9/11

9/11 Twenty Two Years On

Mark Noonan66 Comments

What went wrong? Why did that horrific event cause so many other horrific events, resulting in a lost war and a panicked flight from Kabul?

Did you know the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs on that fateful day retired to various sinecures in the education and corporate world? He also endorsed Hillary Clinton in 2008; in an astonishing bit of absurdity calling her someone who understood what being in the military is like.

The Director of the CIA? Was given the Presidential Medal of Freedom when he retired in 2004. He also retired to various sinecures in the education and corporate worlds. Got a book deal, too. Oh, and later on offered biting criticism of W. Bush who awarded him that medal.

The FBI Director? That was Bob Mueller. You guessed it: after he retired he was the beneficiary of multiple education and corporate sinecures. And of course dredged up to lend a patina of credibility to the ridiculous Trump-Russia fraud.

So, to review: the people in charge of our military, foreign intelligence and domestic federal law enforcement on 9/11 – the people on who’s watch 3,000 Americans were massacred – all retired to cushy positions of power and influence. That is what went wrong. These three men should have been shot; and if we were feeling merciful after THREE THOUSAND of us were murdered due to their negligence, sent to jail for life. But, they not only didn’t suffer, they were rewarded for their abject failure.

You get what you pay for; we pay (through the nose) for incompetence and corruption…and so we’re awash in incompetence and corruption.

Bet you haven’t heard of Frank Wuterich all that much. You see, when he was a 25 year old Marine in 2005 his unit was hit by an IED in Anbar province and then a lot of shooting happened – as one might expect when an armed unit suddenly has a bomb explode among them – which resulted in civilian deaths. The initial report indicated that the dead civilians were caught in a crossfire but then people started claiming that the Marines – our Marines; soldiers of our United States Marine Corps; not Nazi Einsatzgruppen, but our Marines – deliberately targeted civilians. You know; because fresh-faced American kids who volunteer to fight for America are just the same as bloodthirsty Nazi savages. Given the nature of the beast at that time, the military opened an investigation and brought war crimes charges against 8 Marines. After a lot of years most of the charges against the defendants were dropped with Wuterich getting convicted of dereliction of duty. Because, you know, our Marines don’t go around massacring civilians. Because they’re American Marines. The good guys.

So, think about it: while those responsible for the criminal failure to stop 9/11 were awash in money and fame, the poor bastards we sent out to clean up their mess were being charged with war crimes…not because crimes happened, but because the political Left in the USA and around the world said war crimes were happening and our government went along with this. Who was the Marine’s CO in Iraq at the time? James Mattis; you know, the guy we thought was a rough, tough non-nonsense Marine when Trump appointed him Secretary of Defense. We should have checked a bit – but even in 2017 we were still rather starry eyed about our military officers. But the fact that Mattis agreed to court martial troops who – at worst – fired perhaps in a bit of panic when under fire should have told us just what sort of man he really was long before he resigned in protest against Trump’s effort to end our involvement in the Syrian Civil War. After his resignation, you guessed it, he landed a corporate sinecure. Mattis put his own Marines through hell because some Commie somewhere shouted “war crime!” even though Mattis must have known his Marines were not criminals. And then, apparently lacking any conscience at all, went off to a well paid retirement.

So, what went wrong? What happened to an event which united us all in righteousness? It was taken over by the corrupt, the cruel and incompetent. And when we at last had enough and voted in a man to change the system, that system broke the law to get him out of office. That is what went wrong.

9/11 After 20 Years

Mark Noonan28 Comments

I couldn’t until now write about the 20th anniversary. I’ve been pondering it all day and only now, as we flip over to 9/12 on the Pacific Coast calendar has it started to clarify in my mind what I’m thinking about it.

The 9/11 attacks, whatever they meant to you and me, meant something entirely different for the Ruling Class – the Deep State, whatever you want to call it. To us, they were a horrible attack on our country and the perpetrators needed to be hunted down and killed, cost what it might. To them – to the bosses – it was merely an acceptable level of violence and their whole thought in the aftermath was how to control us. To prevent, that is, from the people of the United States in their righteous anger and national unity upsetting the global applecart.

