It’s hard to come up with anything new to say about 9/11, but in the midst of this insane election, I think that this picture could be viewed by many as a metaphor for America, and the overreactionary result was Donald Trump, a man manifestly unqualified for the presidency, whose disqualifying characteristics are exceeded only by those of his sickly, corrupt, incompetent, mendacious, felonious opponent.
I don’t think that Trump will prove to be the parachute that saves the nation — he’s far too ignorant and contemptuous of the Constitution (and much else) — but many do, and that is how he has gotten as far as he has, and may yet win the presidency. And if he does, I think that history will record that the seeds of his victory, for good or ill, were sown on a bright sunny September Tuesday in 2001, and the feckless response of the nation’s “leadership” through three presidential cycles since.
[Update a while later]
Falling man, falling presidential candidate.
[Update a few minutes later]
I should note that one of the reasons I’m showing this picture is that too many people think we shouldn’t see it or be reminded, which gets back to the fecklessness of our “elites.”
“a man manifestly unqualified for the presidency, whose disqualifying characteristics are exceeded only by those of his sickly, corrupt, mendacious, felonious opponent.”
Leave it alone Rand. Even if Hillary were as bad as you and the echo chamber suggest, she’d still just be in a known category of American political crooks.
She does not “exceed” Trump’s disqualifications, which are in a category of their own for endangering the Republic.
The woman is a walking disaster. She has never produced anything of any value whatsoever. She has never formulated a policy that did not end in failure.
which are in a category of their own for endangering the Republic.
I don’t know. It looks like Hillary slaughtered the rule of law just like her policies led to the slaughter of hundreds of thousands in the ME (specifically Libya and Syria), ushered in slavery on a scale unseen in a hundred years and genocide on a scale unseen since WWII, and is actively encouraging a mass migration of tens of millions of people because their homes have become apocalypse.
Many people regard Iraq as a mistake but then what does that mean for the far larger amount of suffering and death that has happened under Hillary and Obama?
That’s the known quality. More slavery, genocide, and entire populations uprooted from their homelands. Then there is also near war status with China and Russia while alienating allies that have been with us for the better part of the last 100 years.
I don’t know how a President Trump would act but to assume he would destroy the country if not the world is rather paranoid considering Hillary’s known qualities.
“…and the feckless response of the nation’s “leadership” through three presidential cycles since.”
I have watched this “a pox on both their houses” meme develop over these years. IMO, it is basically a means of ducking the fray. It is much easier to attack both sides than it is to defend one. But, it basically abandons the field, enervating the defense, and allowing it to be overwhelmed.
GWB did an excellent job of addressing the problem. Al Qaeda training grounds were dispersed. And, the boiling pustule that was Saddam Hussein’s Iraq was popped. It had to be. The sanctions regime had run its course, and was collapsing. Anyone who thinks Saddam would not have been back up to his old game of disrupting the region, and reconstituting his WMD capability, is an idiot. He would have been free and unfettered, and armed with the knowledge that the world had no belly for confronting him again.
GWB did such a good job that Joe Biden was sent out to take credit, openly boasting that Iraq would be one of the great success stories of the Obama administration. But, the relentless attacks on the necessary response of the Bush administration had caused many to flee to the comfort of taking potshots at both sides, the defense of rational policies foundered, and here we are today.
It was not a feckless response of the nation’s leadership. It was a failure of nerve among the electorate, a fervent desire to indulge a fantasy that the threat had receded, and a longing to get back to business as usual. And it was, above all else, a triumph of the perpetually adolescent class of strategic hacks that make up the backbone of the Democratic Party.
The Democrats have given us the most lackluster economy since the Great Depression. The Democrats have enabled the rise of ISIS. The Democrats have imploded our health care system. The list of failure goes on and on.
No, it is not our nation’s collective leadership that had fallen down on the job. It was the Democratic Party specifically. But, first and foremost, it was the fickle and false-comfort-seeking voters who gave them the reins of power.
Well said, Bart.
I’ve always maintained three things about Iraq:
1. Taking down Saddam was a means to remove a proven opportunistic regime that would use 9/11 as a means to branch out.
2. Iraq was a centrally located and technologically-modern region within the middle east, if you had to take territory from which to pacify the region, you couldn’t pick a much better spot.
