Taliban reclaims Afghanistan

[Farfromgeneva]

Bs bs bs

Where were you in 1980 eight ball?? Was the chit in yer diapers still yellow? Why don't you go do some wheeling and dealing and make yourself millions.

Or just laugh at the joke that is you...we know you haven’t done anything meaningful since which is why you beat your chest about it so much. What an empty 41 years since it must’ve been.

[Typical Lax Dad]

And yes, Salty, I quite understand "differential risk"; I separately responded to cradle, which he's apparently ignored, about my father's experience during peacetime service.

Moreover, I find it offensive when one pretends to have done the same thing in combat training in peacetime as those who have actually signed up to serve in Afghanistan, Iraq, etc, knowing they'd be taking a heck of a lot more "differential risk". I know several such and it ain't the same thing. Which doesn't subtract from the 'service' of the peacetime soldier/sailor, etc.

As a matter of historical perspective, to better appreciate your differential perspective of those who served --

Do you consider the Cold War "peacetime" -- with the Korean War, Hungarian uprising, Prague Spring, Pueblo incident, Cuban missile crisis, Vietnam, Iran hostage crisis, Granada, Panama, Balkan conflicts, Somalia (Blackhawk down) et. al. ?

Post Cold War/pre 9-11 -- Balkan conflicts, Somalia (Blackhawk down), Desert Shield. Desert Storm, Provide Comfort, Northern & Southern Watch no-fly zones, Desert Fox, USS Stark, USS Cole

Do you differentiate those who chose to enter service, or remain beyond initial obligation, before & after the draft existed ?

Or do you perhaps have a sliding scale of regard which better aligns with your political prejudices ?

Although not as well publicized (or as politicized) as the "dignified transfer of remains" via Dover (a horrible military term used to describe the final journey home), service members who perish during your malleable definition of "peacetime" are still afforded full military honors.

When you take the oath to serve you are not assured "peacetime" for your entire term of obligated service.

as if I don't understand that there's risk of being in harm's way during all such periods. Did you read what I wrote about my dad's experience? Not sure what "political prejudices" you think I may have with regard to military service and how those would impact these questions.

But yeah, I do "differentiate" the risk taken between those who entered service specifically because there was a hot war to be fought, knowing that's very likely what they would be doing, and actually did go into combat, and those who did so during peacetime because they'd f'd up in HS and had few college or career choices. Much less those who phonied up an excuse or pulled strings to avoid danger, service in a hot war.

The latter doesn't apply to you, as I understand it (Annapolis?), but does for many who enter service that way. Though I "differentiate" the risk involved in that choice, and the motivation of that choice, I'm certainly not denigrating the latter choice in life path. Indeed, lots of those who do so grow up and turn out to be terrific people, contributing members of society...and some die in that service. I certainly wouldn't have it any other way in terms of 'full military honors'.

However, I also don't automatically impute "honor" to anyone simply because they "served", though my tendency would be to give the benefit of the doubt of such absent evidence to the contrary. But not all who served, at any particular level, did so honorably regardless of how long they were in or what their official exit from service was. But those who did so honorably and bravely certainly do deserve respect and appreciation for that service.

So, too, do others who serve and contribute to their communities honorably, just not in the military.

That's my view, not black and white, more nuanced...not sure how "political prejudices" would have anything to do with it.

I understand your position, however it is simplistic & too black & white. There are several components of the military where the possibility of combat is everpresent, regardless of the news of the day. Those also tend to be the units which endure the greatest risk & suffer the most casualties during training & "routine" operations.

In 1966, as a 17 year old, 1 month out of HS, I entered service during a hot war. I did so despite the fact that we were at war, not because of it. Combat operations for which I qualified ended as I was about to enter the final phase of training prior to deployment. When I chose to serve, there was no way I could reasonably anticipate whether or not I would see combat. It does not work that way.

c&s has told us that he was an Army paratrooper (82nd Airborne, I believe ?) in the late '70's, during the Iranian hostage crisis. Do you recall Desert One? Additionally, that was the height of the Cold War. Our Airborne Divisions were in a constant state of readiness for rapid deployment to Europe, Iran or Korea. The E border of W Germany was heavily fortified with NATO forces constantly in the field & on alert. Likewise in Korea. In 1976, I was deployed aboard the USS Kirk as she switched home ports from San Diego to Japan. Shortly after our initial arrival in Yokosuka, we were ordered back to sea, on short notice, as part of the Midway battle group. We sailed around the Japanese mainland, into the Sea of Japan, E of Korea, within striking distance, after 2 US Army officers were killed near the DMZ in the "tree war". You may have been tuned out at the time but it was real to those of us involved.

You mean the Desert One you laugh about? Those copters still there? Someone should have told them there is sand in the desert….that Desert One?

Your view is not minced and too obtuse because you never served. Only military folks can understand that and be worldly enough to be experts in metaphysics of all topics.

Tiring. This is the same stuff general yell at their “civilian” bosses like congress all the time. The military works for the citizens of this country not the other way around. There’s no military (consequently no military training for these stiffs) without citizens to represent and foot the bill. It’s like parks and recreation telling you that you can’t opine into your kids crappy tennis game because they clean the courts.

I know enough people who’ve been shot, flew apache choppers in Iraq during desert storm etc and those folks never, ever, ever act like or take the position that the ones on these boards do. I repeat the ones who’ve been through hell don’t act like this or ever take this position.

Never served so I don’t understand why Jimmy sending those boys in and crashed is humorous.

Where in the hell did you come with the idea OS thought the failure of operation eagle claw was humorous? None of my fellow soldiers thought there was a god damn funny thing about it all. Jimmy Carter made a ballsy call to go forward with a very dangerous and complicated rescue mission. There are a lot of things i disagreed with Jimmy Carter about and i voted for him. His decision to try and rescue our people was the correct thing to do. I can't speak for OS but a damn well know he didn't think anything about the failure of the mission was funny. OS and Jimmy Carter were both decorated naval officers. I'm certain OS will speak for himself but i know he never thought the failure of this mission was humorous. Those of us serving at the time only felt the very painful loss of our fellow comrades. It hurt for me back then and it still hurt today. Especially when having viewed these fallen service members having their burnt bodies desecrated and humiliated for their families to see. Funny how nobody on this forum seems to remember that. It is okay to tell me to STFU and honor those people that died today. Got it... read all you libs Lima Charlie on that one.

From his wisecracks.

[cradleandshoot]

And yes, Salty, I quite understand "differential risk"; I separately responded to cradle, which he's apparently ignored, about my father's experience during peacetime service.

Moreover, I find it offensive when one pretends to have done the same thing in combat training in peacetime as those who have actually signed up to serve in Afghanistan, Iraq, etc, knowing they'd be taking a heck of a lot more "differential risk". I know several such and it ain't the same thing. Which doesn't subtract from the 'service' of the peacetime soldier/sailor, etc.

As a matter of historical perspective, to better appreciate your differential perspective of those who served --

Do you consider the Cold War "peacetime" -- with the Korean War, Hungarian uprising, Prague Spring, Pueblo incident, Cuban missile crisis, Vietnam, Iran hostage crisis, Granada, Panama, Balkan conflicts, Somalia (Blackhawk down) et. al. ?

