OPINION & EDITORIAL
9/11: A day for remembrance
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Also by Mike Hahn:
- Recent polls reveal... absolutely nothing (December 4, 2007)
- 'Right to bear arms' stands up to scrutiny (November 27, 2007)
- Democrats play dangerous game (November 20, 2007)
- The pitfalls of holistic admissions (November 13, 2007)
Related Stories:
- Tragedy will strengthen America (September 12, 2001)
- Hahn's rhetoric obscures 9/11 lessons (September 12, 2007)
- Attacks strain U.S.-Muslim relations (October 31, 2001)
- A new battle for a new war (September 26, 2001)
- War deflowering innocent cohort (November 4, 2001)
by Mike Hahn
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
Six years after the worst attack on American soil, Sept. 11 is still a potent and emotional memory for this nation. In the aftermath of the senseless attacks that killed 2,977 innocent people, our world has changed drastically. It seems that we as a nation have become more polarized and divided than at any other point in recent memory.
Still, I cannot help but remember how different it was just six years ago.
That day, as I sat in my dorm room with half my floor watching the death and destruction unfold before us, I remember seeing the best of human nature come through as strangers helped one another to safety and as heroic police and firefighters ran into the debris and smoke while everyone else ran to safety. I remember watching members of Congress, who had just evacuated the Capitol, stand defiantly on the building's steps and break into "God Bless America." I remember when the first reports of Flight 93 came in and I learned of the courage of passengers who refused to give in to the terrorists' demands.
Amid all the horrors of that day, I cannot help but remember that our nation responded with love and support for the victims and their families.
When it came time to deal with the men who planned and carried out the attack, we responded not with hate and vengeance, but with firm resolve and determination to rid the world of such evil.
Today, it seems as though the resolve and unity have vanished from our collective consciousness, and we are left only with the specter of Iraq and an unpopular administration clouding the memory of Sept. 11.
Why that unity was lost is difficult to pinpoint. Many will say it is the Iraq war, others argue that it was the Patriot Act and an erosion of civil liberties that caused the division, and some even believe that the single worst attack in our nation's history was an inside job.
The real problem, however, is that lost in the political rhetoric and conspiracy theories is the fact that we cannot afford to forget how it felt to watch our nation under attack. No matter your political tendencies or whether you agree with the Iraq war, it is absolutely necessary that we understand the dangers we face in the world today.
Sept. 11 does not mark the beginning of a war against Islamic extremism. In truth, Islamic radicals have been at war with the United States for more than a quarter of a century. This war was underway in 1979 with the Iranian hostage crisis. It continued with the Marine Corps barracks bombing in Beirut in 1983, at the World Trade Center in 1993, at our embassies in Africa in 1998, and in 2002 when the U.S.S. Cole was attacked off the coast of Yemen. It was not until thousands of our own citizens were killed in just one morning, however, that we realized we were at war. Our enemy knew it. We did not.
Even with the long list of attacks, it is difficult for us to view this as a war because the attacks come so far apart that it is easy to fall back into a sense of peace and security. With the exception of the two attacks on the World Trade Center, the attacks are not directed at large numbers of Americans and are carried out on foreign soil. Even now, when we finally have engaged the enemy with our military in Afghanistan and Iraq, we do not feel the country is at war in the way we did for World War II, Korea and Vietnam.
Our military is voluntary. No draft exists to force those who do not wish to fight into service. Our economy is not geared toward fighting a massive war — there are no ration cards or material drives that require all of us to sacrifice. This is unlike any war our nation has ever fought.
Even so, the stakes and the consequences of defeat are no less real or dangerous than in the past. Should we fail in our fight against Islamic extremism, we will see an entire region of the world come under the totalitarian heel of a new and radical caliphate. With that, we would also be exposed to the threat of attack from a powerful and determined enemy as never before.
The terrorists' goals are clear. They aim to destroy all who do not share their beliefs, and they are determined to bring as much of the world under their control as they can. We need the resolve and determination that we had in the days and weeks following Sept.11. That is why we must remember this day and why we must never forget what is at stake in this war.
Mike Hahn (mhahn@badgerherald.com) is a senior majoring in history and political science.
Anonymous (September 11, 2007 @ 3:10am):
What is at stake in this war? Is it the public school teachers that aren't getting paid well? Is it the 4500 UW students that don't yet have financial aid? Is it the thousands of gay couples who don't have human rights? Is it the life of those suffering from Parkinson's that are being denied a search for a cure?
Or is it the grandstanding, chest-puffing, flag-waving unity that you seem to think is a priority?