3. The consistent application of a social and power doctrine as we did and still do with Japan would have made Iraq a truly prosperous nation. We’ve been in Japan for 71 years, we should have stayed in Iraq for much longer than we did.
Obama left the supplies in place in Iraq for others to appropriate, namely ISIS, and now we have a giant, evil pile of crap. I am personally convinced he did this on purpose.
Bush was right to remove Saddam, but he botched the aftermath, and he was almost as politically correct about Islam as Obama. He also fed the anti-immigration anger.
Still the comparisons with Japan and Germany again. Look. Japan is an archipelago nation and the US had the largest Navy in the Pacific. Germany was surrounded on all sides by the Allies. Iraq had borders with Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia. It was never going to work. I’m surprised you still insist in this fantasy that Iraq was going to be peaceful and prosperous after they imploded their defense structure.
The invasion of Iraq was a disaster as was the invasion of Libya. It destabilized the regions around them and led to misery for those who lived there. The only ones who profited are the companies who are pumping oil and contractors rebuilding things to be exploded afterwards. As for ISIL or Al-Qaeda or whatever they call themselves now they have been funded by the US Government at least since the Soviet-Afghan War. So you would have actually to blame Carter or Reagan for that one.
Your health care system was already imploding a long time ago.
Japan was surrounded by Russia, China, and what would become the Koreas. Vietnam is nearby, as well. China had an axe to grind, as did Russia, and the Koreas/Vietnam took little time to become a regional threat. Japan was a weakened nation surrounded by former and predicted foes, and Iraq was and still is surrounded by foes, as well. No comparison of two situations are ever perfect fits for each other, but it still stands that the success in Japan post-WWII was quite dependent on us staying there to defend and rebuild while holding off the wolves, and Iraq was in the same general position. We should still be there, in force. The vestigial group in the green zone will get overrun someday, and then some people will be darn happy.
Japan could be blockaded with the US Navy. Iraq and Vietnam cannot.
Iraq was in a pretty much indefensible position. The US left Vietnam for similar reasons. A permeable border close to antagonists of the US which are not interested in a stable Iraq.
You can say whatever you want to say about the Soviets, but they were not interested in a politically unstable Germany.
It destabilized the regions around them and led to misery for those who lived there.
The war in Iraq didn’t destabilize Syria or Iran despite those two countries sponsoring the terror groups that were fighting each other, and sometimes Americans, in Iraq. It also didn’t destabilize Kuwait or Turkey.
Maybe that could be the case if someone wanted to say that people voting in Iraq led to people in other ME countries wanting to vote for their leaders too. But I am not sure that case can be made.
Godzilla @ September 11, 2016 at 12:47 PM
“Germany was surrounded on all sides by the Allies.”
An alliance that evaporated after the war, and left Germany hemmed in by the Iron Curtain.
“As for ISIL or Al-Qaeda or whatever they call themselves now they have been funded by the US Government at least since the Soviet-Afghan War.”
Bzzzt. Wrong. We funded the Northern Alliance fighters, and they helped us again against the Taliban.
Since when was Osama Bin Laden, sponsored by the CIA, a Tajik from the Northern Alliance? Answer: never. Who do you think ordered the hit on Massoud (the leader of the Northern Alliance) just before 9/11? Osama Bin Laden.
Fact is Osama Bin Laden and what later became known as Al-Qaeda was sponsored by the CIA and Pakistan around the time of the Soviet-Afghan War. Just like they are sponsoring “moderates” in Libya and Syria right now.
Then its Europe’s fault we are getting flooded by Iraqi and Syrian refugees. Remind me to throw that argument to your face next time you get an inflow of Haitians.
Since when was Osama Bin Laden sponsored by the CIA? Answer: never. Bin Laden was a wannabe warrior, but he actually saw little action in the war with Russia.
As for Europe’s refugee problem – you wanted Obama, you got him. You blessed his bug out from Iraq. You reap what you sow.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Cyclone#Conspiracy_theories
Obama left the supplies in place in Iraq for others to appropriate, namely ISIS, and now we have a giant, evil pile of crap. I am personally convinced he did this on purpose.
