Wednesday, September 11, 2013

9/11 and the Obama administration: a national disgrace


I note with extreme displeasure that the Obama administration has virtually ignored the anniversary of the terrorist attacks, twelve years ago today.  I think Sarah Hoyt put it very well when she wrote:

When the nation doesn’t mourn, when those in charge ignore evildoers who killed our fellow citizens and stand ready to kill more of us, when their reaction to our injuries is to blame us for them, when we know that evildoers are allowed to go under the sun, and apologized to…

It’s not just the fear that worse will be visited upon us, when our weak and blinkered leaders misunderstand the honors they’re heaping on those who would hurt us.  It’s not just that we worry about our leadership.

It’s that we feel as though we’re crying alone, in the middle of a world gone mad and celebrating the triumph of evil.

When your nation doesn’t cry – then it’s left to you to do so.

There's more at the link.

There are all sorts of rumors - none as yet substantiated - about our President and his alleged sympathies for Islamic fundamentalism.  I have no idea whether or not they're true.  However, I believe you can judge any man's priorities by how and where he invests himself and his energies . . . and I note that President Obama is most emphatically not 'invested' in 9/11 or its aftermath.  It's almost as if he was somehow ashamed of it - or saw it only as a tool to be used for political advantage, rather than the national tragedy it was.

Twelve years ago, 2,977 innocent victims were murdered by 19 terrorists - more fatalities than were inflicted in the attack on Pearl Harbor.  We need to remember them.

We remember the heroism of Rick Rescorla, Todd Beamer, Jeremy Glick, Tom Burnett, Mark Bingham, the hundreds of emergency workers - police, firefighters and medical personnel - who ran towards and into the burning buildings of the World Trade Center and died trying to rescue survivors, and the hundreds of unsung heroes whose deeds that day are known only to God.

Let Laurence Binyon put it into words.  He wrote of a different people, in a different war, in a different era, but his sentiments ring just as true for the dead of 9/11.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.

As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust,
Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain;
As the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness,
To the end, to the end, they remain.

Rest in peace, brothers and sisters.  We have not forgotten you.

Peter

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

One of my very favourite poems. I'm glad it was taught in your schools too.