On 9/10, everything was great for them – things were cruising along. They were making money and firmly in power and the world was at their command. They were busy de-industrializing the United States and ever more shackling us to the dictates and moods of the international Ruling Class. Along comes some yahoos who go just a little too far – and the American people wanted answers and justice.

But answers would expose the bosses, don’t you see? It was a very preventable attack. Just some simple diligence on checking up on those coming into the country would have kept the hijackers out. But if you start doing that, you’re also going to interfere with the drug runners and human traffickers and, dang, there’s a lot of money in that and if steps were taken to keep out undesirables from the United States, all that would come to an end. Not only that, but once the full level of gross negligence was exposed, there would be demands that ruling class heads roll. Can’t have people lose out decades-long careers just because a few thousand people were murdered!

And then, if we really went after the source of the problem – the State sponsors of terrorism – then just think of all the vast, money-making (for the Ruling Class) operations would be lost! The financial hit to people already sleeping on piles of money would be terrible. The last thing any of them wanted was us hick morons going, “hey, Iran is the main sponsor of this stuff: get rid of that government.” So, they cooked up campaigns in Afghanistan and then Iraq – placing ours in shooting galleries and then tying their hands so that there was no chance of a clear cut victory. They calculated – correctly – that over time and with mounting losses, we’d just want it over with. No need to look into who failed and certainly no desire to take on the actual problem.

They were ok with all this because what bin Laden did had no ill effect on them unless they had the ill luck to be at work early at the World Trade Center that day (and what really big boss gets in before ten?). To them, 9/11 was a matter of messaging and then appearing to do something in response. Didn’t matter how it came out – they’d still be rich and in charge and they’d award themselves medals and letters of commendation no matter what happened. And if some poor kid from Akron got his legs blown off or another who killed the wrong guy had to be brought up on war crimes charges, big deal. It didn’t harm them.

But there was a fly in the ointment. We really did want those who did it killed and we really expected our Rulers to present us with victory. And as lie and failure piled up on top of each other, the creeping realization that things were in bad shape started to grow in our minds. Things just weren’t right. We don’t lose to ragged bands of Islamists with IEDs. But, we were losing. And as things continued to drag out and no improvement was in sight we started to lose our faith in the institutions. And, so, Trump: and that crisis really got the Ruling Class’ attention but to get Trump out, they had to amp up the lies to absurd lengths. This did make many millions of people dutifully fall in line to hate Trump…but it also woke up millions to just how lousy and creepy the Ruling Class is.

They did, in the end, get Trump out. In a ridiculously rigged election. While students were chanting “f*** Biden” at football games, cops and firefighters were lining up to shake hands with Trump on 9/11. This man who supposedly got 81 million votes while Trump was increasing his 2016 vote total by more than 11 million votes got booed in the streets of New York. It is too late for them, now. Sure, they have their supporters: the most mindless of Americans are still watching MSNBC to learn what to think each day, but at least half the country – and I suspect far more – has tuned it all out.

So, the long term effect of 9/11 is going to be, I think, the end of the Ruling Class. They couldn’t defend us and their lies just went too far. People are starting to wake up from the daze that we’ve been in for decades. We know: trust nothing. They’re all liars until proven otherwise.

How this will shake out over the next few years is anyone’s guess: but I don’t think we’ll go back. Biden was the Ruling Class’ attempt to put the cat back into the bag. They’d prefer Joe stick for two terms or, failing that, Kamala takes over for him. And they wouldn’t mind if a tame Republican replaces Biden. That was the plan here: get Trump out and then get the GOP to put up Jeb II or Romney II so that we could all go back to 9/10/2001. But that won’t happen. We, on our side, simply won’t put up with it. We still feel anger at those who did 9/11. We are still willing to fight the Islamists if need be. But we also know that our immediate problem is at home, not abroad and no attempts and stifling us in the name of “national security” or “national unity” will ever get us back to our 9/10 world again. We go forward – and to a future where those who failed us on 9/11 no longer have a say in this country.