And he turned around and armed, trained, and funded the Iranian proxy militias that we fought in the war in order to fight against ISIS. The problem with this strategy isn’t that we shouldn’t make peace with people who were once our enemies but that they still think of themselves as our enemies and they engage in the same atrocities that ISIS does.
Imagine if Bush had turned to death squads to pacify Iraq. Its no wonder Obama ordered the media not to talk about what is going on.
Bush took actions to maintain the Pax Americana. In order for there to be credibility, action had to meet rhetoric and treaties had to be enforced.
The Pax Americana is something that Obama now fondly cites for giving us unprecedented peace and prosperity, if we overlook the countries Obama’s policies have been influenced by.
Some people think this is just magic or the bending arc of progress but it was decades of diplomatic and military action.
We botch every aftermath, Rand. That’s why you stay until fix what you botched. Looking again to Japan as the example, we botched a LOT in the first decade or two, but we went over fixed what we broke and stayed until it was stable.
Sorry, man, it’s just too easy to pull the “Bush was stupid” card. War is messy but fast, recovery is messy but slow. I don’t care who was president at the time, that’s how it always is.
Too right, Craig.
Compared to our missteps in WWII, the missteps in Iraq were minuscule. The fleas come with the dog. In war, there will be missteps. The difference between winners and losers is how they react to the missteps.
Iraq came out as well as it could have. Carping about missteps and giving up (no offense intended to our gracious host, merely trying to point out the error of his ways, so he can correct the misstep) is what losers do.
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat. “
– Teddy Roosevelt
Iraq started bad and it couldn’t end well. There was no casus belli to go there in the first place.
Like I said here before I support the US War on Afghanistan but I think War on Iraq under GWB was a mistake. His own father knew better than to go in there. The US basically had the respect and working relations afterwards with nearly everyone in the Middle East, including the Syrians, after the GWB intervention in Iraq this isn’t true anymore.
His own father did go in there. He put a gun to the Saddam’s forehead, pushed his head to the back of the chair and said, “Do these things.” Part of the reason he was able to build his coalition, was his assurance that he wouldn’t kick Saddam out.
The reason for this is obvious: You can’t form a coalition of police states (i.e., the UN) to depose the leader of another police state for invading a neighbor. They may not like what Saddam did, but they sure didn’t want to set a precedent that doing it meant you get your marbles taken away.
The 90’s US defense actions were dominated by Clinton constantly dealing with the fact that Saddam was not doing as he agreed after he was kicked out of Kuwait. This a historical fact. Saddam repeatedly refused to live up to the terms of the cease fire.
The UN agreed with this assessment with numerous resolutions. Eighteen? I don’t remember.
I know that it is common to assert there was no causes belli but there was, in fact, the clear, unambiguous, universally acknowledged failure by Saddam to live up to the agreements he made in order to cease the hostilities that occurred after he had invaded Kuwait. The imbeciles who think Bush woke up one day and thought, “Iraq!” are historically illiterate no matter how much they analyze Vietnam or Japan or Germany or whatever.
History doesn’t start whenever simple minded journalists and media studies professor decide it does.
After going into Iraq in 2003, the US listened to soft headed half-wits who suggested that we run the occupation like New Age hippies trying to form consensus around which power crystal to spend the community pot.
Naturally when you listen to fools who want to coexist with vermin, vermin flourish.
In 2006, we did the surge which beat down the terrorists. The lefties still simper that this didn’t work but, in fact, by measurable metrics, it did.
Anyway, somehow Obama and Biden were able to declare victory and leave. I don’t hear any people on left asserting that they shouldn’t have done that. Maybe I’m missing some.
By 2009, Obama pulled out like a confused teenager, declared victory and the result is the mess we have now. He didn’t do it because of any strategic reason. He didn’t do it because he couldn’t get agreement on legal protections for US soldiers.
He did it because it was more important to throw away a victory than it was to have the drooling dullards who whined about Iraq shown wrong.
By 2009, Obama pulled out like a confused teenager, declared victory and the result is the mess we have now.
The messed up thing is that at that point, all we needed was sustained diplomacy to keep Iraq on the right path in terms of good governance. But they turned to Iran because Obama turned his back on them. That meant that Iraq wouldn’t be unified but rather fractured.