Post Cold War/pre 9-11 -- Balkan conflicts, Somalia (Blackhawk down), Desert Shield. Desert Storm, Provide Comfort, Northern & Southern Watch no-fly zones, Desert Fox, USS Stark, USS Cole

Do you differentiate those who chose to enter service, or remain beyond initial obligation, before & after the draft existed ?

Or do you perhaps have a sliding scale of regard which better aligns with your political prejudices ?

Although not as well publicized (or as politicized) as the "dignified transfer of remains" via Dover (a horrible military term used to describe the final journey home), service members who perish during your malleable definition of "peacetime" are still afforded full military honors.

When you take the oath to serve you are not assured "peacetime" for your entire term of obligated service.

as if I don't understand that there's risk of being in harm's way during all such periods. Did you read what I wrote about my dad's experience? Not sure what "political prejudices" you think I may have with regard to military service and how those would impact these questions.

But yeah, I do "differentiate" the risk taken between those who entered service specifically because there was a hot war to be fought, knowing that's very likely what they would be doing, and actually did go into combat, and those who did so during peacetime because they'd f'd up in HS and had few college or career choices. Much less those who phonied up an excuse or pulled strings to avoid danger, service in a hot war.

The latter doesn't apply to you, as I understand it (Annapolis?), but does for many who enter service that way. Though I "differentiate" the risk involved in that choice, and the motivation of that choice, I'm certainly not denigrating the latter choice in life path. Indeed, lots of those who do so grow up and turn out to be terrific people, contributing members of society...and some die in that service. I certainly wouldn't have it any other way in terms of 'full military honors'.

However, I also don't automatically impute "honor" to anyone simply because they "served", though my tendency would be to give the benefit of the doubt of such absent evidence to the contrary. But not all who served, at any particular level, did so honorably regardless of how long they were in or what their official exit from service was. But those who did so honorably and bravely certainly do deserve respect and appreciation for that service.

So, too, do others who serve and contribute to their communities honorably, just not in the military.

That's my view, not black and white, more nuanced...not sure how "political prejudices" would have anything to do with it.

I understand your position, however it is simplistic & too black & white. There are several components of the military where the possibility of combat is everpresent, regardless of the news of the day. Those also tend to be the units which endure the greatest risk & suffer the most casualties during training & "routine" operations.

In 1966, as a 17 year old, 1 month out of HS, I entered service during a hot war. I did so despite the fact that we were at war, not because of it. Combat operations for which I qualified ended as I was about to enter the final phase of training prior to deployment. When I chose to serve, there was no way I could reasonably anticipate whether or not I would see combat. It does not work that way.

c&s has told us that he was an Army paratrooper (82nd Airborne, I believe ?) in the late '70's, during the Iranian hostage crisis. Do you recall Desert One? Additionally, that was the height of the Cold War. Our Airborne Divisions were in a constant state of readiness for rapid deployment to Europe, Iran or Korea. The E border of W Germany was heavily fortified with NATO forces constantly in the field & on alert. Likewise in Korea. In 1976, I was deployed aboard the USS Kirk as she switched home ports from San Diego to Japan. Shortly after our initial arrival in Yokosuka, we were ordered back to sea, on short notice, as part of the Midway battle group. We sailed around the Japanese mainland, into the Sea of Japan, E of Korea, within striking distance, after 2 US Army officers were killed near the DMZ in the "tree war". You may have been tuned out at the time but it was real to those of us involved.

You mean the Desert One you laugh about? Those copters still there? Someone should have told them there is sand in the desert….that Desert One?

Your view is not minced and too obtuse because you never served. Only military folks can understand that and be worldly enough to be experts in metaphysics of all topics.

Tiring. This is the same stuff general yell at their “civilian” bosses like congress all the time. The military works for the citizens of this country not the other way around. There’s no military (consequently no military training for these stiffs) without citizens to represent and foot the bill. It’s like parks and recreation telling you that you can’t opine into your kids crappy tennis game because they clean the courts.

I know enough people who’ve been shot, flew apache choppers in Iraq during desert storm etc and those folks never, ever, ever act like or take the position that the ones on these boards do. I repeat the ones who’ve been through hell don’t act like this or ever take this position.

Never served so I don’t understand why Jimmy sending those boys in and crashed is humorous.

Where in the hell did you come with the idea OS thought the failure of operation eagle claw was humorous? None of my fellow soldiers thought there was a god damn funny thing about it all. Jimmy Carter made a ballsy call to go forward with a very dangerous and complicated rescue mission. There are a lot of things i disagreed with Jimmy Carter about and i voted for him. His decision to try and rescue our people was the correct thing to do. I can't speak for OS but a damn well know he didn't think anything about the failure of the mission was funny. OS and Jimmy Carter were both decorated naval officers. I'm certain OS will speak for himself but i know he never thought the failure of this mission was humorous. Those of us serving at the time only felt the very painful loss of our fellow comrades. It hurt for me back then and it still hurt today. Especially when having viewed these fallen service members having their burnt bodies desecrated and humiliated for their families to see. Funny how nobody on this forum seems to remember that. It is okay to tell me to STFU and honor those people that died today. Got it... read all you libs Lima Charlie on that one.

From his wisecracks.

I find it very hard to believe he would have any humor in the failure of operation eagle claw. I'm certain OS will explain what he may or may not have said. I would be stunned if he thought there was any humor to be found in the death of 8 of our members of the military.

[old salt]

The Target: bin Laden
By WILLIAM F. BUCKLEY JR.
September 12, 2001

There is no reason to deliberate.
It is generally acknowledged that if there was consolation after Pearl Harbor, it was that we knew who did it. During those minutes and hours when all of America watched the skyscrapers crumble, a wing of the Pentagon dismembered, New Yorkers by the tens of thousands scrambling for life while hundreds of thousands ached for knowledge of kin, there was the question incessantly posed: Who did it? Many other questions flowed from that one. Why did we not know anything about it? What ails airport security? How might an aircraft transformed to a torpedo be deflected?

These last questions will take much time to explore. But there is no reason to deliberate over Osama bin Laden’s involvement. He is probably the aggressor. If it happens that he is not — that some newborn entrepreneurial terrorist amassed the information and developed the resources to carry through the September 11 massacre — we can proceed on the assumption that any nation equipped to fight a two-front war can fight a two-front terrorist concentration. If Osama is not hand-to-hand guilty of the events of Tuesday, he should suffer as though he was. It would not be as though we were punishing someone blameless. He has gone through the expected formality of denying sponsorship of the World Trade Center massacre — while congratulating those who executed it.

A Taliban spokesman speaking in Pakistan reported his government’s position on bin Laden. It is that the government is willing to deport him, but only after proof is presented that bin Laden is guilty. More of the same. The Taliban have reassured us that bin Laden’s activities are restricted; the Saudis denied him his citizenship after earlier terrorist acts; after the 1998 embassy attacks in Tanzania and Kenya, the United States launched missiles on bin Laden’s training camps in Afghanistan and on a chemicals factory in Sudan; the United Nations has sanctions against Afghanistan for sheltering him; the U.S. posted a $5 million dollar reward to anyone who turns him over. His comment on all the above: “America has been trying ever since [a 1993 attack on U.S. military personnel in Somalia] to tighten its blockade against us and to arrest me. It has failed. This blockade does not hurt us much.”

