ON THE 20TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE 9-11 TERROR ATTACKS

 We remember those desperate days on and following September 11 2001, much as our parents remember(ed) the last time something even remotely like this happened on December 7 1941. And it is just and fitting that we remember both.  

But 20 years after Pearl Harbor I was 8 years old.  And there were remembrances held, but nothing like this.  Because by that time we had vanquished the Germans and the Japanese and were occupying to make sure they behaved.  For us it started in winter 1941 and less than 4 years later we had finished it.  We went in mad as hell and killed and killed and destroyed until we had taken the starch out of the enemy. The effort cost us nearly half a million dead and nearly twice that wounded.  And we dropped nuclear weapons not once but twice on Japan to get the suicidal fanatics to give up.

But in the Second World War, we didn't have to much contend with the International Left; who were pretty much okay with the likes of Hitler until he attacked the Soviet Union after which time he became a no-good son of a bitch to them. (We did have one congressperson, Jeanette Rankin; who voted "nay" on declaring war on Japan and had to hide in a phone booth until she was rescued by Capitol Police)  

But other than Rankin, we had very little trouble out of the "Peacnik" crowd.  Defeatist talk was frowned upon to say the least, and if ANYONE had started mewling about how we needed to understand why the Japanese didn't like us, he or she would have been lucky to only receive a good tarring and feathering.  We did the job at hand and Japan surrendered.  

The Taliban, on the other hand, never surrendered.  And we had a plan to withdraw in an orderly fashion and let the Afghan Defense Forces complete the pacification of these savages.  But Biden managed to turn it into a rout ending with a Taliban victory.  And sooner or later we are going to have to go back and do the job right.  And with this weaker-than-water "President", it'll probably be sooner.  

And when the time comes, let us hope that the "WE need to understand them" crowd is told to shaddap.  We need the next engagement to be one which will make Operation Barbarossa look like a toddler's birthday party.  And fight it so that less than 4 years after it begins we can have a memorial celebration and not a funeral remembrance of a defeat.