Obama and Hillary endless talked about the importance of diplomacy and how that should be the prefered course of action but they never actually did the work of diplomacy. It is just far too easy to say the word diplomacy and then never deliver anything because people don’t pay attention to it like they do body bags and bombs.
Iraq started bad and it couldn’t end well.
That is fatalism and isn’t a rational position. Had we left some troops in Iraq and continued our diplomatic efforts in Iraq rather than disengaging, then things could have been much different today. We know this because things were much different before Hillary and Obama cut and run and didn’t even engage in diplomacy despite that being all the claimed was important in life.
There was no casus belli to go there in the first place.
Sure there was. We wanted to end the Oil for Food program but couldn’t just stop because Saddam wasn’t living up to his end of the deal. He was shooting at our planes on a regular basis and violating the agreements in areas other than just WMD. We were already in a de facto state of war.
I think you people call this, in different circumstances, “throwing good money after bad”. The Art of War says you shouldn’t go to war to meet nebulous objectives. I think it says something like doing something like that empties the coffers of the state, leads to grief at home, and withdrawal and defeat in the end. The fact is Obama was elected on a platform of exiting from Iraq. If anything he kept following the previous policy of occupying Iraq for a lot longer than the people who elected him expected him to.
The Art of War says you shouldn’t go to war to meet nebulous objectives.
Sure, but conditions on the ground always change the strategy. There were more actors involved than just the Americans and they all had their own motivations.
Something to consider is that it wasn’t just a single war per se. There was the initial invasion and occupation, which went very well. Then there was the war against the Iranian and Syrian proxies. That required a major adjustment of strategy and then things went well.
Now, we are in essentially a third Iraq War where Jihadists have invaded from Syria. ISIS has some heritage to the prior Syrian proxy groups but they are also very different than the organizations that existed before.
It isn’t so much that the initial objectives were nebulous so much as there were really a series of conflicts each requiring their own solutions.
Yeah, but…
What’s the right thing to do when the odds of botching the aftermath approach 100%? One could have been pretty damn sure that GWB would be followed by a Democratic administration, maybe not in 2008, but certainly in 2012 — and 2012 was pretty unlikely given that GWB wasn’t grooming a successor the way Reagan did.
You don’t really want to undertake only projects you can finish in one term or two, but what’s the alternative?
What’s the right thing to do when the odds of botching the aftermath approach 100%?
I don’t think you can say that considering what things looked like in 2009.
You don’t really want to undertake only projects you can finish in one term or two, but what’s the alternative?
People realizing that it wasn’t “Bush’s War” but our country’s. Same goes for Libya. When our country is involved in a struggle with people who practice generational genocidal warfare, we can’t be short sighted or not support the effort just because we don’t like a President. This is especially true for the President themself rather than just the people.
Japan and Germany point the way for responding to both success and failure, respectively. Japan we picked up from the ground, we dusted it off, and helped them rebuild while defending from any opportunistic regional players that might threaten them. And we are still there.
With Germany, we screwed up and allowed Russia to build the Berlin Wall and fracture the country into two pieces. We didn’t say, “Ha. Well, you sure beat us to the punch on this. I guess we and the rest of the western alliance will just go home, you can have the whole of Germany.” We stayed for decades, until the wall came down and Germany was reunified.
All of that took place in a mix of presidential terms diverse by both personal views of each administration and along party lines. There is precedent, obviously, for being able to do such things.
You have a point there. It’s the main reason I do not want a significant commitment of troops there now. Our best young men went to Iraq and fixed it, and many did not return. And, Obama wasted it all for no reason at all.
I’m more disposed these days to let the fickle public suffer until they’ve reached a point where they will support the troops through to the end.
As to the political correctness on Islam, I do agree that he was, but not to the level that Obama bends over backwards (forwards?), sorry, no. And anti-immigration anger? I’m not getting that reference.
Why do you think that the Republicans lost the Congress in 2006? It wasn’t just Iraq. The White House favored “comprehensive legislation.” Bush helped give us Trump.
Oh, that. I thought we were talking about 9/11 and Iraq. I see your point. I was focused elsewhere.