The Trump Response to 9/11

Mark Noonan82 Comments

I had tried to think of something to say about 9/11, 19 years on, but I only got a little bit about it…and then something hit me and I’ve pondered it a bit: Our response to 9/11 was a Deep State dodge.

Think about it: back on that day, we were all on fire to go get whomever it was and make them pay. And while bin Laden was the prime mover of the event, we also all knew that the real source of the trouble resided in Tehran. Absent Iran’s support for terrorist groups, none of the terrorist groups would amount to much. To really do anything in the aftermath of 9/11 meant a reckoning with Iran.

When we went into Afghanistan, I felt it was a misuse of time and resources but I understood it; bin Laden was there and we wanted him, specifically, dead. When we started to gear up for Iraq, I saw it was our means of inserting a large, US military force into the strategic center of gravity of the Middle East as part of a program of getting after Iran in the by and by. I thought we’d be in Baghdad by summer of 2001 and then start putting maximum pressure on Iran, including military force if needed, to topple the regime and thus get us to the conclusion of the problem: the ending of State-sponsorship of terrorism (which is done by others, but none on the scale of Iran). When we fidgeted around on the WMD issue and the UN, I put it down to a foolish but understandable desire to get the world community on board, and especially the Brits.

But then we stopped. And started to nation-build. And allowed our soldiers to be clay pigeons in Iraq…clay pigeons being shot at by Iran’s proxies. And, yet, still, I kept on: sure there was something going on which would eventually get us to confront Iran. But, it never happened. In the end, we were reduced to just trying to prevent catastrophe in Iraq before Obama took over. Which was accomplished – only to see Obama throw it all away as he felt that the path to peace was in currying favor with Iran.

But now I step back and watch the past 19 years and I see it better: for both Bush and Obama (and, really, Clinton and Bush before them…and, indeed, all the way back to Ike’s idiotic decision to smack down the Anglo-French and Israelis over Suez) the whole point of American policy has been to not do anything but only to appear to do something. From 1956 until 2016 – 60 long years – the whole effort has been a con. An effort to make it seem like something is happening when nothing is happening (except all the dead: they dead really got dead). This is especially true of the period 2001 to 2017…Bush II to Obama when we had the moral right to do what was necessary…and then we didn’t do it.

The clarifying comes about via Trump, who’s earliest actions in the area were to blow hell out of ISIS without inserting ground forces; move the Embassy to Jerusalem and denounce the Iran deal. All things which all the Experts said would be disastrous. All things which they said indicated that Trump had no idea how things work. Well…now we’ve got peace deals between Israel and UAE and Bahrain; rumors that other Arab States will follow suit; Iran isolated; Russia and Iran presiding over the junkheap of Syria; the Palestinians no longer a factor; ISIS destroyed; Muslim terrorism no longer really a thing…and our boys and girls are coming home and we’re not drone-sriking all over the place. It took less than four years to accomplish all this. Sixty years to accomplish nothing (except, once again, all the dead people).

That Trump has managed to move the ball this far forward towards peace and an end to the scourge of terrorism shows that it could have been done at any time. All anyone had to do was want to do it. I now view our actions post-9/11 (until Trump) as being the actions of our Expert class designed to make it appear we were doing something while actually doing nothing. As for why they wanted to keep up the enmity between Israel and the Arab States and keep Iran afloat…I don’t know. I suspect bribery. I also don’t care why they did it: I only know that Trump has shown we don’t have to do it their way.

The monument to those who died on 9/11 and those who have died in all the fighting since must be an Israeli family vacationing on a beach in Bahrain while a Bahraini family has dinner in Tel Aviv. That is the glory; that is the lion’s share. That is where Trump is bringing us. We are still some time away from that happy moment and those who want the old ways to persist will do some very nasty things to get their way…but Trump has shown that we can have peace. That we don’t have to forever live in a world where we’re periodically shown pictures of middle easterners blown to hell.

We have a real chance – for ourselves and for the world. All we need do is make the right decision on November 3rd.

