So the Today show just showed a preview tour of the 9/11 museum located underground at the macabre al Qaeda victory monument in Manhattan.
Mike Bloomberg gave Matt Lauer the tour. I assume the NBC cameraman had to use a special wide-angle lens to get both of their egos in the frame at once.
I have mixed feelings about it. It looks like an interesting museum, if you're willing to go to Manhattan to see it, and it's an event that deserves memorializing but... I dunno.
I mean, there's a Pearl Harbor memorial and museum, too, but we built that after we had rolled up our sleeves and absolutely crushed the foe that attacked us. Make no bones about it; in 1945, to steal a phrase from Weaponsman, there was absolutely no doubt about whose boots were under the bed of whose sister. This round of warfare just doesn't have that feeling to it.
Sure, we bagged the guy that ordered the WTC hit, but VJ Day isn't April 18th, if you know what I mean.
*The April 18th mission was named Operation Vengeance. That was back before we started naming military operations after strippers, presumably for security reasons.
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Wars on ideologies can never be won. You just can't kill ideas. Sarah Palin might think terrorism is something you can waterboard into oblivion, but the reality is very different. Just ask all those Christian crusaders who fought very real Muslim crusaders if they ever defeated Islam.
ReplyDeleteThe real question is - If it's a war we cannot win, is it a war we should fight?
-Rob
It's going to be interesting to find out what I said here. I can tell that already.
ReplyDeleteOh, thanks loads, Tam. I needed to be sent down a rabbit hole full of articles about dead Japanese admirals before I'd even had my first cuppa... :)
ReplyDeleteMixed feelings indeed.
ReplyDeleteRight after 9/11, I kept seeing all the flags and bumper stickers everywhere, tee shirts and songs about how we're all proud to be American. Still think it's a weird response: when the bully punched me in the face in 3rd grade, that didn't exactly make me want to burst out singing about how I was proud to be a Kathy. It made me want to punch him right back -- hard!
It's a weird world when we're more proud of our victim status than we are determined not to be put into that category.
Anyway, same thing with the 9/11 museum. All okay as long as the message is Never Again. Or some non-TM'ed equivalent.
But -- it isn't, is it?
I wonder if they had the guts to put up a memorial to Rick Rescorla.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.badassoftheweek.com/rescorla.html
AS SOMEONE WHO SAW THE TOWERS FALL
ReplyDeleteSMELLED THE ACRID SMOKE EXPERIENCED THE GRIT OF PULVERIZED DEBRIS UNDERFOOT THE REMAINS SMOLDERING FOR WEEKS
THE RIGHTEOUS WRATH OF MY CITY STATE AND NATION TRANSFORMED BY THE MANIPULATIONS OF BUREAUCRACY POLITICIANS AND MEDIA INTO SOMETHING FAR DIFFERENT THAN WHAT
TRANSPIRED
I SAW REAL HEROISM SERVICE AND SACRIFICE BY OUR CITIZENS THAT DAY BUT IT WAS MANIPULATED FOR POLITICALLY AMBIGUOUS PURPOSES
I FEAR THAT WITH THE PASSAGE OF TIME THE HISTORY WILL BE OBSCURED BY THE POLITICS AND PUBLIC RELATIONS THAT IS EXPEDIENT AT THE MOMENT
FROM THE RUINS OF THAT DAY A NATION VASTLY TRANSFORMED HAS EMERGED WITH FAR LESS LIBERTY IN THE NAME OF SECURITY WITH A GREATER BUREAUCRATIC INTERFERENCE
INTO THE LAWFUL OCCASIONS OF OUR CITIZENS WHERE MANY ARE MORE CONCERNED WITH THE VARIOUS DISTRACTIONS FROM SCAPEGOATS TO BREAD AND CIRCUSES RATHER THAN THE REAL ISSUES ENDANGERING OUR
REPUBLIC
I'm betting it was a special, IMax type lens to get both egos in the screen, but it would have to be a huge room to fit both inside.
ReplyDeleteif you're willing to go to Manhattan to see it
ReplyDeleteNot. I might accidently spend a nickel there and help support the city. I'd love to see it but probably ain't gonna happen in this lifetime.
Same reason I don't go to IL.
The war against the sincere Muslims is a generational thing, decades long, more like the Indian Wars than WW 2. Anyone who claims it ended by bagging Bin Laden is at best not doing enough thinking about the subject.