Anonymous (September 11, 2007 @ 7:18am):
"What is at stake in this war?"
Iraq is just a new phase of a very old war.
If you don't resist, then you must submit or die.
While Muslims can be peaceful, Islam was born in war and grew the same way. From the time of Mohammed, the means of Muslim expansion was always the sword. Muslim thought divides the world into two spheres, the Abode of Islam and the Abode of War. Christianity-and for that matter any other non-Muslim religion-has no abode. Christians and Jews can be tolerated within a Muslim state under Muslim rule. But, in traditional Islam, Christian and Jewish states must be destroyed and their lands conquered. When Mohammed was waging war against Mecca in the seventh century, Christianity was the dominant religion of power and wealth. As the faith of the Roman Empire, it spanned the entire Mediterranean, including the Middle East, where it was born. The Christian world, therefore, was a prime target for the earliest caliphs, and it would remain so for Muslim leaders for the next thousand years.
Anonymous (September 11, 2007 @ 7:44am):
Happy 9/11 Day, Mike Hahn.
Anonymous (September 11, 2007 @ 7:46am):
On this day in 1683 King Jan III Sobieski of Poland arrived at Vienna to break the siege of the Turks and rescue the Christian West from the Hosts of Mohammed. The rout of the Ottoman troops before the gates of Vienna by the Polish hussars gave us a little breathing room, a coffee-and-croissants break that lasted for the next three hundred and eighteen years.
But no longer. From now on in, every day is September 11th.
Anonymous (September 11, 2007 @ 8:27am):
"Islam was born in war?"
What then of the decades of Crusades? St. Augustine - not a Muslim cleric - said a "just war" is war justifiable by religion. Have you forgotten the clashes in Northern Ireland? Or did you fall asleep in history class when they covered the French Wars of Religion (16th Century between Catholics and Hugenots, duh)? What about the 30 *Friggin* Years War between Roman Catholics and Lutherans in Germania?
Seems to me that you can make a case for any religion being "born in war." Don't accept the partisan and prejudicial bullshit your Republican talking heads are feeding you on FOX News.
Anonymous (September 11, 2007 @ 9:22am):
Giuliani wants to be elected your next surrogate father.
Anonymous (September 11, 2007 @ 11:44am):
beautifully written.
Anonymous (September 11, 2007 @ 12:11pm):
We laugh that on this sixth anniversary a clownish Bin Laden, in dyed chin-whiskers no less, urges us from a cave in Waziristan to read more Chomsky and Scheuer. We laugh that radical Islam hates us for global warming, corporate profits, and high-priced mortgages. We laugh that its jihadists, as a result of these American "sins," were forced to kill us for the Neocons, and Richard Perle, and Hiroshima, and the 19th-century Indian wars, and all the other American crimes that Hollywood and the universities have globally peddled into a lucrative industry. But the laugh is not that fascists would so clumsily crib our Left to justify their killing, but that they are convinced that they could do so in such amateurish fashion to such great effect.
So is the joke on them or on us?
Bin Laden and his evil Rasputin Dr. Zawahiri were confident on September 11 that such guilt and self-loathing in our hearts could be seasoned, and that it could then be harvested through their own arts of revisionism, victimization, and lies. And consequently within a brief six years of his murdering, our own voices -- indeed the very elites of the West -- in the luxury of calm before the next attack, are often emboldened to proclaim that the government of America, not the terrorists abroad, is the real danger.
The great lesson of September 11 was not that the jihadists ever believed that they could kill us all. Rather, they trusted that enough of the West and indeed enough of us here in America, might at the end of the day declare that we had it coming.
In this long war, that belief was -- and is -- far deadlier even than an unhinged murderer at the controls of an airliner.
Anonymous (September 11, 2007 @ 12:31pm):
The first commenter is right on. You remember "love and support" for the families of victims, and "firm resolve and determination" in responding to the attacks. I, for one, have other memories: increasing and continuing discrimination towards those of Arab descent, and a loss of resolve in dealing with bin Laden after Iraq became the new and misplaced priority for our military.
The war that we're in is, as you've said, unlike those America has fought in the past. In consideration of that, the most important task for this nation's government is to realize that military force will not win this conflict, and without restraint and caution will only make our position worse.
Anonymous (September 11, 2007 @ 12:43pm):
This is our fault. By capitulating and placating Islamists we handed them victory. Unsure of our greatness, we apologize for it. We bow to barbarians. These savages should have been crushed, ostracized, marginalized ......destroyed. Instead, we lick their nonexistent wounds. Happy 9/11 indeed.
