bathroom).  It wasn’t until I saw the second plane hit that the reality of the situation began to dawn on me.

Needless to say, the trip to the base where I worked was surreal.  The threat-con has skyrocketed in response to the attack.  And once I was there, the day became a blur.  Airfield security became iron clad, in a move that was as frantic as it was methodical.  Looking back, I wonder how much of all the running around we did was to ensure the post was secure, and how much of it was top keep the rank-and-file soldiers from thinking to hard about what it all meant.  Because we all new what it meant, even if were to busy to converse about it.

It meant: Pack your sh*t.  We’re going somewhere real soon.  And someone will pay.[/b]  Suddenly, being a soldier had gone from crappy to vital.

My perspective changed that day.  This new perspective remains to this day.

I don’t have a point.  I’m only sharing my story.

nightmare975

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« Reply #25 on: September 11, 2005, 07:32:03 pm »
Wow, so did you fight in the Middle East?

Silvercry

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« Reply #26 on: September 11, 2005, 07:54:01 pm »
No, I did not.  By the time my unit was actually mobilized, my active duty commitment was over.  I had never intended to re-enlist, in fact I had planed my entire initial enlistment so that come the day it was over I could walk into a civilian job doing the exact same this I did in the Army, only with more pay, fewer hours, nicer clothes, and 24/7air conditioning.  

Many of the people I served with did go to Iraq, however.  Not all of them came back in once peace  -- or at all.

I am in the Reserves now, and subject to being called up at any time.  And should the call come – well, my BDU’s still fit, I can still shoot expert with my rifle, and run a 6 minute mile.

To quote one Janus Zeal:

“If the world is to be destroyed, so be it. If it is my fate to die, I must simply laugh.”

Sir Frog

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« Reply #27 on: September 11, 2005, 08:11:52 pm »
Does anyone remember what happened to Bill Maher?
Who here thinks the American public overreacted to his comments?

BlueThunder

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« Reply #28 on: September 11, 2005, 08:15:43 pm »
No I don't and I'm glad.

Radical_Dreamer

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« Reply #29 on: September 11, 2005, 08:43:25 pm »
Quote from: BlueThunder
I know you didn't say anything bad about Bush but he's delt with alot of tradgities.First 9/11 now Hurricane Katrinia,for all of that it makes him a good president.


The thing is, he didn't deal with Katrina, and that makes him a bad president.

Now for my story.

It was my senior year in high school. That year, my school started a policy by which seniors could only take 5 (instead of the usual 6) classes, if they had enough credits to graduate. I did, so, given my love of sleep and hatred of high school, I gave my self an extra hour of sleep by not taking a class second period*. This meant my sister, who is two years younger than me, went to school an hour earlier than I did.

On the fatefull morning, my mother came into my room and woke me up. She explained to me, very calmly, what had happened. By this time, both of the towers had been destroyed. I should mention at this point, that both of my parents are from New York City. We have a lot of friends and family in that town, all of whom escaped injury that day. I was then enformed that I'd be going to school to pick up my sister and bring her home, because we were staying home that day, just in case there were any attacks planned against Los Angeles.

After retrieving my sister, we spent the day at home, and a good portion of it in front of the television, watching the news. I knew that it would be my generation's J.F.K. assissination so to speak: everyone would remember where they were when they heard of the first attack on American soil since World War II.

*At my school, there were periods 1-8. Most people took a 2-7, but 3-8 were not horribly uncommon. Period 1 were mostly classes you could take during summer school or if you needed to make something up.