The View from Right Field

September 11 – 20th Anniversary

Lots of people will be writing lots of words about the 20th anniversary of September 11.  President Biden will probably talk, inter alia, about how victory over al Qaeda and the death of Osama Bin Laden meant we could get out of Afghanistan.  The Taliban will be talking about how their victory forced us to get out of Afghanistan.  And I am sure former President Trump will have something to say, too.

I will just link to two posts, one that I posted on the tenth anniversary of 9/11, mostly about our visit to Shanksville, Pennsylvania, in 2006.  The other is something I wrote about the movie “United 93” after seeing it, also back in 2006.

September 11, 2001

In memory of those who died ten years ago tomorrow, let me re-post what I wrote in 2006 when my son and I visited Shanksville, Pennsylvania, where United 93 crashed.  I am also including a picture I took back then:

Shanksville, Pennsylvania

On the way home from our daughter’s graduation from the University of Virginia, my son and I stopped at Shanksville, Pennsylvania. After seeing "United 93," I looked at the website for the memorial there for the passengers and crew of United Flight 93. I saw it was only a few miles from exit 110 on the Pennsylvania Turnpike.

As a family some or all of us have been to a number of places: Lexington, Kaskaskia and Yorktown; Fort McHenry; Shiloh, Gettysburg, the Wilderness and Appomattox; Pearl Harbor, Normandy and St. Vith; and Checkpoint Charlie in Berlin. So it seemed appropriate to stop at Shanksville.

While temporary and small, the memorial is very impressive. Started originally by volunteers from the area, it still has that feeling to it, which is appropriate, because that is what Flight 93 is all about: Ordinary Americans doing what needed to be done because somebody had to do it and it was up to them.

A big memorial is planned for the site, but since it is a government project, it will be a long time coming. Don’t wait for it. Go now. See the memorial as it is: A simple thing, by Americans for Americans. You won’t be sorry.

In memory of those who died ten years ago tomorrow, let me re-post what I wrote in 2006 when my son and I visited Shanksville, Pennsylvania, where United 93 crashed.  I am also including a picture I took back then:

Shanksville, Pennsylvania

On the way home from our daughter’s graduation from the University of Virginia, my son and I stopped at Shanksville, Pennsylvania. After seeing "United 93," I looked at the website for the memorial there for the passengers and crew of United Flight 93. I saw it was only a few miles from exit 110 on the Pennsylvania Turnpike.

As a family some or all of us have been to a number of places: Lexington, Kaskaskia and Yorktown; Fort McHenry; Shiloh, Gettysburg, the Wilderness and Appomattox; Pearl Harbor, Normandy and St. Vith; and Checkpoint Charlie in Berlin. So it seemed appropriate to stop at Shanksville.

While temporary and small, the memorial is very impressive. Started originally by volunteers from the area, it still has that feeling to it, which is appropriate, because that is what Flight 93 is all about: Ordinary Americans doing what needed to be done because somebody had to do it and it was up to them.

A big memorial is planned for the site, but since it is a government project, it will be a long time coming. Don’t wait for it. Go now. See the memorial as it is: A simple thing, by Americans for Americans. You won’t be sorry.

September 11

For the ninth anniversary of September 11, 2001, let me link back to the post I wrote four years ago on the visit my son and I paid to the memorial near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, to the passengers and crew of United Flight 93.

Sir Edward Kennedy

During his speech to a joint session of Congress on Wednesday, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown announced that Senator Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass)* would receive an honorary knighthood from Queen Elizabeth II:

"Northern Ireland today is at peace, more Americans have healthcare, children around the world are going to school and for all those things we owe a great debt to the life and courage of Senator Edward Kennedy."

I don’t know whether Senator Kennedy deserves an honorary knighthood from the United Kingdom because more Americans have healthcare or children around the world are going to school, but to honor him for his contributions to peace in Northern Ireland is like giving Mrs. O’Leary’s cow an award for fire prevention.

In trying to explain the honorary knighthood, the BBC said that Kennedy "famously snubbed [Sinn Finn leader Gerry] Adams during the latter's St Patrick's Day trip to the US in 2005 following the brutal killing of Robert McCartney. The IRA, closely allied to Sinn Fein, was accused of involvement in his murder." Of course, the reason Senator Kennedy’s snub was such a big deal in 2005 was because he had always been such a friend of Mr. Adams before that.

As Andrew Pierce pointed out in the Telegraph, "[w]asn’t it Kennedy who cosied up to Gerry Adams at the height of the IRA’s murderous campaign? Kennedy, that champion of nationalism, who declared in 1971 that the Protestants of Ulster ‘should be given a decent opportunity to go back to Britain’?"

In fact, honoring Senator Kennedy for his contributions to peace in Northern Ireland ignores the people who really did help end the IRA’s reign of terror: the almost 3000 people who died at the World Trade Center, at the Pentagon, and while fighting back on Flight 93 on September 11, 2001. It was the terrorist attacks on the United States that day that finally made American supporters of the Irish Republican Army understand the IRA was nothing more than a bunch of terrorists itself.

It was 9/11 that dried up the flow of money from the United States to the IRA. People like Senator Kennedy and Republican Representative Peter King of New York could no longer ignore what the money they were helping to raise here was doing there. And without the money their supporters were able to raise in the United States, the IRA had to give up its terrorist activities in Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom. It is just sad it took some people over here so very long to figure it out.

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* Or, as John Kass of the Chicago Tribune might say, Senator Edward Kennedy (D-Chappaquiddick).

Cartoons, Freedom and Flight 93

I did sort of a Flight 93 mini-marathon this weekend. Two years ago I taped "The Flight that Fought Back" from the Discovery Channel and "Flight 93" from A & E. I finally got around to watching both of them this weekend. (I saw "United 93" in a movie theater about 1½ years ago.)

