Osama Bin Laden Really Is Dead Now

Courtesy of the U.S. Navy SEALs.

Good roundup of the events here.

I received an email from a friend about it just before going to bed last night and I was too tired to feel much about it.  At the moment, I feel satisfaction that we finally got the butcher after 18 years from his attacking the United States.  By that, I’m referring to the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993.  It has been a very long time coming.

The fact he was living in luxury an hour away from the capitol of Pakistan was no surprise to me.  He always had close ties to their government through the ISI security service and I’ve long thought he was being sheltered there.  Also no surprise that we did this solo without Pakistani cooperation as they cannot be trusted.

What is surprising is how the White House is refusing to give the Pakistani government any kind of political cover on this. For all their vaunted efforts at reaching out to Muslim countries, they have shown themselves to be diplomatically tone deaf.  This operation most likely will make already difficult relations with Pakistan openly hostile in the future.

I expect the near future to see more calls from both the Left and Right to withdraw from Afghanistan now that Bin Laden is literally sleeping with the fishes. In an era of highly personalized attack politics, we just removed the figurehead for the enemy and so support for the war will evaporate quickly. The Left are anti-military and anti-Bush, while the rising specter of isolationism is firmly entrenched within the Right. 

Meanwhile, I can’t help but contrast how Saddam Hussein was dragged from a hole in the ground to Bin Laden being gunned down in a compound at a luxury resort area. The irony of the guy thought to be hiding out in caves going out that way while the dictator of many palaces was found wallowing in mud is profound.

Nine Years But It Feels Like Yesterday

Today is the ninth anniversary of the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in New York City.  For me, the memories are still fresh – especially watching the second airliner hit while the chattering heads weren’t paying attention.  Their slow reaction embodied the disbelief many had about the nature of what was happening.  But the moment I saw that plane hit, I knew it was Osama bin Laden behind it and we were at war.

There is a price to be paid for being well informed and that is to watch many train wrecks move in slow motion and being unable to do anything about them. I felt that way then and I feel that way now watching the Cordoba House controversy near “Ground Zero.”  For the record, one of the landing gear from the violent intersection of airliner and tower landed on that building, which makes it in the crash radius in my opinion.

While I believe the government has no say in whether or not a mosque disguised as a “cultural center” should be built there and should butt out of it, I also believe people should understand the heavy handed symbolism of placing a mosque in a place of Islamic terrorism.  Traditionally, Muslim conquerors build mosques over churches, temples, and mandirs of newly occupied lands.  This symbolizes that the land is now and forever Muslim no matter what happens.  Naming the “cultural center” the Cordoba House is a reference to the Muslim capitol of occupied Spain centuries ago.  That’s very pointed and symbolic; something that will resonate with Islamic radicals world wide.  It is a victory monument.

Imam Rauf is the man behind it and extolled as a shining example of moderate Islam.  However, he is on record as not just supporting sharia (Islamic law) in the United States but also has blamed the U.S. for 9/11.   Rauf was also a backer of the Iranian Revolution back in 1978. that put the mullahs in power.  Dig around and you find he is another example of a “moderate Muslim” who says one thing here in the West and opposing things to his Arab audiences. 

It is a great pity the ignorance of the masses and willful wishes of the political class allows such people to operate without showing their true faces.  A lack of understanding that cultures can and often are completely different in goals and attitudes compounds this.

The mosque should be opposed using our 1st Amendment rights of free speech, but I reiterate the government should keep out of this.  Don’t get me started on the idiots wanting to burn the Koran for publicity purposes masquerading as free speech statements. Two wrongs don’t make a right.

The simple truth is that nine years ago I knew we were in a war that would last decades if not generations. That war still continues today and goes well beyond the shooting in Afghanistan.  It is a clash of incompatible cultures and those clashes never end prettily. Sometimes they never end; we have the examples of the Middle East and South Asia to illustrate that.  I don’t see an end in sight or even possible.

Terrorism and Fort Hood

UPDATED

The media reaction to Nidal Malik Hasan’s attack on his fellow troops in Fort Hood has been disturbing to me.  Political correctness is acting like a lens distorting reality the way a funhouse mirror warps a reflection. As more facts emerge about Hasan, it is clear he was a jihadi. Someone just snapping from stress by proxy (what a ludicrous excuse) doesn’t try to contact al Qaeda months before shooting a bunch of American soldiers.  He doesn’t give away his belongings first and he doesn’t frequent strip joints like the 9/11 hijackers did.  Hasan did exactly that.