There are many problems from unrestricted flow across the border, but national security in the wake of 9/11 is a major one.
Does anyone else ever have this problem? I look at the main page, and it says there are 8 comments as of now. I go to the page, and it only shows 4.
It happens here to me often. For some reason, the comments just don’t keep up. I’ve tried deleting the browser history, switching browsers… nothing seems to help. I just have to wait, and eventually the other comments will show up.
Interestingly, the other comments showed when I posted the above.
Saying Trump is worse than Hillary is not an argument for voting for her any more than saying she is worse than him is an argument for voting for him.
Not if you think he’s catastrophically worse.
And not if you live in a state like Massachusetts, where the result will be Hillary even if I do nothing.
Then you might as well vote for SMOD, otherwise you will be as responsible as anyone else when the shit storm (no matter who wins) happens. This race is a Kobyashi Maru test. There is no winning move.
Kirk won by cheating. That’s what Trump will have to do to fix this government.
That’s exactly why someone with the right bonafides can’t do the job. You have to be completely blind not to notice the march of govt., weaponized against the citizens, is growing regardless of who gets elected. No constitutionalist no matter how perfect can fix this problem. Refer to the definition of insane. The results are always the same.
The problem is so deep it may not be fixable. But the solution is simple. Reboot. Which is not going to happen.
It is an argument for voting for someone though. First, because many people are literally making that argument but also because saying someone is worse than someone else is really saying someone is better than someone else.
Maybe we need an option where people can say none of the candidates should get elected and we go without a President until the populace agrees that a candidate deserves the job.
I’ve seen the video of Hillary’s abrupt departure from the 9/11 ceremony, and I think it’s just more conspiracy-mongering. There is a very easy and simple innocent explanation; she’d just had far too much to drink. Hardly unusual behavior. I’ve seen it before in one of my neighbors before she was sent to rehab.
We have to look deeper. The obviously true answer is not always the right answer.
“The reason we have crime is because there are criminals.” True statement. Wrong focus. The problem isn’t the criminals. The problem is our response that doesn’t deal with it properly. The same is true politically. The problem isn’t the democrats or republicans. The problem is getting lost in the trees and ignoring the forest.
Trump is bad, yada, yada, yada. He’s ignorant (much to be preferred to evil.) He’s a buffoon. Those are the trees. His language is imprecise. He’s not alone there.
Even if he got into this campaign for any other reason, he is now committed to a position Americans have been waiting for since Reagan. Remember, “We win, they lose?” This is the position Trump has backed himself into regardless of anything else you think about him. When Trump says, “This is a movement” he says it with wonder in his voice because he could never have predicted it regardless of his bluster. McCain had the same astonishment when Sarah energized the crowds and donations and for the exact same reason. Even Ross Perot tapped into it a bit before he unraveled.
This is what our founders knew. They could trust the common people, uneducated then and now, to recognize basic liberty issues.
It isn’t about the leaders. It’s all about the people.
But none of that matters if the government can succeed, as they mostly have, in marginalizing the people. Only a wild card like Trump, who will do things differently because he is ‘ignorant’ can offer us any real change. This is proven by all the tea party candidates that got elected then learned how to play the corrupt game along with all the rest in power.
I dropped my long-time Esquire subscription a few years ago because the mag’s editorial direction finally got to be too much, but Tom Junod is one of the writers I miss most. An eloquent piece.
Apologies if it’s been linked here before, but “The Flight 93 Election”is a must-read.
Forget Trump for a moment. The author does an excellent job describing the utter contempt the so-called “elites” have for the American people.
And it is possibly the greatest title I’ve ever seen.
Thanks, that was a terrific essay.
Rickl, how do you keep coming up with these great essays? That one tells the entire story.
This is the mark of … a civilization that wants to die.
Yep.
It’s not always necessary to say something new. Meditating on the old and sometimes forgotten has practical value as well.
Fifteen years on and I wonder what the problem with progress is.
Past wars we were brutal, not always directly against a people but in terms of destroying resources and occupying strategic places. In the Indian Wars, we would take over migration destinations and sources of food. In WII, we went after the means of production. Similar strategy for Sherman’s March.