Anonymous (September 11, 2007 @ 3:07pm):
What the hell, I'll just say it. Fuck Islam!
Anonymous (September 11, 2007 @ 3:50pm):
"continuing discrimination towards those of Arab descent"
Ask the black Muslims in Sudan about their Arab brothers.
Anonymous (September 11, 2007 @ 5:49pm):
Oh no, can the comment section accomodate any more hate if Iran gets involved? They're Persians, not Arabs.
Anonymous (September 12, 2007 @ 3:18am):
I respect your service and opinions Mike, and I think you tried hard to remain objective. When 9/11 and Iraq get tied together, it really hurts the discussion, and I think you tried to stay away from that Bush rhetoric.
12:31 is right that we won't win this war with only military conflict. And I'm not talking about the war in Iraq, I'm talking about the real war on terror. The one that Iraq diverts our attention from every day as we stay mired in that bloody civil war.
If we could only put our forces to use in Afghanistan and Pakistan to actually fight and destroy terrorism, maybe we'd get somewhere. But since we're stuck in Iraq fighting the terrorists we helped created and breed by going there in the first place, there's not much hope.
Additionally, the second commenter (7:18) is an absolute moron. Islam did not start with the sword. There were no forced conversions or anything of that kind. We've known all along that Islam is not the problem, it is those sick and twisted few who distort the religion for their own maniacal ends. You're no better than they are when they assume Americans are all the same.
Ammar Ali (September 12, 2007 @ 10:45am):
I don't understand your definition of "the enemy". Do you mean Muslims, Muslim "extremists", people living in the Middle East?
I truly believe Islam is highly misunderstood in the west. Anyone who says Islam was established by the sword or is violent in nature cannot honestly say they have read about Islam on their own from a credible academic source (no that does not mean from someones mouth or pamphlets from another religious group) such as historians like Karen Armstrong.
Plus you do know that only 12% of the Muslims living in the world live in the Middle East? You just need to look at the Muslim population here in Madison and you will realize that Islam is not a violent faith and comes from all over the world. It is also the worlds fastest growing faith and is going to be the largest by around 2090.
Plus no one will agree with the methods terrorists use but I bet you don't know why they do what they do? Poverty? Mistreatment by the US? US funding towards countries that are killing them?...... read about it. Honestly the dumbest thing I heard come out of Bush's mouth was "terrorists hate or freedom!" THAT doesn't make any sense!!!
I invite you all to come to the Muslim students Association kickoff meeting this Thursday at 6pm in Chadbourne and learn what Islam is truly about. Starting this Thursday we will have Iftars (meals) every Tuesday and Thursday for Ramadan that people can attend
Come see for yourself
Anonymous (September 12, 2007 @ 2:46pm):
Now it's been six years. The global jihad proceeds apace, with well *over 9,000 deadly attacks* carried out in the course of those six years by believers in the proposition that "Islam must dominate, and not be dominated."
Now Ammar Ali asks: Who are you going to believe? The MSA? or your own lying ("misunderstanding") eyes?
Ammar is preaching to the wrong audience. He needs to convince his co-religionists (not Westerners) of Islam's non-violent intent.
Work to stop violent attacks committed by Muslims in the name of Islam. I guarantee that "Islamophobia" will then vanish utterly.
*9000+ Jihadist attacks don't lie.
http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/
Anonymous (September 12, 2007 @ 2:48pm):
Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week
October 22-26, 2007
During the week of October 22-26, 2007, the nation will be rocked by the biggest conservative campus protest ever-- Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week, a wake-up call for Americans on 200 university and college campuses.
The purpose of this protest is as simple as it is crucial: to confront the two Big Lies of the political left-- that George Bush created the war on terror and that Global Warming is a greater danger to Americans than the terrorist threat. Nothing could be more politically incorrect than to point this out. But nothing could be more important for American students to hear. In the face of the greatest danger Americans have ever confronted, the academic left has mobilized to create sympathy for the enemy and to fight anyone who rallies Americans to defend themselves. According to the academic left, anyone who links Islamic radicalism to the war on terror is an "Islamophobe." According to the academic left, the Islamo-fascists hate us not because we are tolerant and free, but because we are "oppressors."
Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week is a national effort to oppose these lies and to rally American students to defend their country.
=====
How to Get Involved: To participate in Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week or to register as a TAP Coordinator, please contact Jeffrey Wiener at the David Horowitz Freedom Center at 800-752-6562, ext. 206 or at Jeffrey@horowitzfreedomcenter.org
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