Many Islamic fundamentalists believe all your sins are forgiven on martyrdom, so they tend to party in forbidden ways.  That looks hypocritical to Western eyes, but it simply points out one of our cultural differences with the Islamic world.  Over at Forbes, Tunku Varadarajan has a must read piece on our problems facing what he dubs “going Muslim.”

UPDATED:
CNN proves the distorted lens by rearranging a wounded soldier's quote to make it look like he was unsure if Hasan yelled "Allhu akbar." Mudville Gazette has the details.

It isn’t like Hasan was the first to go on a killing spree in the name of Islam after 9/11. Next week on Tuesday the “D.C. Sniper” will be executed.  Seven years ago, John Allen Muhammad and his accomplice Lee Malvo  killed 10 people. Do people even remember this?  I wonder.

A big part of the problem is how the political left and their lapdogs in the media have depicted the war on terror.  J.R. Dunn at The American Thinker puts it better than I can.  I agree with him that relativism has done a great deal of damage:  allowing corruption to flourish and weakening our will to defend ourselves. Everything depends on the American people waking up.

I question whether another 9/11 would be enough.

Eight Years from 9/11

I remember when the numbers 911 came in for emergency calls and it took awhile to adjust to that, but in the end they became a standard part of the language.  Those numbers took on a whole new meaning eight years ago today. Instead of "nine-one-one" the first thing I think when I see the numbers in "Nine-Eleven."  It is a simple but profound change that affected many others, I suspect.

So I will remember the lives lost that fateful day and most likely will watch United 93 on DVD again.  It is difficult to because of the anger it provokes, but I vowed to never forget that day. Sadly, too many people have fallen prey to insane conspiracy theories or moral relativism regarding the events that cost over 3,000 people their lives.  The evils of Islamic fundamentalism still exist and we are slowly becoming complacent again. The consequences of that will not be good.

9/11: The Aftermath

We now know that El Qaeda believes they were the ones who brought the Soviet Union down. This is predicated on the idea that the war in Afghanistan bankrupted the USSR. So Reagan's policies had no effect? Amazingly dumb thinking on their part. We also know that Osama thought taking down the WTC would devastate the US economy. So much so it would collapse completely. The latest dispatch from El Qaeda talks about how the war in Iraq is bringing our economy to ruination. Once again, amazingly dumb. It also had a call for all Americans to convert to Islam, which makes every one of us fair game if we don't. This shows that they think they have the way to beat us and they are in it for the long term. It is a step towards the global caliphate, when the whole world is forced to convert to Islam.

Yet so many people in America (and the rest of the West) simply don't get it. They think that we are the bad guys, that we are evil and have persecuted the downtrodden Arabs at the Jews behest. Aside from the lunatic fringe conspiracy theories about Jews, there is a hatred of Christians who actually profess their faith while being in public office. I've run into so much hatred and histrionics from leftists that I despair about the Democratic Party ever returning to rationality.

But it isn't just the far left who are wavering, a lot of people in the middle are too. Maybe being overly educated has become a problem. My theory is that we've gotten so civilized, we've forgotten the majority of the world is still barbaric and riven by tribal and regional violence. The presumption is that they think like we do, which they very obviously don't. What seems reasonable to us is insane or corrupt to them; what we consider crazy and violent is considered normal in their circles. Amongst the greatest of mistakes humans make is to think that others think in the same manner they do. You'd think married couples would have figured out this isn't true, given the different ways the sexes think! But it applies to different cultures as well.

It is time to start thinking about the way radical Islamists think and start communicating to them in their own language. Unfortunately, that language is one punctuated by bullets, comma'd by threats, and uses bombs for exclamation marks. Which means we are going to have to become a more hardened people if we are to survive. We'll never love death the way radical Muslims do, so I don't see us becoming blood thirsty by nature. But we must tolerate more civilian casualties on the other side and more military casualties on our side. Otherwise, we'll see a lot more civilian deaths on our side.

The wheels of history are in full motion right now, so I think a lot of very bad things are unstoppable now simply because we have been terribly short sighted in the West. The enemy thinks in the long term and has been patiently maneuvering for decades. That's something we need to learn, how to operate and plan for the long term. That will require a massive change to our culture and those things don't happen overnight. Or, when a massive catastrophe happens. I'd prefer it not to be the latter, so we must remain steadfast and vigilant.

