Remember how shaky we were in the days immediately after the attack? We never thought we’d go six years without another major attack on U.S. soil. Writing in the U.K. Telegraph, Judy Miller, the former New York Times reporter, offers an opinion as to why our enemies haven’t attacked us again: They can’t.
Miller writes:
“Complacency would indeed be dangerous. There will be no ‘mission accomplished’ banners in this war – a campaign unlikely to end in my lifetime. American intelligence and counter-terrorism officials can only do their jobs, buy time, and hope that the wave of militancy that has engulfed so many Islamic communities ebbs.”
Our successes have bred forgetfulness. Debra Burlingame, whose brother died in the plane that hit the Pentagon, notes that we are beginning to treat 9/11 as just another saga of victimhood:
“There is a disturbing phenomenon creeping into the public debate about all things 9/11. Increasingly, Sept. 11 is compared to hurricanes, bridge collapses and other mechanical disasters or criminal acts that result in loss of life, with ‘body count’ being the primary factor that keeps it in the top spot of ‘worst in the nation’s history.’
“Misremembering is as dangerous as forgetting. If we must know one thing, it is that the Sept. 11 attacks were neither a natural disaster, nor the unfortunate result of human error. 9/11 wasn’t the catastrophic equivalent of a 3,000-car pileup.
“The attacks were not a random actof violence or insanity. They were a deliberate and brutal act ofwar committed by religious fanatics engaged in Islamic jihad against the United States, all non-Muslim people and any Muslim who wishes to live in a secular society. Worse, the people who perpetrated the attacks have explicitly told us that they are not done.”
Even as American flags bloomed on the left and the right sides of the political aisle, Norman Podhoretz had a suspicion that such patriotism might not last:
“I turned out to be right about this, and yet even I never imagined that the new antiwar movement would so rapidly arrive at the stage of virulence it had taken years for its ancestors of the Vietnam era to reach. Nor did I anticipate how closely the antiwar playbook of that era would be followed and how successfully it would be applied to Iraq, even though the two wars had nothing whatever in common.”
The worst manifestation of what Podhoretz talks about came in Move.On’s ad portraying General Petraeus as a liar and a traitor. “Members of the Democratic leadership and their supporters have now normalized the practice of accusing their opponents of lying,” Opinion Journal notes, adding:
“Betrayal,” as every military officer knows, is a word that through the history of their profession bears the stain of acts that are both dishonorable and unforgivable. That is to say, MoveOn.org didn’t stumble upon this word; it was chosen with specific intent, to convey the most serious accusation possible against General Petraeus, that his word is false, that he is a liar and that he is willing to betray his country. The next and obvious word to which this equation with betrayal leads is treason
. That it is merely insinuated makes it worse.
Remember how shaky we were in the days immediately after the attack? We never thought we’d go six years without another major attack on U.S. soil. Writing in the U.K. Telegraph, Judy Miller, the former New York Times reporter, offers an opinion as to why our enemies haven’t attacked us again: They can’t.
Miller writes:
“Complacency would indeed be dangerous. There will be no ‘mission accomplished’ banners in this war – a campaign unlikely to end in my lifetime. American intelligence and counter-terrorism officials can only do their jobs, buy time, and hope that the wave of militancy that has engulfed so many Islamic communities ebbs.”
Our successes have bred forgetfulness. Debra Burlingame, whose brother died in the plane that hit the Pentagon, notes that we are beginning to treat 9/11 as just another saga of victimhood:
“There is a disturbing phenomenon creeping into the public debate about all things 9/11. Increasingly, Sept. 11 is compared to hurricanes, bridge collapses and other mechanical disasters or criminal acts that result in loss of life, with ‘body count’ being the primary factor that keeps it in the top spot of ‘worst in the nation’s history.’
“Misremembering is as dangerous as forgetting. If we must know one thing, it is that the Sept. 11 attacks were neither a natural disaster, nor the unfortunate result of human error. 9/11 wasn’t the catastrophic equivalent of a 3,000-car pileup.
“The attacks were not a random actof violence or insanity. They were a deliberate and brutal act ofwar committed by religious fanatics engaged in Islamic jihad against the United States, all non-Muslim people and any Muslim who wishes to live in a secular society. Worse, the people who perpetrated the attacks have explicitly told us that they are not done.”
Even as American flags bloomed on the left and the right sides of the political aisle, Norman Podhoretz had a suspicion that such patriotism might not last:
“I turned out to be right about this, and yet even I never imagined that the new antiwar movement would so rapidly arrive at the stage of virulence it had taken years for its ancestors of the Vietnam era to reach. Nor did I anticipate how closely the antiwar playbook of that era would be followed and how successfully it would be applied to Iraq, even though the two wars had nothing whatever in common.”
The worst manifestation of what Podhoretz talks about came in Move.On’s ad portraying General Petraeus as a liar and a traitor. “Members of the Democratic leadership and their supporters have now normalized the practice of accusing their opponents of lying,” Opinion Journal notes, adding:
“Betrayal,” as every military officer knows, is a word that through the history of their profession bears the stain of acts that are both dishonorable and unforgivable. That is to say, MoveOn.org didn’t stumble upon this word; it was chosen with specific intent, to convey the most serious accusation possible against General Petraeus, that his word is false, that he is a liar and that he is willing to betray his country. The next and obvious word to which this equation with betrayal leads is treason. That it is merely insinuated makes it worse.