9/11

Lest we forget . . .

Sources

Photos and Illustrations:
National Park Service

September 11 Remembered

Lest we forget the lost and the living...

The American composer, Eric Ewazen, was teaching a music class at the Julliard School at Lincoln Center when Islamist fanatics attacked the World Trade Center. He wrote the following hymn shortly after as a portrayal of "those painful days following September 11th, days of supreme sadness."

Sources

Photos and Illustrations:

National Park Service

Text: 

classicalfm.com, Classical music inspired by 9/11

Enlightening The World In Remembrance Of An Unforgettable Day

Lest we forget the lost and the living...

The American composer, Eric Ewazen, was teaching a music class at the Julliard School at Lincoln Center when Islamist fanatics attacked the World Trade Center. He wrote the following hymn shortly after as a portrayal of "those painful days following September 11th, days of supreme sadness."

Sources

Photo: National Park Service

Text: classicalfm.com, Classical music inspired by 9/11

Who's Watching The FBI Watching The Radical Islamist Loonies?

I wonder how the FBI front liners who investigated Tamerlan Tsarnaev two years ago feel about the intervening months between that investigation and his alleged participation in the Boston Marathon bombing on April 15, 2012. "Failure" comes to mind, and I'm sure they are sickened by the progression of failures within their agency that led to terrorism.  The FBI's performance in the battle to protect us from terrorism may need a review more thorough than we suspected. Even the most redundant intelligence cannot protect us from every assault on our free society. At the same time, we do not help our efforts by ignoring reasoned observations in the course of an investigation.

Here is how the story progressed as reported by Instapundit over the past week - latest post at the top of the list.

Suspect followed a radical religious agenda

Why was the suspect not on a watch list after a six-month visit to Chechnya ? 

"FBI training manual purged all references to Islamic terror."

America has "a false confidence over the terror threat."  This article appeared in the British press

Naming the suspects "foils racialist, sociological agendas."

What's the Boston bombing all about: Islamic ideology.

The "T" word.

Federal officials name the suspects.

The media meltdown

Politicization of the attack



Photo: Tim Davis, New York Times

Aviation In Film History: Team America:World Police

Team America: World Police is a wonderfully patriotic film. One could say the characters are somewhat wooden, but that would be accurate as the film features a wild cast of marionettes. The entire production emerges from the minds of the South Park creators. That goes a long way in explaining that this film is not an ordinary film experience along the lines of something one would expect from John Wayne, Jimmy Stewart or Disney. Young readers will easily understand why OTR makes this statement. Older readers may need some additional guidance. In short, readers need to be discretionary in order to enjoy the patriotism. Don't  make the following mistake:

OTR and Mrs. OTR had their niece and her husband as house guests a few years ago. After a wonderful dinner on the grill, we suggested they would enjoy Team America: World Police and proceeded to rent the film as we had seen and enjoyed it earlier. Husband was enthusiastic as he was a military pilot, aware of the film,  but had never watched it. Unknown to us, we rented the unexpurgated version. We didn't know niece and husband that well and were forced to watch their reaction to voluminous amounts of foul language and a mind-boggling episode of kinky puppet sex that will be forever etched in OTR's memory. It was quite an icebreaker.

With that warning, OTR highly recommends that Team America: World Police end up in your Netflix queue or Comcast On Demand list. Just be aware of which version you choose. Either way, you will be rewarded with some of the best satire this side of Derkaderkastan or North Korea. Here are two trailers to whet your anti-terrorist appetite:

The Myth Of The Poor, Oppressed Jihadist

. . . Barack Obama clings, like so many willfully blind, to the myth of the poor, oppressed jihadist in the face of years and years of contrary evidence. The "essence" of the 9/11 "tragedy," he wrote days after that attack, "grows out of a climate of poverty and ignornace, helplessness and despair." This woeful misdiagnosis allows the apologist to treat deliberate, carefully planned evil acts of the long-waged Islam war on the West as responses to social injustice.

Read the rest of the story here, including a long list of wealthy Islamic terrorists and a dozen links for further reading.

Friday Afternoon White House News Dump

Just when the weekend is on our collective mind, the White House announces another controversial decision. This one brings five Guantanamo detainees/terrorists, including a 9/11 mastermind, to New York City for trial in a civilian court. Here is the story as reported by The Washington Post.

Feds Move Against Iranian Terrorism

We should all sleep better knowing that our government will seize assets of the Alavi Foundation, an "alleged front organization" secretly operated by the Iranian government. The Washington Post reports the story here. Scott Johnson, at Powerline, reports on radical Islam in the Twin Cities area and the possibility of similar actions there. I wonder if his report is a real foretaste or just an interesting coincidence.

Iran: Scenario For Disaster

Peter Robinson has another important series of Uncommon Knowledge interviews in progress at National Review Online. This week, Victor Davis Hanson and Richard Baer discuss Iran's intentions and their impacts on a free world. The interview, even early in the week, has caught the attention of several bloggers. Your link is here.

Oil Contracts For Dying Terrorists

It seems there was more than compassion driving the release of the Lockerbie terrorist. The New York Times has the story here. Here's the story from the Times Online across the Atlantic. And still more from the British perspective here in the Telegraph. No one ever said politics was an honorable game.

Some Sanity Restored

Dr. Pat Santy, blogging as Dr. Sanity, is back to writing daily after a few months off. Today, she updates us on the Israeli Defense Force's killing of Assud the Bunny, that lovable Al Aqsa television character used by Hamas to indoctrinate the next generation of suicide bombers. Yes, my friends, in a phrase we're seeing more of these days, this is stuff you just can't make up. It is frightening, hilarious and heartbreaking. BTW, Assud now joins Nahoul the Bee in martyrdom.

Mumbai - More Thoughts on Terror

A week ago, ten Islamic terrorists embarked from Pakistan and invaded Mumbai, a city of 13 million, where they killed and wounded hundreds. We will know more about their motive in the weeks to come, but it appears there are primarily two possibilities. First, the attack was intended to destabilize improved relations between Pakistan and India and deflect military operations from the Pakistan-Afghanistan border regions. Second, the assault targeted Westerners, especially American and British; Western values; and allied interests. I spent several hours this week reading the facts and commentary from many sources. A few pundits have hit on a realization that seems to be creeping slowly into consciousness among current reports from the dinosaur media. It is significant.

There were millions of targets in Mumbai when the terrorists hit. They could have killed vast numbers of Hindis and Christians - infidels - along with Westerners as they attacked hotels, restaurants, hospitals, transportation centers, a cinema, and a bank. Their careful planning also included one small, literally obscure target, about one half mile from the Taj Mahal Hotel. It was the Chabad House, a Jewish center. There, the terrorist killed six hostages, but not before torturing them. No waterboarding here. In fact, their techniques were so horrifying that surgeons who received the bodies could not bring themselves to describe what they saw.

Regardless of their larger international intentions, it would appear the Mumbai terrorists were willing to commit half their participants to finding and butchering Jews, a group that made up 0.0384% of the city's population. That is insanity, the likes of which we have not seen since the Holocaust. There is no room for kumbaya in this environment. One cannot reason with madness. America and the West - what's left of it - need to understand, accept, and act on that reality today.