9/11 continued

We managed to tear ourselves away from the TV set as the WTC towers burned and headed to the small clinic in Spring Grove to check in with the family doctor before heading to Gunderson Clinic in La Crosse. When we arrived there, the latest news was that the Pentagon had just been hit by another plane and several others had been hijacked. The Capitol was being evacuated and so was the White House. I turned to my dad and said, "It's war." He agreed and the fear in the rest of the waiting room was tangible. At that point, I felt complete calm as I usually do during times of crisis. Dad and I discussed the idea that we were experiencing the feelings people had when the attack on Pearl Harbor happened.

At Gunderson, it was more of the same, except a flight was reported down in the woods of Pennsylvania. After the tests, we headed home instead of shopping. We got home in time to see the towers collapse, adding new horror to the day. The shock of that happening could be heard in the voices of the reporters and anchors as they realized there wouldn't be anymore rescues. That's when I began to get angry, Bin Laden had finally succeeded, a man we could have killed many times before when the Clinton administration was playing games.

But there was something bugging me already and I discussed it with my parents. It was that I was sure the American public would forget this day due to the complete softness of the Western mind. They'd go back to life as usual once the MTV sized attention span wandered and the political left sued for peace. Even then, it was apparent how contemptibly weak we are as a culture and how the enemy is fully aware of and is using it. We have freedom but not the will to protect it once faced with a long, drawn out war.

Today, we are faced with the Democratic Party doing just what I'd feared, wanting to pull back on everything and talking. Talking hasn't worked with militant Muslims, it has been an abject failure unless backed up by force. Culturally speaking, force is what is admired and respected in Islam, it is an integral part of spreading the religion and can't be separated from it. The war in Iraq was a noble attempt to introduce the virus of western freedoms and culture, but it was done on the cheap. Why? Fear of public opinion and the Democratic Party taking advantage of discontent.

So what does that mean in the overall scheme of things? It means we will not be firm in resolve until we are hit again. Inevitably, we will get hit again because they will not stop attacking until we convert to Islam, or they are utterly broken. To utterly break them will require killing millions at a minimum, or having western ideals corrupt them. Disengagement will only encourage them that they are winning.

9/11

Like most bloggers on this fifth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, I'm writing about that fateful day. Unlike many Americans, I refuse to ignore the photos, the footage, and the bad memories of the attacks. Those who willfully try to bury it so that they can "heal" are in terrible error, the kind of error that will guarantee defeat in what is really a massive cultural war. I've heard it said that Islamic fundamentalists are a small minority of Muslims, with a conservative estimate of ten percent (likely more). So, what is ten percent of 1.2 billion? That's over one hundred million. This is a war they started long ago and one that will drag on for decades if it continues to stay a low level war. So we must look at those pictures of still living people jumping and falling from the WTC towers, we must look at the wounded and maimed at the embassy bombings, and we must remember if we are to prevail!

Five years ago, my family was preparing to take my mother to the clinic to try to get to the root of her breathing problems. At the time, I couldn't drive and neither could she, so it was up to my dad to be the sole provider of transportation. So there was milling about, as trips to La Crosse were all day affairs with shopping wedged into the schedule. We turned on the DirecTV receiver and tuned into the CBS affiliate we got from satellite. At that time it was the one in New York City and they were showing live footage of the World Trade Center. Apparently a small plane had flown into one of the towers and it was being called an accident. I said it was probably a terrorist attack, as there had been talk of them using private planes loaded with explosives for some time. For some years I'd been keeping track of Islamic terrorists and the failed Millennium plot, the attack on the U.S.S. Cole, and the assassination of the Northern Alliance warlord Massoud a few days earlier had my antenna up. Right away, Osama Bin Laden came to mind with his obsession at destroying the towers being well known.

As we were watching the live footage with the airheaded anchors babbling on, I saw a jet streak into the other tower. I said "That was another plane." Then I began ranting at the idiots on air to shut up and roll back the tape, while telling my parents another plane had hit the WTC. I knew it was Bin Laden and that the first plane hadn't been a small one like they'd said. We watched a little longer and I knew we were at war, one that probably would last the rest of my life.