Terrorism

9/11 Plus Nine Years

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(This is basically a rerun and update of my posts from this day in 2006-2009. Some new links added this year are at the bottom of the post.)

I am increasingly worried about our prospects for success in the battle against those who would destroy our civilization. America and the other democracies possess great military, economic, and intellectual strengths–but severe internal divisions threaten our ability to use these resources effectively.

Within days of the collapse of the Towers, it started. “Progressive” demonstrators brought out the stilt-walkers, the Uncle Sam constumes, and the giant puppets of George Bush. They carried signs accusing America of planning “genocide” against the people of Afghanistan.

Professors and journalists preached about the sins of Western civilization, asserting that we had brought it all on ourselves. A well-known writer wrote of her unease when her daughter chose to buy and display an American flag. Some universities banned the display of American flags in dormitories, claiming that such display was “provocative.”

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Nine Years On

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When I was four years old, someone told me that Russia was going to bomb the United States some day. There would be sirens before the world ended in fire.

They test the emergency alert sirens every Wednesday in my town. A few days after getting this thumb-nail version of global brinkmanship, they all went off to mark the start of noon. I sat down on the curb outside of my house, and wept bitter tears while waiting to be swept away in the flash and shockwave.

That is the best way I can describe what it was like to grow up during The Cold War. We went through life knowing that most of us were going to be smashed flat under the nuclear hammer. I can’t convey how overjoyed I am that we were all wrong.

The stakes during that unofficial conflict were of the very highest, nothing less than the future history of mankind. One side was going to see their culture prevail, while the other would be forced to mould their own values and beliefs into something that was pretty close. Either that, or be swept into Trotsky’s dustbin of history.

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The Media’s Extremist Pixies

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Don Surber [h/t Instapundit] asks if the media should be ignoring the nutjob pastor in Florida who is threatening to burn Korans.

I think they should but not for any reason immediately involved with this threat. I think the media should make a point of ignoring all stunts which are clearly designed solely to attract media attention.

Why shouldn’t the media ignore them? As consumers of media, do any of us personally really care what those nutjobs are doing? Isn’t media coverage the event might get the only reason we might care?

By paying attention to them in the first place, we’ve created an idiotic feedback loop in which we pay attention to events that are only worthy of attention because we pay attention to them in the first place!

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… is Enemy Action

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Another drilling rig has exploded in the Gulf and just days after the House (maybe) overturned the drilling moratorium.

Hmmmm,

We went 31 years without a major oil spill in the Gulf prior to Deepwater Horizon. Now we have a second explosion so soon. Meanwhile, some Greenpeace “direct action” types are attacking an oil rig off Greenland.

Hmmmm,

There’s no evidence of any human agency in either explosion. Still, when you look at the utter frothing hysteria directed against drilling and the oil industry in general, it’s pretty easy to imagine a group deciding that a little violence now will save a lot of lives later. After all, don’t environmental activists always tell us that they’re fighting for the survival of the entire earth and humanity itself? With such high stakes, it would be easy for someone to talk themselves into a “you’ve got to break a few eggs to make an omelet” rationalization.

Certainly, if the situation was reversed, the left would have no trouble using the same level of proof as evidence of nefarious plots by the right wing. After all, they think the right engineered a war that killed hundreds of thousands just to make a few bucks. Blaming the right for something like blowing up an oil rig would be chump change compared to that.

At present, the FBI considers ecoterrorists the most active domestic terrorist groups. It wouldn’t be much of a step from burning down buildings to blowing up oil rigs. With the resources and training that Greenpeace and other environmental groups have demonstrated they possess, they certainly have the physical ability to carry out such an attack.

Hmmmm,

We will have to wait and see I suppose. Even if sabotage was the cause it might be hard to prove with all the evidence thousands of meters below the sea. Still, you know the old axiom: Once is a fluke, twice is coincidence, three times…

[Update (2010-9-3 7:58am): From reading the comments, I think this post came out sounding more serious than I intended. I intended a more of a tongue-in-cheek tone to serve as a reminder of how easy it would be to see human agency in such events especially given the hysterical levels of leftwing rhetoric against the oil companies. We could eventually see the environmentalist version of the Weathermen if the hysteria continues.]

Sure Took Them Long Enough

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France says they are now at war with al Qaeda.

Well, sorta-kinda. Retribution military raids, really. No one is saying that France is going to go full bore on this.

Not that they really could anymore, considering how they have allowed their ability to project force rot on the vine in favor of social welfare giveaways to the voters. Unless they are conducting military operations inside their own borders, the options for France are kinda limited.