From the WSJ Opinion Archives
'We're
at War'
In his weekly radio
address, President Bush prepares the nation for war: "You will be asked
for your patience, for the conflict will not be short. You will be asked for
your resolve, for the conflict will not be easy. You will be asked for your
strength, because the course to victory may be long." Bush names Osama bin Laden
as the "prime suspect" in Tuesday's atrocity.
The Associated Press reports Pakistan has "promised full support" to America in the event of an attack on Afghanistan.
Bush's
Moment of Greatness
Bush visited New York yesterday, where he led a rally of firemen and rescue
workers at the site of Tuesday's atrocity. It was a brilliant moment, downright
Reaganesque. Bush spoke through a megaphone, his arm around the shoulder of
a fireman, and when someone in the crowd yelled "We can't hear you!"
the president replied: "I can hear you. The rest of the world hears you.
And the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon."
The crowd began chanting "U-S-A! U-S-A!" If you have Microsoft Media
Player, can watch a video of this stunning moment here.
'Hell Yeah, I'll Fight'
A vignette in yesterday's New York Post (in a story that doesn't seem to have
been posted to the paper's Web site) captures something about how America has
risen to the occasion:
Damon Wyckoff--by night a guitarist at Forever Goldrush, a rock band in Sacramento, Calif.--said the attacks had left him "freaked out" at first. A day later, though, at his job behind a coffeehouse counter, the shaggy-haired 26-year-old sounded almost Pattonesque.
"It's weird," he said, "but for the first time I guess I really feel like an American. And I can suddenly identify with all those teenagers back during World War II who said, 'Hell yeah, I'll fight for my country.' "
We'd give anything to return to a world in which shaggy-haired 26-year-olds could be complacent and cynical. But under the circumstances, it's good to know they're not.
Palestinians Whoop It Up--III
"About 1,500 Palestinians, many supporters of the Islamic militant group
Hamas, marched in a Gaza Strip refugee camp on Friday, burning Israeli flags
and carrying a large poster of Osama bin Laden, who has been named as a key
suspect in this week's terror attacks in the United States," the Associated
Press reports. The Palestinian Authority continues the practice of intimidation
and censorship that we noted Thursday: "After the rally, plainclothes Palestinian
policemen questioned several journalists, including staffers of foreign news
agencies, and confiscated videotape and film as well as camera equipment. An
Associated Press Television News video was among the materials taken, and an
AP photographer was warned by officials not to publish pictures of the bin-Laden
poster."
One Marcio A.V. Carvalho, a student at a Brazilian university, says a professor of his is claiming that CNN footage of partying Palestinians was actually shot in 1991 and portrays celebrations of Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait. (Why a Brazilian student would think it acceptable to celebrate that atrocity isn't clear.) CNN's chief news executive, Eason Jordan says the Brazilian charge is "baseless and ridiculous."
China Whoops It Up
Apparently following Yasser Arafat's example, China's Propaganda Ministry issues
an "urgent notice," "ordering the media, including Internet portals,
not to publish anything that gloated about the attack or seemed to insult the
United States," the Washington Post reports. The Post says anti-American
remarks and expressions of support for the terrorism had surfaced on government-monitored
Internet sited before the order was issued. The Post also notes that China is
now denying reports in a Pakistani newspaper, the Frontier Post, and a state-run
newspaper in Afghanistan that an agreement had been signed between China and
the Taliban minister of mines.
Time for Tactical Nukes?
Thomas Woodrow, a former U.S. intelligence officer, issues a call in the Washington
Times for a U.S. nuclear first strike: "At a bare minimum, tactical nuclear
capabilities should be used against the bin Laden camps in the desert of Afghanistan.
To do less would be rightly seen by the poisoned minds that orchestrated these
attacks as cowardice on the part of the United States and the current administration."
Reading bin Laden's Mind
Reuel Marc Gerecht, another former U.S. intelligence officer, has a piece in
The Weekly Standard offering some insights into bin Laden's motives:
What hasn't been fully appreciated in the West is the extent to which bin Laden and the other radical Islamists in his orbit have a domestic, Middle Eastern agenda. They want to drive the West, physically and spiritually, out of the Islamic world, which means at home intimidating, preferably annihilating, backsliding Muslims who are far too comfortable with Western ways. . . .
