9/11: Allies and Abusers

9/11 Allies and Abusers

Now that the dusty rhetoric has cleared from Ground Zero, the Pentagon, and Shanksville following the politicians’ commemorative politicking at those sites, following the families of relatives of the 2,977 victims of 9/11/2001 publicly and privately expressing their grief in expectations of to closing memories that defy closure, the rats are leaving their ratholes.

To be sure, not every nation ignored 9/11.

Parts of the world paid solemn tribute to America’s incalculable losses on that day and shared our anguish on the tenth anniversary of the darkest day in American history. One of the most stirring expressions of solidarity occurred in Paris where two forty-foot replicas of the Twin Towers were erected in the shadow of the Eifel Tower displaying in two languages France’s national sentiment, “The French Will Never Forget.”

However, far from everyone abroad and at home expressed that emotion. The vermin emerged.

In London, instead of joining hands with Americans on solemn occasions dedicating memorials to the dead of September 11th, 2001 Muslims in London chose to emulate their fellow Islamists who hatefully exulted in the attacks on the World Trade Center and Washington ten years ago by spreading more hatred, compliments of Islam.

Members of the “religion of peace” set fire to an American flag outside the American embassy and disrupted a moment of silence declared in observation of that moment when Muslims crashed a Boeing 767 into the North Tower of the WTC.

Not content with Britain’s indulgences for sharia nor with British tolerance for the presence of a people on their soil dedicated to eradicating all remnants of English and Western tradition and law, Islamic crazies chanted “US Terrorists!” and carried signs condemning America and criticizing the Crusades.

One jihadist summarized all feigned Muslim grievances by declaring, “You [Americans?] will always face suffering, you [Western imperialists?] will always face humiliation, unless you [all nations not interested in a worldwide Islamic caliphate?] withdraw your troops from Muslim lands.”

Left unmentioned is any reference to September 11th, to Islam’s bloody history, or to the fact the Crusades ended in 1291 A.D. even if Muslim vengeance lingers on and most malcontented Muslim nations are still mired in the thirteenth century.

The grandson of Jewish immigrants to America, Paul Krugman, is another malcontent. . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=5429.)

Never, EVER, Again!

Never, EVER, Again!

Years ago, the extremist Jewish Defense League adopted a catchphrase to denote their refusal to ever allow a repetition of the horror of the Nazi Holocaust which claimed the lives of some 6,000,000 Jewish lives : Never again! The JDL may be extreme but that slogan is anything but.

The slogan should be adopted with equivalent vehemence by the government of the United States and, if our government refuses to publicly proclaim the motto, “Never again!” in response to potential future holocausts such as those committed against America on September 11th, 2001, Americans should rise up and demand it be incorporated into our national foreign and domestic policies.

Subsequent attacks on our homeland could make what happened to the Jews seem like a minor blip in the history of humanity’s carnage.

Extreme? In a little-publicized comment, President Barack Hussein Obama concurred with America’s resident Muslim quisling, Fareed Zakaria, that the United States could “bounce back” even from terrorist nuclear attacks on our cities since we are so “resilient.”

There exists a common, mostly Christian, belief that good people should “forgive those who trespass” against them.

“Trespassing” can mean many things from intruding on our property to violating national borders with the intent of doing us harm; forgiving can refer to pardoning those who insult us to sparing the lives of those who murder Americans either on our soil or in a just war.

General Norman Schwarzkopf, retired commander of coalition forces in the first Persian Gulf War, succinctly reflected on the latter by saying, “Forgiveness is up to God. I just hope we hurry up the meeting.”

Allah may forgive Islamists. It’s doubtful a true God would, . . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=5420.)

"Meet Me in the Stairwell," A Prayer for 9/11

"Meet Me in the Stairwell," A Prayer for 9/11

The following was received as an email in 2010 and posted here with minor editing on September 11th, 2010. It hasn’t lost any of its significance. If anything, with New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s decision to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the terrorist attacks of September 11th, 2001 without allowing the presence of any clergy or the expression of any prayerful invocations, “Meet Me in the Stairwell” is more valuable than ever.
(Read "Meet Me in the Stairwell, A Prayer for 9/11" at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=5407.)

Musings on the Ugly Beauty of the World Trade Center

Musings on the Ugly Beauty of the World Trade Center

Let’s face it, the World Trade Center, actually a complex of seven buildings with the centerpieces the towers which once stood majestically in Lower Manhattan, wasn’t exactly an architectural beauty.

They were even called ugly.

The two primary towers, one rising to 1,368 feet, the other to 1,362feet, dominated the landscape and were a source of boundless pride and tributes to the supremacy of American commerce for politicians and builders even as most New Yorkers regarded them as impressive but essentially unattractive oblong boxes reaching into the skies.

My family and I visited the World Trade Center in 1988 along with an aged uncle from Ireland. My uncle, terrified of heights, stood petrified against the back wall of the Top of the World observatory and understatedly remarked that the view was “very nice.”

Soaring a full hundred feet above the Empire State Building, the WTC did indeed provide a “very nice” panorama, remarkable, breathtaking views for miles in every direction, in fact, even if the design of the towers was less than pleasing. Those vistas and the pride New Yorkers and all Americans felt for the World Trade Center fully compensated for the towers’ stark severity, described by one architect as “glass-and-metal filing cabinets.”

Despite all their architectural and aesthetic flaws, I still miss the strange, symmetrical elegance of those “filing cabinets” and, despite the passage of ten years, I freely admit that I still weep over the events of September 11th, 2001.

None of us could have anticipated the devastation wreaked on America by Islamic terrorists on that brilliantly-bright morning.

What happened that day didn’t simply involve the destruction of of human life and of buildings. It didn’t merely represent a shocking, unprovoked attack on our homeland. It involved much more than the resultant phenomenal costs, disruptions, and upheavals.

Obviously, the greatest loss was the 2,753 lives snuffed out but not to be forgotten either was the loss of Americans’ illusory senses of invulnerability and indestructibility, the loss of our collective national innocence.

Those attributes were barely shaken by the failed Muslim attempt to knock down the towers in 1993 primarily because they failed. Eight years later they succeeded. What could never happen, happened.

The incomprehensibility of 9/11 was perhaps best illustrated in the reaction of a WTC survivor. . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=5387.)