ReplyDelete"The real question is - If it's a war we cannot win, is it a war we should fight?"
I suppose that depends on whether you think it requires two sides to have a war, or only one, RevolverRob
Mike James
Will there be lockers at the museum to store your carry guns?
ReplyDeleteVengeance could be a strippers name. Would probably be in a Goth or S&M themed club, but it would be a catchy moniker.
ReplyDeleteAgree on the mixed feelings.
ReplyDeleteI don't feel the US went to war, not totally. I admire President Bush for a lot of things, but his "keep going to the malls" kitsch was wrong. If a country goes to war, then THE COUNTRY should go to war, not just the military (and their families). I should have had to justify my gas expenditures because I live so far from my job, had ration cards for food, etc.
Yeah, that's WW2 thinking. Back then, most everyone took part in some way, even if it was just to give up using butter.
Could the war be won? Yes, I think so. But the cost...bombing certain Islamic Holy cities in to rubble and truly attacking any government that supports so called "radical" Islam (yeah, I'm talking to you Saudis Royal Family)...may be morally too much.
The memorial should be a sobering experience, like the Holocost Memorial in D.C. If it is, then...still conflicted I guess.
I'm with CargoSquid - Rick Rescorla's life and heroic death should be a prominent part of that display.
ReplyDeleteAs for whether or not we should fight, our only REAL alternative to that is surrender - which we seem to be edging toward. The twits who were prominently displaying "End This War" bumperstickers (haven't seen them in this administration) fail to realize numerous things the most basic of which is a war is "ended" when someone wins - and someone loses.
So, in the end; I'd prefer we at least smacked these Islamists hard enough that they'd abandon the Alhambra for another four centuries or so...
If bagging the guy that ordered the hit is how a war is determined to be over, then WW2 in the Pacific should have been over on April 18, 1943 when Admiral Yamamoto got whacked. Then, we negotiate for peace, which is what the Japanese thought the Americans would do all along.
ReplyDeleteI'm sure that a Rick Rescorla exhibit is not included because it would be "too traumatic", or whatever words were used as an excuse for not displaying Fabbricio Quattorchi's murder which had been intended for broadcast until he decided to give the finger at the end.
As for Revolver Rob's question, the question really is, how do you want to live? Quitting now might buy a few years, but if we do, eventually your daughters and nieces will have to submit to keep the peace as the Norwegian and Swedish girls are abused for being blonde and not wearing head scarfs.
I watched the first WTC being built. Was there when a guy climbed it. Was there when a guy walked between the two towers on a cable. Saw it come down on 9/11. Navigator was spot on about the dust and grit. Took a look at the new "memorial". It should be called America flushed down the toilet.
ReplyDelete>It's going to be interesting to find out what I said here.
ReplyDeleteMakes you wonder if that's how the Delphic Oracles felt....
>Vengeance could be a strippers name.
"M.D.R. Gonorrhea" would make an excellent nom de, uh, guerre.
Agree about Rick Rescorla. Daniel Hill's autobiography, though obviously mostly about Mr Hill, has quite a few pages about his friend Rescorla that are worth reading.
@Tam - Don't worry I read what you wrote. I have my own conflicted feelings about it. Most of which stem from the idea that we can defeat ideologies (hence my comment). If we're going to fight an enemy, it would be nice if that enemy was as black and white, good and evil as it was back in WWII. But it hasn't really been that way since 1945, I wish it were.
ReplyDelete@Mike James - Tough question. A war without two sides is usually an atrocity that is occurring.
@Windy Wilson - Fascinating thought process - So you genuinely believe radical Islam will conquer all of the world? Like the Mongols, Ottomans, the Romans, and the Christians all claim to have done, but didn't really?
I agree with LCB the war could be won - but at a cost that frankly I couldn't stomach, maybe others could, but I cannot. It has to be won in the way Sherman won the Civil War. Total war that takes no prisoners and has nor morals, crushes everyone, man, woman, child, innocent, and guilty. We're not fighting that war and pretending we are isn't accomplishing much either. So we should either quit now or commit now.
I worry less about my nephews and sons subjugated themselves to Islam than I do to them subjugating themselves to massive amounts of financial debt, but that's for a different time and place.
-Rob
I'm stealing the "April 18th is not VJ Day" line but I suspect that the idiot with the "Bin Laden is Dead and GM is alive" bumper sticker down the street won't get it.