If you can repeatedly maul the United States, the spiritual cutting edge of Western civilization, and get away with it (and the Clinton administration's feeble attempts to punish bin Laden with cruise missiles and court cases certainly gave no impression that America was defending its turf), you simultaneously degrade the West's ideals, which is the ultimate objective. The collapse of the World Trade Center is in this sense, for an Islamic holy warrior, the most potentially promising victory since the Ottoman Empire took Constantinople in 1453.
The only way to defeat Bin Laden is to kill him, Gerecht adds:
With bin Laden dead, we will no doubt see again Americans slaughtered by Islamic holy warriors. But when we down him and take back the awe that is ours, we will have turned the tide. After that, we will just have to persevere and slowly burn the hope out of Islam's holy warriors.
The painful integration of the Muslim and Western worlds, which has been relentlessly moving forward for more than two hundred years, will then continue, God willing, with less bloodshed on both sides.
America at Its Worst Gets Its Comeuppance
The Boston Herald reports a turnabout on the part of Rep. Martin
Meehan, a Massachusetts
Democrat who was quoted yesterday saying, "I don't buy the
notion Air Force
One was a target. That's just PR. That's just spin." Meehan, who
was met with
a wave of angry calls and threats, now says, "The reality is I
fully support
the president and I have fully supported the administration from
the beginning
of this crisis." The Herald reports that the congressman "did
not dispute
the accuracy of the quotes attributed to him in an interview with two Herald
reporters, but said they were taken out of context." Rep. Richard Neal,
another Bay State Democrat who criticized the president for his
speech delivery,
received "hundreds" of calls in protest. He now says, "I can't
emphasize enough my overriding support of the president's policies."
Barbara Lee, Footnote in History
Congress passes a joint resolution authorizing the use of military action against
"those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized,
committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on Sept. 11, 2001, or
harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts
of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations
or persons." The Washington Post has a rundown of the congressional action,
including an important debate about the president's authority to act without
congressional authorization. The Senate approved the measure 98-0;
the House vote was 420-1.
Even those on the ideological fringes of Congress--Democratic extremists like Reps. Maxine Waters (D., Calif.) and Cynthia McKinney (D., Ga.) and libertarian Republican Rep. Ron Paul of Texas, a perennial lone dissenter on foreign-policy votes--voted for the resolution. The one "no" vote came from Rep. Barbara Lee, a California Democrat whose district includes Oakland and Berkeley. She tells the Los Angeles Times: "Military action is a one-dimensional reaction to a multidimensional problem," adding, "I think people understand votes of conscience."
Lee has established herself as a historical footnote, the 21st century's Jeannette Rankin. Rankin, a Montana Republican, had one of the more unlikely congressional careers: She served two nonconsecutive terms in the House, 1917-19 and 1941-43. This enabled her to vote against U.S. entry into both World War I and World War II. The House vote to enter World War II was 388-1.
Photo Galleries
Someone named Ryan has posted a very moving collection of photos of memorial
services and expressions of sympathy from around the world. The original server
was overloaded, so the link atop this item goes to a list of mirror sites.
John Labriola has also posted a collection of amateur photos of Tuesday's atrocity in New York and its aftermath, which we learned about from Glenn Reynolds's excellent Instapundit site. Clicking on the thumbnails will show you bigger versions of the pictures.
Cole
Launches
The USS Cole, damaged in a terrorist attack in Yemen last
year, has been secretly relaunched. The Biloxi (Miss.) Sun Herald reports
that the Cole was to have been launched today, but for security reasons the
Navy moved the launch up a day. "I was just tickled pink to see that thing back
in the water again," Navy spokesman Mike Zitko tells the paper. "It was like
the ship was saying, 'You may have wounded me, but I'm the determined warrior
and I'll be coming back bigger and better than I ever was.' "
Home News
We got word yesterday that all World Financial Center-based employees of Dow
Jones & Co., publisher of The Wall Street Journal and this Web site, are
accounted for, and none were killed or seriously injured in the attack. We are
grateful for our good fortune.
The IRS Gets
Tough on Terror
The Internal Revenue Service issues a directive (link in PDF format) extending
deadlines for taxpayers affected by the atrocity. "Taxpayers who believe
they are entitled to relief under this directive should mark 'September 11,
2001 Terrorist Attack' in red ink on the top of their return and other documents
submitted to the IRS."
Not everyone is eligible, however. The IRS stipulates: "The perpetrators of the attack, and anyone aiding the attack, will not qualify for relief under this notice."
(Thanks to Daryl Gibson and John Logan. If you have a tip for Best of the Web Today, write us at opinionjournal@wsj.com, and please include the URL.)