9/11 at 18

Mark Noonan50 Comments

Hard to believe it has been that long. People are becoming adults in our nation who have no memory of it. But, if they join the Army we will send them to fight in Afghanistan! And then accuse them of being war criminals.

I can no longer get weepy about 9/11 – it has been burned out of me. I used to feel anger about it, but now I know if it hadn’t been that, it would have been something else. Bin Laden picked his target well – he must have been an avid reader of the American MSM. No nation that allows the garbage it puts out is in a healthy state. We managed to whack bin Laden – something he knew was a risk – but at the end of the day, we’ve done nothing against the ideology he supported and we are even more riven by faction and self-hatred than we were on 9/10/2001.

I pray for the souls of the departed, and that our nation is cured of it’s errors, and becomes, once again, a nation which can respond to an attack like 9/11.

9/11 Plus 17 Years

Mark Noonan14 Comments

It doesn’t seem that long ago, does it? On the other hand, one of the youngsters I work with is 23…and, so, was 6 when it happened. At most, there is some vague memories in there, but no real remembrance of what it was.

Such is the course of human life – most things are forgotten. Simply overtaken by later events. And think of all that has gone on since then. It has been a crowded bunch of years.

What is sad is how the patriotism and determination of 9/12 is now gone, completely. That was rather cynically destroyed by the Democrats starting in 2003 when they realized that their only chance of beating Bush in 2004 was to make the post-9/11 fight politically unpopular. They managed the trick, but not in time to prevent Bush’s re-election. But make no mistake about it, the reason we got Obama is because of years of relentless hatred directed against Bush until he, and the whole GOP, seemed odious. Democrats are trying this trick, again, and this time from a higher pitch of toxicity than the post-9/11 baseline. But there is one, gigantic difference: Trump is punching back. Hard.

But, that aside, there is still the unfinished business of 9/11 – namely, how to make certain that no Islamists will ever want to attack us like that, again? We’ve hit the Islamist enemy very hard in the past 17 years. Make no mistake about it: openly and in secret, US forces have made life rather a living hell for the Jihadists. But as long as they aren’t destroyed – and their prime sponsors remain relatively untouched – this war will go on, and, eventually, they’ll try something even more spectacular than 9/11. As I said way back then, unless we go to the source of the problem (you know, like in Iran and such), we’ll never finish the fight. It is the old story written again and again: if you give your enemy a sanctuary which you won’t attack, then you are handing him eventual victory.

Still, say a prayer for those who died, and for those who still hurt from the loss – and, of course, for our military members who still have to fight the war. It is good to remember, for as long as we can, after all.

14 Years Post 9/11

Mark Noonan7 Comments

This post is timed to appear on the blog at the same time the first plane struck the World Trade Center on that day.

It is hard to think of the day any longer – it is like it happened in a different nation. A different era.

But I still can recall my first knowledge of it – getting the phone call from the east coast, turning on the TV just in time to see the second plane hit. I can still see in my mind’s eye the buildings collapsing.

A lot of time has passed. The national unity we had is long gone. We’re not even really fighting the sort of people who commit acts like that – and who will commit them against us, again, just as soon as they are able.

I suggested back in the aftermath of 9/11 that the sort of war we got was a Thirty Years War…a multi-decade effort which would have all sorts of twists and turns. It certainly has had that. How it all ends remains to be seen – but I don’t suspect it’ll end within the next ten years.

Pray for the repose of the souls who have died – those who died on 9/11 and those who had died since. Pray for those who stand up to defend us under arms. Pray for the conversion of the terrorists, that they may discover that peace and mercy are best.

9/11 Open Thread

Mark Noonan21 Comments

We pray, of course, that at least one adult has been monitoring the situation in Washington and we won’t have a replay of last year’s Benghazi debacle…though even if it is pure idiots in charge, perhaps we’ll be graced with peace on the theory that we were so humiliated last night with Obama’s boneheaded Syria policy that we deserve a cosmic break.