Our challenge is in two parts, the first being the elimination of bin Laden. The speech by President Bush had the singular feature of advising the world that the United States would deal equally with those who perform acts of terrorism and “those who harbor them.” That has to mean, most directly, the Taliban government in Afghanistan. It is hardly obvious what it is we are in a position to do. But our movement against Taliban has to come quickly, and has to be viewed as massive and irreconcilable. It must end in the end of the life of Osama bin Laden.

The second challenge is to confront the sepsis of bin Laden’s brand of Moslem fundamentalism. Suicide missions are in vogue in the Mideast. The elimination of bin Laden will lance a boil, but will do less than eliminate the poison. There were several references on Tuesday to the cowardly attacks of the aggressors. But that word was thoughtlessly used, as simply one more weapon in the arsenal of derogation. The kamikaze Japanese pilots were many things, but not cowards. The men who guided the airplanes into their final destination were deranged, and the consequences of what they did were horrible.

But those who are willing to give their lives to their cause aren’t cowards, and the cause that moves them is proportionately grave. We handled the problem of kamikaze-minded warriors by dropping an atom bomb on the source of that infestation. There is no corresponding target for the holy warriors in Palestine and elsewhere in that part of the world. When it is not possible to reason with holy warriors, it is necessary to immobilize them or crush them. Lopping off the head of bin Laden is a gratifying step, but only a first step. Absolute defensive severity is a necessary defense.

But the broader perspective is indispensable, and it tells us to seek to honor the memory of Tuesday’s innocents by standing resolutely by the principles that made their country the object of the special odium of Osama bin Laden.

[old salt]

Twenty Years Later, the Long War Goes On
By ANDREW C. MCCARTHY
September 11, 2021

‘Solemn annual observance” is a prolix term if ever there was one. I much prefer it, though, to “anniversary” when applied to 9/11. The atrocities of that day would be unimaginable if they hadn’t happened before our eyes, defying our assumptions about the depths of horror. Who’d have conceived of an inferno so monstrous that people would dive a hundred stories to gruesome death rather than submit to it?

I always dread this solemn annual observance. For those of us who, eight years before 9/11, started battling against the jihad in our earnest but inadequate way, there is no avoiding a profound sense of failure.

Don’t get me wrong: It remains the highlight of my professional life to have prosecuted the Blind Sheikh and his minions, who first bombed the World Trade Center on February 26, 1993, and then were thwarted in their plot to execute an even more audacious attack on various New York City landmarks. I’m proud of the work we did and honored — and more than a little embarrassed — to have gotten credit for the efforts of many more dedicated people than I can count.

Still, the other side of the ledger won’t be denied, especially today.

It was a great satisfaction for us that the Twin Towers still stood, despite what seemed in 1993 to be the best shot of determined terrorists — the 1,400-pound chemical bomb they’d built and smuggled via rental van into the Trade Center’s underground parking garage. That satisfaction, almost smugness, over the jihadists’ initial failure, was crushed 20 years ago today, in the rubble of the seemingly invincible skyscrapers. One couldn’t help but remember the vow of the ’93 jihadist Ramzi Yousef that they’d do it right the next time — and there’d be a next time, he was sure.

Even worse, though we convicted the Blind Sheikh (Omar Abdel Rahman), ours was not a capital case, so the best we could do was a life sentence. Despite his high-security U.S. penitentiary confinement, he issued the fatwa (the sharia edict, which may be pronounced only by a qualified scholar) that al-Qaeda emir Osama bin Ladin credited with green-lighting the 9/11 strikes that killed nearly 3,000 of our fellow Americans at the Trade Center, the Pentagon, and a field near tiny Shanksville, Pa.

In the parlance of law enforcement, we “brought him to justice.” But we didn’t stop him.
The 20th solemn annual observance of 9/11 is especially dark, for two reasons.

First, there is our government’s disgraceful pull-out from Afghanistan. Reasonable minds can differ about the merits of withdrawing American forces (which led, inexorably, to the withdrawal of our coalition partners). I’ve argued that the counterintelligence mission that brought us to Afghanistan 20 years ago — i.e., denying jihadists not only sanctuary but also operational partnership with the host government — remains imperative. Others argue that the mission was so warped by irrational democracy-building in a hostile, fundamentalist Islamic society that the government cannot be trusted to do effective counterterrorism.

Wherever one comes out on that, though, President Biden’s recklessly supine surrender — as if a superpower could not protect its own from jihadists, as if we did not realize the Taliban were trying to make it look as though they were chasing us out — is a humiliation. It doesn’t necessarily signal the end of the American era, but for now it will embolden our enemies, and not just the jihadists. Despite the blood and treasure sacrificed, we are more vulnerable today to new 9/11-style attacks than at any time in two decades.

Second, there is the travesty otherwise known as the prosecution of the 9/11 terrorists. It is back in the news this week. The five surviving al-Qaeda jihadists believed to be most culpable, led by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, have still not been tried, two decades after the attacks, and more than 15 years after their capture. The military commission is now before its fifth judge. Though pretrial proceedings resumed this week after the latest delay (18 months, due to COVID-19), the trial is not imminent. Maybe the start of next year . . . maybe a few months later . . . who knows?

It is worth remembering — solemnly — how this happened.

Even before 9/11, a few of us who’d been involved in terrorist prosecutions urged that the jihad was a national-security challenge, not a crime problem, as it had been regarded in the Clinton years. It was national-security insanity to apply courtroom rules when the jihadist enemy was making war on the United States, from faraway foreign havens where our agencies cannot operate and the writ of our courts does not run.

Answering bombs with subpoenas was a provocatively weak response. Vesting wartime enemies with civilian due-process protections, moreover, required disclosing our intelligence to them, thus imperiling our deep-cover sources and increasing the likelihood of more terrorist attacks.

Note that the 1993 WTC bombing was followed by the NYC-Landmarks plot, the mid-’90s “Bojinka” plot to bomb American airliners in midflight, bin Laden’s public declaration of war against the United States, the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia (killing 19 U.S. Air Force members), the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania (killing more than 200 people), the 1999 attempt to bomb the U.S.S. The Sullivans, and the 2000 bombing of the U.S.S. Cole (killing 17 U.S. Navy members and nearly sinking our destroyer).

It was only after this spate of strikes that 9/11 occurred. Our government’s fecklessness invited more attacks. Our government’s abiding al-Qaeda’s sanctuary in Afghanistan and working partnership with the Taliban — the very same arrangement they now have yet again — resulted in the most audacious attacks, from 1996 through 9/11.

President George W. Bush rightly realized, after 9/11, that our law-enforcement approach to counterterrorism had been a failure. He tried to shift the paradigm. In many ways, he succeeded: treating the threat as a national-security challenge rather than a crime problem, exploiting the laws of war to kill and capture terrorists in their overseas nests. These measures kept our country safe. On the other hand, the military-commission system has been a failure.

The men who mass-murdered thousands of our fellow citizens smirked in a Guantanamo Bay courtroom this week. Like their Taliban allies, they are still tormenting us 20 years later. The long war goes on, and we owe the families of our fallen so much more than we have delivered.

[Farfromgeneva]

Remembering September 11, Twenty Years Later

What does it mean to say that we’ll never forget?

Brian PhillipsSep 10, 2021, 6:30am EDT

What does it mean to say that we’ll never forget?