ReplyDeleteBuild the XL pipe line and we can turn Saudi Arabia into a really big parking lot. Obliterate that moon rock in Mecca and Islam will dry up and blow away within a generation.
ReplyDeleteIn fact we named the Libyan interlude after a cruise ship. And I do not mean a USN vessel that fires missiles. It went under years ago (financially), but there really was a n Odyssey Cruise Line.
ReplyDeleteKishnevi
"A department of defense never won a war."--Robert Heinlein
ReplyDeleteJust ask all those Christian crusaders who fought very real Muslim crusaders if they ever defeated Islam.
ReplyDeleteThis is...not a good comparison. The goal of (some of) the Crusades was not to 'defeat Islam' but to make the Holy Land safe for Christian pilgrims - which the First Crusade did, for a while. .
Obliterate that moon rock in Mecca and Islam will dry up and blow away within a generation.
A faith that thrives on shaheeds and martyrs, and you think that will actually happen?
Hell, the Iranians could pop a nuke over Rome when the College of Cardinals is in session, and the Church would hardly evaporate 'within a generation' - and it's a hierarchical structure, unlike Islam.
Misapplication of stripper names?
ReplyDeleteDelphic oracles?
Odyssey Cruise Lines?
I still remember giggling as a teenager reading Homer's "Odyssey" and the multiple mentions of "Rosy Fingered Dawn":
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epithets_in_Homer
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/bloggers/2692013/posts
http://www.theoi.com/Titan/Eos.html
All of our WWII enemies were fighting because of an ideology; The Aryan race, Hirohito is god and the Japanese were Asian supermen, Italy's ideology was somewhat weaker and they failed early and often because of it.
ReplyDeleteHaving worked in the Five Sided Whore House™ the names for military operations are actually computer generated. There is a guy on the Joint Staff (yes this is an actual "job") that receives various parameters for planned operations (we have thousands on the shelf at any one time) and his job is to attach names to them, catalog the name and then send them back to the various shops/services that dreamed them up. It's not just military but humanitarian, training and other assorted operations that the military is either the primary or just support.
ReplyDeleteJust as an example "Operation JUST CAUSE" was originally "Operation BLUE SPOON" but CINC SOUTHCOM didn't think it was manly enough so renamed it, which he has the authority to do.
"Hell, the Iranians could pop a nuke over Rome when the College of Cardinals is in session, and the Church would hardly evaporate 'within a generation' - and it's a hierarchical structure, unlike Islam."
ReplyDeleteI would expect the obliteration of a large number of Islamic groups around the world, should this occur. The sudden appearance of large parking lots in the middle east might not happen, but I would not be surprised if it did. Italy might end up with the worlds newest land empire, complete with oil supply.
ReplyDeleteRob wrote\
"I agree with LCB the war could be won - but at a cost that frankly I couldn't stomach, maybe others could, but I cannot. It has to be won in the way Sherman won the Civil War. Total war that takes no prisoners and has nor morals, crushes everyone, man, woman, child, innocent, and guilty. "
Sherman did take prisoners, had war morals, did not crush everyone. Hood burned Atlanta as he left it, setting fire to his cut off ammunition train, and leaving the city to burn until the fires were extinguished by US Army forces entering the city. Sherman's orders to burn remaining buildings were precise, and again limited.
Sherman did take prisoners, and when the insurrection illegally put infernal devices in roads, Sherman had some of his prisoners walk in front of his men, until the insurrection stopped that war crime. Sherman gave orders that restricted requisitions from southern farms, and in fact preferred to take supplies only from large plantations, because the large formations in which the US Army moved was best supplied by the large plantations. By contrast, the smaller bands of southern deserters avoided the large plantations, and looted small farms, often were not supervised by officers, and raped and burned to hide the evidence of their crimes from the local people. After the war was over it was a conscious decision of the Lost Cause to blame all on the Yankees. It was a lie then, and a falsehood now.
I would imagine that destruction of Mecca, or the contamination of it with radioactive waste would cut down on pilgrimage income to the Saudi dynasty. I would support a quarantine, or letters of marque and reprisal to permit 'taxing' the pilgrimage industry to compensate for the damages done by jihad. Such a program would encourage peaceful pilgrims who make up at least a majority of Islam to restrain the jihadis, or would at least compensate peaceful non-muslims for some part of the damages done by those who were not peaceful.
ReplyDelete