We went where ever we needed to go to impact our opponents.
In VietNam, we didn’t make progress until we went outside the border. Somehow we managed to win in Iraq without involving Iran or Syria but that also hasn’t worked out in the long run. Letting our opponents have a “home base” that is off limits doesn’t work very well.
This is why Afghanistan is not going as well as it should be. Our opponents don’t recognize borders. Borders only tie the hands of our soldiers. Would adding another country to the war be an escalation requiring more military effort? Sure but fighting piecemeal over decades isn’t exactly cheaper and doesn’t lead to less death, suffering, and sacrifice.
And the strategy of not going after the resources and means of production that sustain our opponents isn’t working either.
Well the thing is the moment you start going into other countries you start being considered as an aggressor nation by the world at large or at least in that region. Everyone will start thinking they will be invaded next.
The reasons why the war in Afghanistan never quite ended are that Pakistan is still interested in controlling Afghanistan, has close ties to the majority of the population there, the major sponsors of international Muslim terrorism are still operating worldwide (namely Saudi Arabia), etc. That war will basically never end until those factors change. Which does not mean it shouldn’t have been fought at that time. That war fulfilled several objectives. Namely killing Bin Laden and destroying the main Al-Qaeda training centers.
When I heard Saddam was killed though I already expected it to be a disaster. They basically killed one of the few secular Islamic leaders in the region. The replacement was going to be a Lebanon style (or should I say Yugoslav style) politically correct government republic with every minority represented there. Which basically ended like Lebanon and Yugoslavia ended (with an implosion of war lordism).
Everyone will start thinking they will be invaded next.
Good. Then it will mean our enemies will know that allowing an army safe haven in their country while trying to kill us has consequences. We would have a credible deterrent.
The reasons why the war in Afghanistan never quite ended are that Pakistan is still interested in controlling Afghanistan, has close ties to the majority of the population there, the major sponsors of international Muslim terrorism are still operating worldwide (namely Saudi Arabia), etc. That war will basically never end until those factors change.
Ya, I agree. Taking the fight into Pakistan could change one of those factors though. The tougher one is Saudi Arabia and their funding of terror groups and spreading their version of Islam.
Considering SA is our ally, they should be more open to change through diplomacy. Too bad we don’t have a President who thinks diplomacy is a hammer and all the world’s problems are nails.
–I don’t think that Trump will prove to be the parachute that saves the nation — he’s far too ignorant and contemptuous of the Constitution (and much else) — but many do, and that is how he has gotten as far as he has, and may yet win the presidency.–
The idea that any of republican candidates could have saved the nation is a bit optimistic. Nor does it seem like very conservative notion generally speaking. Obama was populous candidate, and I doubt many lefties actually thought he was going to save anything. Main thing going for Obama was he was preferred by more than as compared to McCain or Romney.
Anyhow I thought this was interesting:
Deplorably, Trump is going to win
…
“He’s no racist. He’s an obnoxious, vulgar, salesman who plays politics like a reality show. I’ve made clear that I will vote for him, not because he was my choice in the Republican field (that was Sen. Cruz), but because I believe that rule of law is a precondition for a free society. If the Clintons get a free pass for influence-peddling on the multi-hundred-million-dollar scale and for covering up illegal use of private communications for government documents, the rule of law is a joke in the United States. Even if Trump were a worse president than Clinton–which is probably not the case–I would vote for him, on this ground alone.”
http://atimes.com/2016/09/deplorably-trump-is-going-to-win/
The notion of saving nation will only begin if Congress, and President follow the law, and electing Clinton will not be slight push towards further lawlessness, it will be mandate given by the people for those who are elected to not bother to even pretend follow the law at all.
Humanity is moving toward extinction, but will reach a point when we think we’ve got a good handle on things… then sudden destruction.
The instability should be obvious (from Putin whining that they’re still relevant because they’re still a nuclear power to China building military bases where there was no land.) Islam is an algorithm for world conquest and its influence in the world is growing right here in America while we watch it taking over other parts of the world.
No discussion of strategy or tactics addresses the heart of the problem. Unless we clean house at home we have no chance of being part of the solution. Going into or not going into Iraq or anyplace else is insignificant in this context.