“None of us will ever forget this day,” George W. Bush pledged on the evening of September 11, 2001, during his first address to the nation after the terrorist attacks that destroyed the World Trade Center. This was three days before the famous bullhorn speech (“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”), which Bush delivered on September 14, to rescue workers at Ground Zero; it was more than a week before the address to a joint session of Congress, delivered on September 20, in which Bush demanded that the Taliban turn over the leaders of Al Qaeda, believed to be hiding in Afghanistan; it was more than four months before the State of the Union speech of January 29, 2002, in which Bush first used the phrase “Axis of Evil” to describe Iran, Iraq, and North Korea. It was, in other words, the very beginning of a national discourse, the first official model of how America might talk about one of the most traumatic days in its history, offered while the air in Lower Manhattan was still full of smoke. And already, one of the themes of the discourse was memory. We were talking about how to remember September 11 before September 12 had dawned. We were talking about how to remember September 11 before we had finished experiencing it.

In the end it would be months before the air fully cleared at Ground Zero. By then, of course, the U.S. had tallied the casualties of the attacks (2,977 dead, not including the 19 hijackers; more than 25,000 injured; a sizable chunk of New York City devastated; planes crashed into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and a field in Stonycreek Township, Pennsylvania). By then, the U.S. and its coalition of allies were fighting a war in Afghanistan, and the language of public memory around the September 11 attacks was already assuming a distinct shape. This language—the means by which the memorialization of September 11 is invoked by political leaders, by cultural and governmental institutions, by speakers who aim to represent a wide-ranging we rather than a personal I—has remained more or less unchanged between 2001 and now, in September 2021, as we approach the 20th anniversary of the attacks. The most distinctive feature of this public language is that it frames remembrance not as a positive, healing, or generative act, but as a kind of refusal: the refusal to forget. For two decades, beginning with Bush’s address and continuing through the disastrous recent end of the Afghan war, we have rarely been told that we will remember September 11. We have been told, instead, again and again, that we will never forget it.

“When we say we will never forget, we mean what we say,” Barack Obama declared in a speech to New York City firefighters the week after ordering the raid that killed Osama bin Laden. “We will never forget,” Donald Trump tweeted over a photo of himself and Melania Trump on the 18th anniversary of the attacks, five months before he signed a peace deal with the Taliban. The fundraising vehicle of the 9/11 Memorial & Museum is called the “Never Forget Fund.” (Obama, speaking in support of the museum, said it ensured that future generations would “never forget” September 11.) The language of never forgetting is repeated by Fox News hosts and MSNBC headlines. On Twitter, commemorations of the attacks and the victims cluster under the hashtag #NeverForget.

What does it mean, though, to say that we’ll never forget? When the phrase is spoken in a personal context, rather than as part of a national rhetoric, it tends to act as an intensifier to the more straightforward expression “I’ll remember.” You use it to emphasize whatever meaning you associate with the memory. It can be vengeful (“I’ll never forget this betrayal” versus the less menacing “I’ll remember this betrayal”), nostalgic (“I’ll never forget my first kiss”), or mournful (“I’ll never forget my grandmother’s face”). Its power comes from its defiance. To forget, after all, is a normal part of being human. We all forget, all the time; we forget trivial things and important things, things that happened years ago and things that happened yesterday. We forget our ATM PINs and the colors of our loved ones’ eyes. Memories start out vivid and then fade, a little at a time. But when we say “I’ll never forget,” we say we can overcome the part of ourselves that lets that slow diminishment happen. We say, despite our own lifelong experience, that in this case, we will keep this moment, this feeling, just as it is, forever.

I think more or less the same implication is involved when it’s a national discourse, rather than a personal resolve, that declares forgetting off-limits. The natural drift of culture, after all, is toward forgetfulness. People forget, people are born and die, and before too many years pass, the culture is made up entirely of those who never experienced the thing they’re supposed to remember. It takes an extraordinary effort—in the form of stories, artworks, holidays, rituals, works of scholarship, and so on—to keep alive even an outline, even of the events that seem most desperately urgent at the moment when they occur. I don’t mean to preserve them in history books, but in the conscious emotional lives of a population. Public memorialization—the wave of monument-building, speech-making, and museum-dedicating that tends to take place in the generation or two after the event, and that Americans have been engaged in for the past 20 years with September 11—is a way of opposing the deep intensity of immediate feeling against the inevitability of forgetting. We’ll never forget, in this sense, might mean This means so much to us that we’ll keep it alive for the future as best we can. Here are bread crumbs, we tell the future, for when you lose your way.

The question, always, is whether the future will follow. The future will have its own reality, the nature of which we can barely guess at, and it will seem very urgent to the people who are living through it. And so it’s no real surprise that for several years now, the anniversary of September 11 has inspired a small wave of anxiety about whether we’re forgetting already. The 10th anniversary, in 2011, got wall-to-wall coverage; look through the media archives after that, though, and you start to see magazines noting the decline in the number of New York papers willing to treat the return of the date to the calendar as front-page news, editorial hand-wringing about how the attacks are understood by young people, TV spots about whether we’re losing sight of the lessons of 9/11, and so forth. This year, with another 10-year anniversary in view, that anxiety coexists uneasily with the familiar declarations of eternal memory. “What Does It Mean to ‘Never Forget’?”, The New York Times asks, and the BBC paraphrases the wife of a victim of the attacks: “Pain is like a sharp knife, which dulls over time.”

And memory, in any case, can cut both ways. I mean no disrespect to the victims of September 11 or their families when I state the obvious: In the aftermath of the terrorist attacks, the memory of September 11 was exploited by powerful officials to drive us into ruinous wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, wars that wasted $2 trillion while killing and traumatizing hundreds of thousands of soldiers and civilians. It’s tough to talk about memory, too, without noting that the American conflict in Afghanistan, the most immediate consequence of September 11, the most visible manifestation of a national trauma, was widely known as America’s “forgotten war” even as it was happening.

Here’s what I think: The memory of September 11, measured by the immediacy with which most people experience it, will continue to fade, year by year and little by little. It won’t be forgotten, but it will come to resemble the Kennedy assassination and then it will come to resemble the Battle of Gettysburg and then it will come to resemble the breach of the Peace of Nicias in the Peloponnesian War. The particular sort of remembering that’s characterized anniversaries of the attacks up to this point—the collective re-living of that morning by people who were alive to experience it, the ritual revisiting of horrifying and familiar images, the shared recollection of the shock and fear and whatever else we went through on the day—isn’t about to end. But time keeps passing, and in the arc of history, it won’t go on that long.

I think—though I don’t know this for certain—that the ways in which we forget an event may shape us more than the ways in which we remember it. As we’ve seen in our own lifetimes, as everyone who’s ever lived has probably seen in their lifetimes, a remembered tragedy can have enormous consequences. But the one that’s mostly forgotten, as September 11 eventually will be—that’s the one that risks leaving behind unexamined prejudices, phobias, habits of reaction, wellsprings of anger, insecurities, and resentments, all of which can spiral out in unpredictable ways over a very long span of time. Think about the deep antipathies between, say, European cities, the ones that turn out, if you trace them back to their roots, to spring from some rivalry between merchants in the 17th century; or think of the hatreds that have sprung from imperial powers arbitrarily redrawing borders on a map. Hardly anyone remembers the merchants, and hardly anyone remembers where the borders came from, but distrust and violence easily become self-perpetuating—the more easily when they don’t seem to spring from any obvious cause.