It is hard to believe that 12 years have passed since That Day – also sad to reflect that 12 years on, we’ve pretty much lost the segment of the war which started back then.  I’ve long thought – indeed, within weeks of 9/11, thought – that we were entering a Thirty Year’s War…that the battle our enemies brought to our shores in 2001 would not be ended swiftly or easily.  Never did I imagine in the face of such a horrific attack that a good number of my fellow Americans would prove willing to lose the war if that would result in changing an (R) for a (D) in office.  But, so it goes – a prophecy once said that the poison unleashed in Russia in 1917 would spread far and wide…and so it has, infecting us here in the United States to the point where we have “the worse the better” leftists just as Russia did…hoping for and provoking catastrophe because, as was once said, you should never let a crisis go to waste (and “waste” in their minds is “not gaining political advantage out of it”).

Still, with all that, the effects of the attack will continue on – and part of the continuation is the increasingly clarity emerging from the fog of delusion we lived in since the end of the First World War.  All those who think understand that our civilization was attacked on 9/11 – and, furthermore, that it isn’t just people flying planes in to buildings which are the problem.  Indeed, a good part of the enemy is found in our bathroom mirror each morning…each of us when we are greedy or base or cowardly contribute our mite to the ruin we see all around us.  But things are changing – a bit of the Founder’s spirit does live within us.  Old Hickory also now strides the land and is winning some surprising victories when issues are clarified and the people simply cannot ignore the truth.  Heck, even some of our leftists citizens are starting to understand that just because someone mouths leftist platitudes, he or she still might be a creep – a mere tool of Ruling Class corruption (we on the right figured it out longer ago – which is why we’ve crushed so many RINOs in the past four years).  Some times I even ponder whether we shall Occupy the Federal Reserve and set things straight?  Perhaps, perhaps – and all part of the battle to be won both at home and abroad.

Today, pause a moment to remember the dead – stay away from all bitterness and anger and remember even those who drove the planes in to the buildings were driven by lies.  Lies are at the root of all our problems – to a Christian, of course, the lies of the Enemy…but believer or not, it is lies which are the problem.  Lies drove planes in to buildings, and have done many other horrors.  So, remember the dead – and pledge upon their graves that the truth is what you’ll seek…what you’ll fight for and if necessary die for.  Because the truth shall, indeed, set us free…and, in the by and by, win the war for us, too.

UPDATE:  The “2 Million Bikers” showed up in force in DC…offering an excellent, peaceful response to the deliberate insult of the “Million Muslim March”.

UPDATE II:  In re: Putin’s insulting little op-ed in the NY Times – up yours, Vlad.  Sure, you danced rings around Bambi but there will come a US President who’ll put your contemptible Russian ass in a sling.  Count on it.

11 Years Later, We’ve Learned to Cringe Before the Islamists

Mark Noonan39 Comments

As I said earlier, I had written a post to commemorate the 9/11 attacks but I got so bitter about how low we’ve fallen that I deleted it – the day is not fit for such things.  Until now.  Here’s the story from al Jazeera:

Thousands of Egyptian demonstrators have torn down the Stars and Stripes at the US embassy in Cairo and replaced it with an Islamic flag on the anniversary of the September 11, 2001,  attacks in the US.

Nearly 3,000 demonstrators, most of them Islamist supporters of the Salafist movement or football fans, gathered on Tuesday at the embassy in protest over an amateur film deemed offensive to the Prophet Muhammad which was produced by expatriate members of Egypt’s Christian minority resident in the US…

So, because a film was made by someone in the United States a mob of Islamists seized our embassy in Cairo – but that’s not all; a similar mob in Libya sacked our consulate and, it seems, killed one American official while doing it.  That, of course, is enough to outrage an American patriot – but it gets worse.  Here’s the official, US response to the taking of our Cairo embassy:

The Embassy of the United States in Cairo condemns the continuing efforts by misguided individuals to hurt the religious feelings of Muslims – as we condemn efforts to offend believers of all religions. Today, the 11th anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States, Americans are honoring our patriots and those who serve our nation as the fitting response to the enemies of democracy. Respect for religious beliefs is a cornerstone of American democracy. We firmly reject the actions by those who abuse the universal right of free speech to hurt the religious beliefs of others.

