So here it is again. It's September 11th and it's Tuesday. But what does that mean or, rather, what should it mean?
Sure, every time I see video of the attacks I'm angry anew, but what does that anger serve? The anger does subside, but memory remains. Not just the memory of the emotions evoked by the day, but the memory of why that day occurred; of why they hate us.
Good old Osama has submitted a second message for us in as many days. This one features a message from Abu Musab Waleed al-Shehri, one of the hijackers who commandeered American Airlines Flight 11, which collided with the North Tower on the day in question. (It seems that each of the hijackers recorded a "will" before going after those virgins.) Osama--who does like to go on--introduces Al-Shehri's message from the grave, saying that the latter had "helped his religion and pleased his Lord"--whoever al-Shehri's lord may be. As the words of both men are spoken (in Arabic, of course, with English subtitles), the fiery destruction of the Towers can be seen looping in the background.
However, those visions didn't evoke anger in me this time, but scorn and, dare to say, derisive laughter at how little Islamists understand the West as it is personified by America--at least the part of America which refuses to be cowed by such images. The Devil hates to be ridiculed, as C.S. Lewis reminded us in The Screwtape Letters
Osama and his ilk believe that all we infidels are afraid of dying. Of course, this is false, as demonstrated by the numbers of the men and women who have volunteered to join the US Armed Forces since September 11, 2001--even one Scott Thomas Beauchamp. And, in spite of the recent antics perpetrated by the Left, I think that the "woof tickets" which the Islamists continue to sell have an unintended effect on the vast majority of the American viewing public: it hardens the resolve to defeat them.
I hadn't planned on putting forth an anniversary post today because many of the other commemorations seem to rather wallow in grief and sadness and I didn't want to be a part of that. In the couple of years subsequent to the attacks, the nearly unbearable emotions were understandable. But now I think it's time put away the tears and to remember that we're in this fight for the long haul and that we're in it to make sure that another 9/11 doesn't happen again.
We shouldn't be afraid of dying and, unlike Islamists, we should go on living. By that, I don't mean merely breathing, eating, sleeping and sorrowing over what has been lost, but living well. And keeping watch.
Blessedly for we who live in the USA, we can do both. If we remember that, we can't never be defeated.
UPDATE: I participated in this Zogby poll, am one of those 46 percent of Americans living in the western part of the country who thinks about 9/11 at least once a week and one of the 91 percent who thinks that another attack on the homeland is inevitable--but thinking about such and fearing it are two different things.
However, "remembrance without resistance to jihad and its enablers is a recipe for another 9/11."--Michelle Malkin
BTW, I put up the flag in front of the house at sunrise.
UPDATE: This blog receives a lot of hits from Google searchers who use the key words "PICTURES OF BODIES FROM 9/11." This will invariably take the searcher to my 9/11/2003 post entitled "Fear Itself," in which no bodies of 9/11 victims are featured, of course.
While my first reaction upon discovering this fact was to exhort these searchers to "go away, you ghouls," I reconsidered and now think that reading that post might be helpful to such people. Hey, I can be an optimist on occasion.
UPDATE: On further consideration, I thought that it might be hospitable to add a helpful, directional update at the top of "Fear Itself."