In other words: We are angry and hurt because terrorists attacked the World Trade Center is a statement with a clear cause and effect; the anger and hurt can be addressed, can be processed, can perhaps be healed. Jump ahead a generation or two, however, and you might end up with a book knowledge that planes crashed into a building, a feeling of anger and mistrust toward the outside world, but no conscious connection between the two. Your mistrust becomes a structural feature of your reality. You can’t see outside it, because you don’t clearly know where it came from. That may sound kind of abstract, but think how much of our worldviews we inherit from our parents or people who came before us. And think how hard an inherited worldview is to change.

Which sounds like an argument for saying never forget, but there’s the whole trick of the historical labyrinth: We don’t have a choice not to forget. We will forget, not because we’re bad people, not because we don’t honor the dead, but because we’re human and live in time. The best choice we have is to remember as well as we can for as long as we can, so that when we do forget, we leave wisdom, or at least understanding, behind.

I suspect that one of the challenges currently facing the collective American psyche, if there is such a thing, is that the memory of September 11 was misused from the beginning. It was deployed by unprincipled people to lead us into war, and to make many Americans turn against and away from the outside world. As the tragic consequences of this stratagem became more and more evident, and as our ability to mourn September 11 remained compromised by the ends to which our mourning was being put, I think the misuse of the memory became, in effect, a second trauma after the trauma of the attacks. I don’t think we’ve gotten over either of those traumas, even as time continues to pass and their immediacy continues to wane. I can’t guess what it will mean for American culture over the long term if the fading of September 11 leaves behind these invisible wellsprings of pain, mistrust, and belligerence—how that forgetfulness might shape us. In any case, the rhetoric from above seems unlikely to help the situation. Earlier this month, President Biden issued an executive order directing federal agencies to review documents related to the attacks for possible declassification. The third paragraph of his statement announcing the order opened with the phrase, “We must never forget.”

[MDlaxfan76]

And yes, Salty, I quite understand "differential risk"; I separately responded to cradle, which he's apparently ignored, about my father's experience during peacetime service.

Moreover, I find it offensive when one pretends to have done the same thing in combat training in peacetime as those who have actually signed up to serve in Afghanistan, Iraq, etc, knowing they'd be taking a heck of a lot more "differential risk". I know several such and it ain't the same thing. Which doesn't subtract from the 'service' of the peacetime soldier/sailor, etc.

As a matter of historical perspective, to better appreciate your differential perspective of those who served --

Do you consider the Cold War "peacetime" -- with the Korean War, Hungarian uprising, Prague Spring, Pueblo incident, Cuban missile crisis, Vietnam, Iran hostage crisis, Granada, Panama, Balkan conflicts, Somalia (Blackhawk down) et. al. ?

Post Cold War/pre 9-11 -- Balkan conflicts, Somalia (Blackhawk down), Desert Shield. Desert Storm, Provide Comfort, Northern & Southern Watch no-fly zones, Desert Fox, USS Stark, USS Cole

Do you differentiate those who chose to enter service, or remain beyond initial obligation, before & after the draft existed ?

Or do you perhaps have a sliding scale of regard which better aligns with your political prejudices ?

Although not as well publicized (or as politicized) as the "dignified transfer of remains" via Dover (a horrible military term used to describe the final journey home), service members who perish during your malleable definition of "peacetime" are still afforded full military honors.

When you take the oath to serve you are not assured "peacetime" for your entire term of obligated service.

as if I don't understand that there's risk of being in harm's way during all such periods. Did you read what I wrote about my dad's experience? Not sure what "political prejudices" you think I may have with regard to military service and how those would impact these questions.

But yeah, I do "differentiate" the risk taken between those who entered service specifically because there was a hot war to be fought, knowing that's very likely what they would be doing, and actually did go into combat, and those who did so during peacetime because they'd f'd up in HS and had few college or career choices. Much less those who phonied up an excuse or pulled strings to avoid danger, service in a hot war.

The latter doesn't apply to you, as I understand it (Annapolis?), but does for many who enter service that way. Though I "differentiate" the risk involved in that choice, and the motivation of that choice, I'm certainly not denigrating the latter choice in life path. Indeed, lots of those who do so grow up and turn out to be terrific people, contributing members of society...and some die in that service. I certainly wouldn't have it any other way in terms of 'full military honors'.

However, I also don't automatically impute "honor" to anyone simply because they "served", though my tendency would be to give the benefit of the doubt of such absent evidence to the contrary. But not all who served, at any particular level, did so honorably regardless of how long they were in or what their official exit from service was. But those who did so honorably and bravely certainly do deserve respect and appreciation for that service.

So, too, do others who serve and contribute to their communities honorably, just not in the military.

That's my view, not black and white, more nuanced...not sure how "political prejudices" would have anything to do with it.

I understand your position, however it is simplistic & too black & white. There are several components of the military where the possibility of combat is everpresent, regardless of the news of the day. Those also tend to be the units which endure the greatest risk & suffer the most casualties during training & "routine" operations.

In 1966, as a 17 year old, 1 month out of HS, I entered service during a hot war. I did so despite the fact that we were at war, not because of it. Combat operations for which I qualified ended as I was about to enter the final phase of training prior to deployment. When I chose to serve, there was no way I could reasonably anticipate whether or not I would see combat. It does not work that way.

c&s has told us that he was an Army paratrooper (82nd Airborne, I believe ?) in the late '70's, during the Iranian hostage crisis. Do you recall Desert One? Additionally, that was the height of the Cold War. Our Airborne Divisions were in a constant state of readiness for rapid deployment to Europe, Iran or Korea. The E border of W Germany was heavily fortified with NATO forces constantly in the field & on alert. Likewise in Korea. In 1976, I was deployed aboard the USS Kirk as she switched home ports from San Diego to Japan. Shortly after our initial arrival in Yokosuka, we were ordered back to sea, on short notice, as part of the Midway battle group. We sailed around the Japanese mainland, into the Sea of Japan, E of Korea, within striking distance, after 2 US Army officers were killed near the DMZ in the "tree war". You may have been tuned out at the time but it was real to those of us involved.

You mean the Desert One you laugh about? Those copters still there? Someone should have told them there is sand in the desert….that Desert One?

Your view is not minced and too obtuse because you never served. Only military folks can understand that and be worldly enough to be experts in metaphysics of all topics.

Tiring. This is the same stuff general yell at their “civilian” bosses like congress all the time. The military works for the citizens of this country not the other way around. There’s no military (consequently no military training for these stiffs) without citizens to represent and foot the bill. It’s like parks and recreation telling you that you can’t opine into your kids crappy tennis game because they clean the courts.

I know enough people who’ve been shot, flew apache choppers in Iraq during desert storm etc and those folks never, ever, ever act like or take the position that the ones on these boards do. I repeat the ones who’ve been through hell don’t act like this or ever take this position.

Never served so I don’t understand why Jimmy sending those boys in and crashed is humorous.

