Instapundit got dinged for showing a 9/11 picture. His response:
I posted it because I thought people needed to be reminded of the reality of what this is about, in the face of too many efforts to domesticate it.I'll quote Darryl Worley on my own attitude toward our desire to sanitize this:
They took all the footage off my T.V. Said it's too disturbing for you and me It'll just breed anger that's what the experts say If it was up to me I'd show it every dayI don't want to rabblerouse, but I do think that as we sanitize this we forget that this is a war. Even Calpundit thinks something serious is going on:
"And so I dither. In an age where nuclear weapons are, if not easy to come by, at least possible to come by, an aggressive military posture toward radical Islamic terrorism makes perfect sense ... if it will work. Keeping a strong American presence in Iraq to ensure security and guide them toward some kind of democracy makes perfect sense ... if it will work. And insisting on the obliteration of terrorist groups like Hamas as a precursor to a Palestinian state makes perfect sense ... if it will work."I'm off on a motorcycle trip to New Mexico. Be nice to each other, and please try not to kill anyone or blow anything up while I'm gone.
Every day works for me.
Some days I wonder how Charles at *LGF* manages to keep at it every day.
Then I think of the pictures.
It's good to be reminded, over and over again, that we are at war and it's fitting as well to cite Calpundit's doubts about how this war is being conducted. On the other hand, from my perspective here in Paris:
- The French extreme right (30%) is nostalgic for the days of the Fuhrer and Vichy,
- The French extreme left (30%) is practicing the Nickelodeon politics of Bové,
- and the center (that's Chirac and Villepin, believe it or not) is lost in the midst of multipolarity, dreaming of the chimerical European counterweight, and deconstructing U.S. hegemonic designs on Mid-East oil supplies and relentless pursuit of the concept of empire because of some dialectical historico-political necessity.
The Figaro newspaper's lead editorials this week have been (i) the Americans are naive children and we know better that you keep the Arabs under control à la Pinochet, (ii) the Americans are bent on world domination and they are evil because they installed Pinochet, (iii) we need our counterweight in the next 10 to 20 years. And the Figaro represents the moderate French view.
These guys are clowns. The Germans are no better. And the Russians and Chinese are certainly not going to lead the war on terror. We don't have 10 or 20 years to sit around and wait for the rest of the World to get its act together. We are in the midst of World War IV, and the Europeans still think it's 1938 and they can counter threats with appeasement or explain them away as a figment of the American hegemonic imagination. Who has time for this garbage?
I have serious doubts about George Bush's strategy, but in this environment I have trouble criticizing his policy. I certainly would be willing to consider a serious change in management. But who? What other leader or candidate, other than Tony Blair, has articulated any vision or strategy to confront the present day security threats we face with a remote chance of success, or even basic connection to reality?
Oh, and I forgot the last political theme in Paris this week: Today is the ten-year anniversary of the Oslo accords and the failure of the "peace process" is, of course, all the fault of the Israelis. There is a very long editorial to that effect in today's (moderate by French standards) Figaro, urging the U.S. to put more pressure on Israel (!) to comply with the "peace process"! I spare you the vitriol spewing forth from the "left/center" Le Monde or the leftist Libération.
The powers of political perception and analysis - nay, common sense - on this side of the pond hardly make a case for the multilateralists. Depressing.
"I'm off on a motorcycle trip to New Mexico. "
Details, please!
Ride safely,
Chris
Bringing the post and the first comment together... Charles at LGF highlighted several posts in one of his threads written by a woman who worked in World Trade One and survived. A chilling read.