I also read this article by Kathleen Parker about a couple of "Opus" cartoons by Berkley Breathed that a number of newspapers, including The Washington Post, refused to run. Apparently, the papers were afraid Muslims might take offense at the cartoons.

Why do I have this feeling I am glad it was not these newspaper editors who were on United Flight 93?

"Islamic Fascists": Fair or Unfair?

Last Friday’s Chicago Tribune had a debate on whether President Bush should have used the phrase "Islamic fascists" to describe the people who we are fighting. Victor Davis Hanson said yes. Azam Nizamuddin said no.

Mr. Nizamuddin stated several reasons for not using this term: it is profiling, it is bigotry (i.e., Islamophobia), it is like those who refused to condemn anti-Semitism in Germany in the 1930s, etc. Of all of his reasons, the one that made me think the most was that his ten-year old son, upon hearing President Bush say the United States "is at war with Islamic fascists," asked whether that meant they would be targeted?

While a simple and honest answer would have been, "Of course not, he is not talking about us, he is talking about the evil people who fly airplanes into buildings and blow up subway trains in Spain and England," Mr. Nizamuddin does not say what he told his son.

Mr. Nizamuddin says President Bush could have and should have used a different phase to describe these people. The fact is, however, that the people who attacked us, at the World Trade Center, the USS Cole and our embassies in East Africa, were Muslim, and they attacked us in the name of Islam. The phrase "Islamic fascists" is, unfortunately, accurate

If this seems to put an unfair burden on peace-loving Muslims, it is not President Bush who is putting this burden on them. It is those Muslims who are killing innocent people in the name of Islam who are doing it. If Mr. Nizamuddin wants to complain, his complaints should be directed to al-Qaeda and those others who are planning even today to kill more innocent people, both Muslim and non-Muslim, in the name of Islam.

Not all Germans were Nazis, but Germany (first West Germany and now united Germany) understood that it needed to atone. Both Catholics and Protestants had roles to play in ending the sectarian violence in Northern Ireland.

The problem of these terrible people is not that of peace-loving Muslims alone. It is something we must all fight together. But as long as these people kill in the name of Islam, peace-loving believers of Islam will have an extra role to play in stopping these evil people from misusing and abusing the name of their religion.

And if Mr. Nizamuddin wants to complain this is unfair, I would ask him where the fairness was for the almost 3000 people who died on September 11, 2001.

Shanksville, Pennsylvania

On the way home from our daughter’s graduation from the University of Virginia, my son and I stopped at Shanksville, Pennsylvania. After seeing "United 93," I looked at the website for the memorial there for the passengers and crew of United Flight 93. I saw it was only a few miles from exit 110 on the Pennsylvania Turnpike.

As a family some or all of us have been to a number of places: Lexington, Kaskaskia and Yorktown; Fort McHenry; Shiloh, Gettysburg, the Wilderness and Appomattox; Pearl Harbor, Normandy and St. Vith; and Checkpoint Charlie in Berlin. So it seemed appropriate to stop at Shanksville.

While temporary and small, the memorial is very impressive. Started originally by volunteers from the area, it still has that feeling to it, which is appropriate, because that is what Flight 93 is all about: Ordinary Americans doing what needed to be done because somebody had to do it and it was up to them.

A big memorial is planned for the site, but since it is a government project, it will be a long time coming. Don’t wait for it. Go now. See the memorial as it is: A simple thing, by Americans for Americans. You won’t be sorry.

Invasions of Privacy

Two comments on the latest controversy concerning phone records acquired by the National Security Agency and used in an effort to detect calling patterns that could suggest terrorist activity.

1. Before complaining too much about whatever invasion of privacy this program may involve, go see "United 93." If you still think this program is objectionable, fine. As for me, I will accept a small invasion of my privacy to save the lives of my fellow citizens that could otherwise be lost on the next September 11.

2. If Republicans want to complain about this program, that is fine. However, before any Democrat complains about it, I want to see the statement they made or the press release they issued when it was discovered the Clinton White House improperly obtained FBI files on hundreds of people, the majority of them Republicans in the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations, including people like James Baker. At the time, the FBI said "egregious violations of privacy" had occurred. FBI Director Louis Freeh said:

"The prior system of providing files to the White House relied on good faith and honor. Unfortunately, the FBI and I were victimized. I promise the American people that it will not happen again on my watch." (Chicago Tribune, June 15, 1996.)

If Democrats are as concerned about privacy as they claim, let’s see their criticisms of the Clinton White House. If they cannot produce them, then their criticisms of the Bush Administration will have to be weighed with that in mind.

"United 93"

"United 93," the movie about the plane that crashed in the Pennsylvania countryside as the crew and passengers, knowing what had happened in New York and Washington, fought the terrorist hijackers, comes out on April 28, and I am looking forward to seeing it.

Some people have wondered if "United 93" is too soon. I do not. In fact, in some ways, I wonder if it has been too long.

Lots of movies about World War II came out during that war. They were an important part of our war against the Germans and Japanese.

The same is true of "United 93." The men and women on Flight 93 fought in the first battle of the war that started on September 11, 2001. The people in the World Trade Center and at the Pentagon did not have a chance to fight back, but Flight 93 did.

Flight 93 was our first chance to fight back – and we did. The passengers and crew of Flight 93 were not in the military. They were just regular people. But given the chance to fight back, they did what Americans do. They fought. And that is why it is important this movie was made.

Just as we honor those who fought at Saratoga, Gettysburg, Argonne Forest, Bastogne and Iwo Jima, Chosin Reservoir, and Ia Drang Valley, we need to honor those who fought for us in the first battle of the War of September 11: the battle of United Flight 93.