Where in the hell did you come with the idea OS thought the failure of operation eagle claw was humorous? None of my fellow soldiers thought there was a god damn funny thing about it all. Jimmy Carter made a ballsy call to go forward with a very dangerous and complicated rescue mission. There are a lot of things i disagreed with Jimmy Carter about and i voted for him. His decision to try and rescue our people was the correct thing to do. I can't speak for OS but a damn well know he didn't think anything about the failure of the mission was funny. OS and Jimmy Carter were both decorated naval officers. I'm certain OS will speak for himself but i know he never thought the failure of this mission was humorous. Those of us serving at the time only felt the very painful loss of our fellow comrades. It hurt for me back then and it still hurt today. Especially when having viewed these fallen service members having their burnt bodies desecrated and humiliated for their families to see. Funny how nobody on this forum seems to remember that. It is okay to tell me to STFU and honor those people that died today. Got it... read all you libs Lima Charlie on that one.

From his wisecracks.

I recall the same.

[MDlaxfan76]

+1
Today should indeed be a day of remembrance and reflection.
Quite a few us lost friends or family that day.

Today is a day to remember and reflect. It also should be a day to assure all Americans that it will never again. I don't know if that is the case anymore. Bad people with bad intentions still want to kill as many Americans as possible.

That's been true for a very long time; was reflecting on Lockerbie this evening with my wife, who lost 2 HBS classmates, Bain colleagues/friends on that flight. Not actually that long ago from our perspective. Know their families.

And it's surely going to be the case as long as the US continues to claim it's "exceptional" status in the world (which I believe is true)...but, moreover as an excuse to bomb other countries, exploit other countries' labor and natural resources. We put that target on ourselves.

I don't expect the latter aspects to really change much in my lifetime. So, the question is how best to balance the interests. How do we do more good in the world, while serving our own economic interests as well, and when do we take action to interdict potential threats militarily...tough questions. The balance will never be perfect, however it's definitely worth wrestling on an ongoing basis.

But risk isn't going to go away. Not while we remain a major superpower with very specific characteristics that are anathema to other human beings.

[jhu93]

+1
Today should indeed be a day of remembrance and reflection.
Quite a few us lost friends or family that day.

Today is a day to remember and reflect. It also should be a day to assure all Americans that it will never again. I don't know if that is the case anymore. Bad people with bad intentions still want to kill as many Americans as possible.

That's been true for a very long time; was reflecting on Lockerbie this evening with my wife, who lost 2 HBS classmates, Bain colleagues/friends on that flight. Not actually that long ago from our perspective. Know their families.

And it's surely going to be the case as long as the US continues to claim it's "exceptional" status in the world (which I believe is true)...but, moreover as an excuse to bomb other countries, exploit other countries' labor and natural resources. We put that target on ourselves.

I don't expect the latter aspects to really change much in my lifetime. So, the question is how best to balance the interests. How do we do more good in the world, while serving our own economic interests as well, and when do we take action to interdict potential threats militarily...tough questions. The balance will never be perfect, however it's definitely worth wrestling on an ongoing basis.

But risk isn't going to go away. Not while we remain a major superpower with very specific characteristics that are anathema to other human beings.

Do you have any kids from the hood living with you? Is that part of the limousine liberal playbook? Do tell.

[Farfromgeneva]

+1
Today should indeed be a day of remembrance and reflection.
Quite a few us lost friends or family that day.

Today is a day to remember and reflect. It also should be a day to assure all Americans that it will never again. I don't know if that is the case anymore. Bad people with bad intentions still want to kill as many Americans as possible.

That's been true for a very long time; was reflecting on Lockerbie this evening with my wife, who lost 2 HBS classmates, Bain colleagues/friends on that flight. Not actually that long ago from our perspective. Know their families.

And it's surely going to be the case as long as the US continues to claim it's "exceptional" status in the world (which I believe is true)...but, moreover as an excuse to bomb other countries, exploit other countries' labor and natural resources. We put that target on ourselves.

I don't expect the latter aspects to really change much in my lifetime. So, the question is how best to balance the interests. How do we do more good in the world, while serving our own economic interests as well, and when do we take action to interdict potential threats militarily...tough questions. The balance will never be perfect, however it's definitely worth wrestling on an ongoing basis.

But risk isn't going to go away. Not while we remain a major superpower with very specific characteristics that are anathema to other human beings.

Do you have any kids from the hood living with you? Is that part of the limousine liberal playbook? Do tell.

STFU-no posts since feb and then run around attacking specific people. The biggest loser of them all and doesn’t even know what their talking about.

[jhu93]

+1
Today should indeed be a day of remembrance and reflection.
Quite a few us lost friends or family that day.

Today is a day to remember and reflect. It also should be a day to assure all Americans that it will never again. I don't know if that is the case anymore. Bad people with bad intentions still want to kill as many Americans as possible.

That's been true for a very long time; was reflecting on Lockerbie this evening with my wife, who lost 2 HBS classmates, Bain colleagues/friends on that flight. Not actually that long ago from our perspective. Know their families.

And it's surely going to be the case as long as the US continues to claim it's "exceptional" status in the world (which I believe is true)...but, moreover as an excuse to bomb other countries, exploit other countries' labor and natural resources. We put that target on ourselves.

I don't expect the latter aspects to really change much in my lifetime. So, the question is how best to balance the interests. How do we do more good in the world, while serving our own economic interests as well, and when do we take action to interdict potential threats militarily...tough questions. The balance will never be perfect, however it's definitely worth wrestling on an ongoing basis.

But risk isn't going to go away. Not while we remain a major superpower with very specific characteristics that are anathema to other human beings.

Do you have any kids from the hood living with you? Is that part of the limousine liberal playbook? Do tell.

STFU-no posts since feb and then run around attacking specific people. The biggest loser of them all and doesn’t even know what their talking about.

Whose they? Still don't live in western NY or Baltimore and not a know it all, condescending bore. Sounds like winning to me. Omar coming.

[Brooklyn]

cradle,

Bad people with bad intentions still want to kill as many Americans as possible.

A reminder that it was traitor Bush who killed 200,000+ Iraqis over imaginary WMD. To this day he refuses to apologize for his crimes (see Downing Street Memo) and refuses to pay reparations for the depredations he imposed on that country, including this:

[old salt]

You mean the Desert One you laugh about? Those copters still there? Someone should have told them there is sand in the desert….that Desert One?

Never served so I don’t understand why Jimmy sending those boys in and crashed is humorous.

From his wisecracks.

I recall the same.

BS. Show us the words. Is this what you call humor or wisecrack ?

I'm still mad about my friends lost at sea due to Carter's failure to procure the spare parts needed to keep our aircraft airworthy. ...& the aircraft we left in the desert.

Desert One failed because of an over-reliance on aircraft unsuited for the harsh operating environment. They were unreliable due to years of underfunding for spare parts. It was indicative of the maint status of all US Naval aircraft at that time, especially helos. It was a bunch of pilots drawn from different services, unaccustomed to flying together, doing a mission for which they did not routinely train. It resulted in an entire restructuring of our special forces & the establishment of aircraft units & crews adequately trained & equipped to support their unique missions.

At the time, I was in a squadron based in Norfolk, across the ramp from the squadron which supplied all the H-53 helos & a 3 of the pilots, one of whom was a friend & squadronmate who I served with before & after. He performed admirably but it damaged his career anyway. Nobody I knew was surprised that the mission ended with a bunch of brokedick helos left in the desert. We couldn't believe they would rely on such short legged, maintenance intensive aircraft, which rarely flew for longer than 3 hours without access to maint crews.

https://www.airforcemag.com/article/0199desertone/
...a long-ago event that, more than anything else, came to symbolize the disastrously “hollow” forces of the post-Vietnam era.