That is the whole thing.  Nothing about condemning the Islamists.  Oh, no.  We’re far too chickenshit to do that.  Our government under Obama knows precisely what it has to do – crawl on its knees to its Muslim masters!  We’re apologizing to these dirty-necked barbarians because they got mad over a film made in the one-time land of the free and home of the brave.  11 years after beasts massacred 3,000 of us we’ve learned our lesson.

I am just disgusted.  And, liberals, I entirely blame you.  Oh, don’t you try to weasel out of this – don’t you even dare.  It is your man Obama running the show.  He’s the one who apologized for all that we did from 2001 to 2009.  He was the one who was going to get these savages to love us by showing understanding and kindness.  And you cheered him on.  You liberals said we were wrong to fight them; wrong to rendition them; wrong to waterboard them.  We’re doing it your way, now – and look what it gets us.  You think the cringing, spineless apology from our embassy will stop them now?  Bloody fools – weakness to barbarians just encourages the barbarians to attack.

Oh, for just an hour of the spirit of Godfrey of Bouillon!  Someone who will do what needs to be done – drive a sword through these people as far as it will go until they learn that you don’t attack us, ever.

UPDATE:  Hopefully on January 20th we’ll be able to stop cringing.  Romney’s statement:

I’m outraged by the attacks on American diplomatic missions in Libya and Egypt and by the death of an American consulate worker in Benghazi. It’s disgraceful that the Obama Administration’s first response was not to condemn attacks on our diplomatic missions, but to sympathize with those who waged the attacks.

Team Obama is now busily trying to walk back the craven statement from the embassy but its too late for that.  Everything Obama has done since 2009 is encapsulated in that statement – its his embassy under his direction and they clearly did what they thought was in line with Obama Administration policy.

UPDATE II:  Fury is growing over this disgraceful act by our government – especially as the linked article shows that its even worse than we thought, what with embassy officials apparently “tweeting” craven statements to Islamists over this incident.

UPDATE III:  Sarah Palin’s statement:

…It’s about time our president stood up for America and condemned these Islamic extremists. I realize there must be a lot on his mind these days – what with our economy’s abysmal jobless numbers and Moody’s new warning about yet another downgrade to our nation’s credit rating due to the current administration’s failure to come up with a credible deficit reduction plan. And, of course, he has a busy schedule – with all those rounds of golf, softball interviews with the “Pimp with the Limp,” and fundraising dinners with his corporate cronies. But our nation’s security should be of utmost importance to our Commander-in-chief. America can’t afford any more “leading from behind” in such a dangerous world. We already know that President Obama likes to “speak softly” to our enemies. If he doesn’t have a “big stick” to carry, maybe it’s time for him to grow one.

Terror Threat Update

Mark Noonan38 Comments

From ABC:

On the tenth anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2011, terror attacks, the U.S. intelligence and law enforcement apparatus continued a feverish, around-the-clock effort to find evidence to corroborate an unfolding terror plot. (But) as (0f) early Sunday morning, none was in hand.

However, the picture authorities were working (on) had been fleshed out substantially since … intelligence from Afghanistan arrived Wednesday.

Authorities now believe, like several self-radicalized American jihadists before them, that the Sept. 11 anniversary plotters journey to jihad began in the U.S., took them to the Afghanistan-Pakistan region in July and had them, according to the CIA informant whose information is the hard bottom of the case, return to the U.S. on Aug. 31 or Sept. 1 to carry out an anniversary bomb plot.

So far, no new intelligence has come in to support or discount the informant account coming in from overseas…

So far, so good for today…but today also isn’t over.  This is the revised threat – Americans who have turned traitor after having been propagandized in to thinking that the source of the problem is the United States rather than the Islamo-fascists.  If they are American citizens then they will, of course, fit right in…unless they do something overt, no one will really be able to tell who is the Jihadist.  Makes it very hard to run them down.

Let’s just hope our intelligence, special forces and law enforcement people are at the top of their form…and that they get the breaks.