[Farfromgeneva]

On the 9/11 topic while this is about a office building there’s some interesting comments and discussion about its representation. I find the idea some kid who works for the New Yorker believes it is “cool” to work at “WTC” (when I worked at World Financial Center 2 I can’t recall anyone ever calling it WFC so that’s a signal, and an editor no less) a bit bizarre. I guess it would be dope to set up shop in Dresden or the killing fields too. Anyways, not that it matters but finance is the area where people put their money where their mouth is. It reflects philosophical priorities and perspectives more honestly than word that come out of peoples mouths. That’s often why I share these, it’s clear when I get technical.

Rebuilt After 9/11, One World Trade Center Is 90% Filled After Cost Overruns and Delays
The building cost $3.8 billion to construct. The World Trade Center complex still isn’t profitable, its owner says.

By Peter Grant
Sept. 12, 2021 5:30 am ET

SAVE

SHARE

TEXT
2
One World Trade Center, the 1,776-foot office building that rose in place of the Twin Towers destroyed on Sept. 11, cost $3.8 billion and is the most expensive skyscraper ever built in the U.S.

The entire World Trade Center complex hasn’t made a profit since One World Trade opened seven years ago, according to the building’s owner, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. In 2020, World Trade Center expenses of $335 million topped revenues of $328 million, the Port Authority’s annual report said.

SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS

What does the future hold for One World Trade Center? Join the conversation below.

Leasing was slow for years, partly because One World Trade faced pushback from potential tenants put off by an association with the terrorist attack, says Douglas Durst, a private developer brought in by the Port Authority in 2010 to try to help fill the tower.

“When we had negotiations with larger tenants, there was always one person involved who said they’re uncomfortable being on the site,” Mr. Durst said. “So we ended up leasing to smaller tenants, where the CEO was able to tell people: ‘If you don’t want to come here, you don’t have to.’ ”

But attitudes toward working at the World Trade Center are now changing due to a generational shift in the workplace, businesses say. Many workers today were so young on Sept. 11, 2001, they may see it as a distant historical event, not a personal threat.

“I don’t think most young people think about the WTC as being dangerous,” said Tyler Fogatt, a 26-year-old senior editor at the New Yorker, using the shorthand to describe the World Trade Center.


One World Trade Center, standing at 1,776 feet, dominates lower Manhattan.
PHOTO: VICTOR J. BLUE/BLOOMBERG NEWS
“When I interviewed at the New Yorker and I found out I had to go to One WTC, I thought it was the coolest thing in the world,” she said. “I didn’t think twice” about its association with 9/11.


The building has leased more than 90% of its 3.1 million square feet, which puts it on par with other modern office towers in downtown Manhattan, Mr. Durst said. It also helped that the tower’s owner in 2009 ditched the building’s original Freedom Tower name, which many felt was too emotionally charged and a reminder of that September morning.

These days, Mr. Durst added, the subject of Sept. 11 rarely comes up. “We don’t hear much about it any more,” he said.

The fear among potential tenants receded, brokers say, as nearby buildings rose, the fences keeping the public at bay came down, and the new World Trade Center began to resemble a modern office complex more than a construction site.

The site also received government subsidies that made it less expensive for tenants to lease than comparable space, according to Lynne Sagalyn, author of “Power at Ground Zero,” a book about the rebuilding effort.

The 16-acre site that once housed the World Trade Center towers and five other buildings is now home to a Sept. 11 memorial and museum, a transportation hub named the Oculus designed by Santiago Calatrava, a mall and three office buildings, including One World Trade.


Today, the building has leased more than 90% of its 3.1 million square feet. PHOTO: CHIP SOMODEVILLA/GETTY IMAGES

A photo from 2011 shows construction of One World Trade Center up to the 80th floor. PHOTO: MARK LENNIHAN/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Today, the building has leased more than 90% of its 3.1 million square feet. PHOTO: CHIP SOMODEVILLA/GETTY IMAGES

A photo from 2011 shows construction of One World Trade Center up to the 80th floor. PHOTO: MARK LENNIHAN/ASSOCIATED PRESS
1
2
A performing arts center and Greek Orthodox Church, intended to replace the one destroyed on Sept. 11, are under construction and expected to open in 2023. Two other office buildings and a residential tower are planned but construction hasn’t started.


After Sept. 11, the tower’s redevelopment was ensnared in legal, financial and political battles. Debates over what was due in insurance proceeds and how to memorialize the victims added further complications.

In 2003, New York City and state leaders selected a masterplan by the Polish-born architect Daniel Libeskind, which struck a balance between remembrance and rebuilding a commercial hub. The plan drew praise from architects and urban planners for restoring streets to the site that had been eliminated by the initial World Trade Center complex.

Q&A
WSJ in Conversation
Wall Street Journal reporter Jennifer Levitz speaks with survivors, first responders and family members who lost loved ones in the 2001 attacks.

Watch a replay of the Sept. 9, 2021, live event.
One World Trade suffered huge cost overruns and was slower to rebuild than the two other office buildings on the site controlled by developer Larry Silverstein, who with investors had leased the World Trade Center for 99 years about one month before the attack. Mr. Silverstein’s buildings became less associated with the tragedy because they are separated from the memorial and museum by the new street grid, according to leasing brokers.

One World Trade is on the same block as the reminders of Sept. 11. “The other buildings benefited from the fact that One World Trade Center carried the weight of the history of the site,” said Mary Ann Tighe, CBRE Group Inc.’s chief executive for the New York region.

The Silverstein group has done much better financially. It got all its equity paid back out of insurance proceeds, collects leasing and management fees and owns two mostly leased office towers. It has development rights to two others.

Still, Silverstein executives say that the amount of work the company has put into the development over 20 years dwarfs what it has made from it. “Rebuilding the World Trade Center was never about the money,” said Marty Burger, Silverstein’s chief executive.

A spokesman for the Port Authority noted that One World Trade Center “had been critical to the recovery of Lower Manhattan following Sept. 11.”

Write to Peter Grant at [email protected]

[MDlaxfan76]

+1
Today should indeed be a day of remembrance and reflection.
Quite a few us lost friends or family that day.

Today is a day to remember and reflect. It also should be a day to assure all Americans that it will never again. I don't know if that is the case anymore. Bad people with bad intentions still want to kill as many Americans as possible.

That's been true for a very long time; was reflecting on Lockerbie this evening with my wife, who lost 2 HBS classmates, Bain colleagues/friends on that flight. Not actually that long ago from our perspective. Know their families.

And it's surely going to be the case as long as the US continues to claim it's "exceptional" status in the world (which I believe is true)...but, moreover as an excuse to bomb other countries, exploit other countries' labor and natural resources. We put that target on ourselves.

I don't expect the latter aspects to really change much in my lifetime. So, the question is how best to balance the interests. How do we do more good in the world, while serving our own economic interests as well, and when do we take action to interdict potential threats militarily...tough questions. The balance will never be perfect, however it's definitely worth wrestling on an ongoing basis.

But risk isn't going to go away. Not while we remain a major superpower with very specific characteristics that are anathema to other human beings.

Do you have any kids from the hood living with you? Is that part of the limousine liberal playbook? Do tell.

??? what in the world are you talking about?
"limousine liberal"???

Do you actually have a comment relevant to the thread, my post above?

[MDlaxfan76]

You mean the Desert One you laugh about? Those copters still there? Someone should have told them there is sand in the desert….that Desert One?

Never served so I don’t understand why Jimmy sending those boys in and crashed is humorous.

From his wisecracks.

I recall the same.

BS. Show us the words. Is this what you call humor or wisecrack ?

I'm still mad about my friends lost at sea due to Carter's failure to procure the spare parts needed to keep our aircraft airworthy. ...& the aircraft we left in the desert.

Desert One failed because of an over-reliance on aircraft unsuited for the harsh operating environment. They were unreliable due to years of underfunding for spare parts. It was indicative of the maint status of all US Naval aircraft at that time, especially helos. It was a bunch of pilots drawn from different services, unaccustomed to flying together, doing a mission for which they did not routinely train. It resulted in an entire restructuring of our special forces & the establishment of aircraft units & crews adequately trained & equipped to support their unique missions.

At the time, I was in a squadron based in Norfolk, across the ramp from the squadron which supplied all the H-53 helos & a 3 of the pilots, one of whom was a friend & squadronmate who I served with before & after. He performed admirably but it damaged his career anyway. Nobody I knew was surprised that the mission ended with a bunch of brokedick helos left in the desert. We couldn't believe they would rely on such short legged, maintenance intensive aircraft, which rarely flew for longer than 3 hours without access to maint crews.

https://www.airforcemag.com/article/0199desertone/
...a long-ago event that, more than anything else, came to symbolize the disastrously “hollow” forces of the post-Vietnam era.

Laxpower time period.

IMO, your critiques of those who make and have made various decisions about use of force, military readiness, whatever...are reserved for Dem Presidents and their appointees, never for Republicans. (You say you'll leave that to other posters... )

That reduces the credibility you'd otherwise have, IMO.
Unlike you it seems, I don't expect perfection from those in decision making positions, but I'm also not going to say that my party's leaders (GOP) and their appointees are immune to error while the other side are bumbling fools.

On this specific post above, I'd certainly defer to your greater expertise!
However, apparently the aircraft were indeed unsuited the specific conditions they were called up to be in...not their spare parts, the aircraft themselves...I understand that the conditions caused wear faster and indeed they may not have replaced certain parts as soon as they should have...but the aircraft themselves weren't appropriate to the mission, weather, conditions etc. Is that not correct? again appreciate your expertise on this...

Now, was this really Carter's error? I don't know...we were winding back defense spending for sure, post Vietnam, using older equipment from that prior era...yet defense spending remained very large in an overall fraught economic context...were the expenditures prioritized correctly? Probably not, in retrospect, right? Having not engaged in conflict in that area of the world, was our military simply not looking sufficiently hard at those differential needs? It's not as if there actually wasn't enough money to have some aircraft that could handle those conditions... One could make the same arguments about our failure to have sufficient personal protective gear, vehicles etc for dealing with IEDs in Iraq and Afghanistan. Hadn't prioritized it.

[Typical Lax Dad]

How many Helos did we leave in the desert in 1979?

[cradleandshoot]

You mean the Desert One you laugh about? Those copters still there? Someone should have told them there is sand in the desert….that Desert One?

Never served so I don’t understand why Jimmy sending those boys in and crashed is humorous.

From his wisecracks.

I recall the same.

BS. Show us the words. Is this what you call humor or wisecrack ?

I'm still mad about my friends lost at sea due to Carter's failure to procure the spare parts needed to keep our aircraft airworthy. ...& the aircraft we left in the desert.

Desert One failed because of an over-reliance on aircraft unsuited for the harsh operating environment. They were unreliable due to years of underfunding for spare parts. It was indicative of the maint status of all US Naval aircraft at that time, especially helos. It was a bunch of pilots drawn from different services, unaccustomed to flying together, doing a mission for which they did not routinely train. It resulted in an entire restructuring of our special forces & the establishment of aircraft units & crews adequately trained & equipped to support their unique missions.

At the time, I was in a squadron based in Norfolk, across the ramp from the squadron which supplied all the H-53 helos & a 3 of the pilots, one of whom was a friend & squadronmate who I served with before & after. He performed admirably but it damaged his career anyway. Nobody I knew was surprised that the mission ended with a bunch of brokedick helos left in the desert. We couldn't believe they would rely on such short legged, maintenance intensive aircraft, which rarely flew for longer than 3 hours without access to maint crews.

https://www.airforcemag.com/article/0199desertone/
...a long-ago event that, more than anything else, came to symbolize the disastrously “hollow” forces of the post-Vietnam era.

Laxpower time period.

IMO, your critiques of those who make and have made various decisions about use of force, military readiness, whatever...are reserved for Dem Presidents and their appointees, never for Republicans. (You say you'll leave that to other posters... )

That reduces the credibility you'd otherwise have, IMO.
Unlike you it seems, I don't expect perfection from those in decision making positions, but I'm also not going to say that my party's leaders (GOP) and their appointees are immune to error while the other side are bumbling fools.

On this specific post above, I'd certainly defer to your greater expertise!
However, apparently the aircraft were indeed unsuited the specific conditions they were called up to be in...not their spare parts, the aircraft themselves...I understand that the conditions caused wear faster and indeed they may not have replaced certain parts as soon as they should have...but the aircraft themselves weren't appropriate to the mission, weather, conditions etc. Is that not correct? again appreciate your expertise on this...

Now, was this really Carter's error? I don't know...we were winding back defense spending for sure, post Vietnam, using older equipment from that prior era...yet defense spending remained very large in an overall fraught economic context...were the expenditures prioritized correctly? Probably not, in retrospect, right? Having not engaged in conflict in that area of the world, was our military simply not looking sufficiently hard at those differential needs? It's not as if there actually wasn't enough money to have some aircraft that could handle those conditions... One could make the same arguments about our failure to have sufficient personal protective gear, vehicles etc for dealing with IEDs in Iraq and Afghanistan. Hadn't prioritized it.

Jimmy Carter made a ballsy call. He had to do something and he entrusted this mission to the most qualified people he had. I don't know what opinion OS had about the mission on a personal level. I know how I felt and my fellow soldiers felt. I don't know how many folks on this forum ever viewed the pictures of the charred remains of these people being carved out in chunks and held up to the camera with smiling faces. I'm suppose to be happy because one fellow poster reminds me that the Iranians, after they got their rocks off desecrating the dead bodies were kind enough to ship back what they had not eaten back to the US. How very effing kind of them to do so.

[Kismet]

How many Helos did we leave in the desert in 1979?

1 helicopter and 1 transport C130 aircraft destroyed
5 helicopters damaged/abandoned/captured

8 US servicemen killed & 4 injured
1 Iranian civilian killed

After action reports indicated helos were left and not destroyed as they were filled with ammunition and that it would be unsafe to those attempting to evacuate and aircraft being used for that purpose to destroy the craft and contained munitions before departure. No capability apparently for remote detonation after departure. In addition. one additional helo was also abandoned in the desert somewhere enroute with a cracked rotor alarm. The crew was picked up by one of the other helos. No destruction ordered as it might serve as an alarm to the Iranians.

[Typical Lax Dad]

How many Helos did we leave in the desert in 1979?

1 helicopter and 1 transport C130 aircraft destroyed
5 helicopters damaged/abandoned/captured

8 US servicemen killed & 4 injured
1 Iranian civilian killed

That doesn’t seem like we just left them in the desert. Thanks.