The Truth Will Out (Guest Voice)
The Truth Will Out
by Michael Reagan
No matter what the record shows, there will always be the nay-sayers who have no trouble ignoring facts as obvious as the noses on their faces.
Sunday was the 10th anniversary of the horror we call simply by the numerals that mark its point in time. Anyone who watched the minute-by-minute film record of the September 11, 2001 attack on the World Trade Center buildings broadcast by cable networks such as Fox, MSNBC and CNN — and had any doubts about what happened and who made it happen — has a serious gap in their ability to process information clearly presented.
They exist, however, laughably calling themselves “truthers” despite their obvious inability to recognize the truth even when it stares them straight in their clouded eyes. How they can look at the films showing such horrors as the suicidal leaps of our fellow human beings trapped in the flames and still convince themselves that the whole thing was a hoax thrust on us by the Bush administration and the federal government is simply an astounding reaction to the plain truth faithfully recorded by plain citizens with cameras.
Those who fail to understand that this was an act of war committed by terrorists fail to understand that there are those who hate us, and hate our way of life, and are willing to go to any lengths to inflict serious harm on this nation and do it for all the world to see.
The idea that recognizing that a state of war exists between the people of the United States and those who would inflict a worldwide Islamic dictatorship on the people of the United States seems to have escaped the notice of the self-described “truthers.”
Prominent among them is an academic, ultra-leftist and somewhat disoriented New York Times columnist, one Professor Paul Krugman, who viewed the ceremonies surrounding the recognition of 9/11 as mere hucksterism. In a column called “repugnant” by former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Krugman pilloried as shameful those who want to commemorate this great American tragedy.
I’ll tell you want is really shameful — it’s the vision of this leftist academic dancing on the graves of the victims of 9/11 from the safety of his office. Civilians, firefighters and other first responders willingly went into the jaws of certain death in an attempt to rescue their fellow New Yorkers trapped in the two doomed towers. We all know of their heroism and stand in awe of their willingness to serve in those dark hours. Demeaning those who celebrate the heroism of those who risked their lives — or died trying to rescue their fellow human beings — is simply beneath contempt.
I’m certain that the souls of these heroes of 9/11 willingly forgive the likes of Professor Krugman from their refuge in paradise. Down here in the trenches of the war against terrorism, forgiveness doesn’t come all that easy. We are entreated to pray for our enemies. So mutter a prayer for Professor Krugman. Although he probably doubts the power of prayer, he needs all the prayer he can get.
Michael Reagan is the son of President Ronald Reagan, a political consultant, and the author of “The New Reagan Revolution” (St. Martin’s Press, 2011). He is the founder and chairman of The Reagan Group and president of The Reagan Legacy Foundation. Visit his website at www.reagan.com, or e-mail comments to Reagan@caglecartoons.com.©2011 Mike Reagan. Mike’s column is distributed exclusively by: Cagle Cartoons, Inc., newspaper syndicate and is licensed to run in full on TMV.
8 Responses to “The Truth Will Out (Guest Voice)”
Okay, raise your hands if you thought, even for a moment, that Krugman would write anything but what he did, or that Michael Reagan would write a rebuttal less harsh?
(crickets)
Right. “The Truth” is that four airplanes were hijacked by men armed with BOX KNIVES. A box-knife is less dangerous than a Briefcase-at least, as a weapon. Even in skilled hands.
the innocents killed on 09/11/01 died, because for twenty some odd years before that, aircrew were trained to COMPLY with Hijackers, and Passengers/Citizens were conditioned to submit to criminals and wait for some authority figure (whom is NOT legally required) to save them from the violent scumbags.
People avoid getting involved, they look away, they hand over their wallets or their lunch-money to the bullies, and try not to offend the violence-prone, insecure, fanatical and frankly evil that walk among them.
Only one plane failed to hit its target, because a few people stood up and made sure they were not going to be the hostage/weapons of fanatical lunatics-Those are, of course, along with the police and firefighters, exactly the sort of folk that people like Mr. Krugman disdain most thoroughly. If FOUR planes full of people decided they did not want to be the weapons of violent fanatics, we’d be mourning the mysterious crashes of four airliners (or less, you know, because maybe the flight crews would’ve been able to hold their controls and land the planes if the passengers ALL took on the scumbags with their box-knives.)
9/11 was an indictment of the culture of submission and apathy. Guys like Krugman want you to either forget, or never learn of, that indictment, because when you stop being submissive, you start thinking for yourself, and at that point, collectivised, central-planning solutions to made-up crises just don’t make a lot of sense-and those are what his faith and dreams are built of.
How is a piece critical of our response even remotely tied to the 9-11 truther movement?
The 9-11 truther movement includes all political parties.
http://www.google.com/search?q=libertarian+truther+trade+center&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a
Gee, I thought this would be about the solar panel scandal…an actual chance to agree with an author I find repulsive at best. He is just hating Krugman…total shocker and a waste of print.
Oh yes and it is just ALL “leftist” propaganda isn’t it?! I guess we are all just going to have to forget the Alfred P. Murrah building, and all those evil government people and their evil government children, that needed to be blown up by the glorious anti-liberal anti-gubmi’t defenders of fredum that Bill Clinton and Janet Reno represented. You Conservatives started all this government conspiracy crap so now you can eat some of it yourself.
What a bunch of rightist partisan baloney, but what else should we expect from Michael Reagan? His own half brother disagrees with him!
Box cutters and terrorists got on those planes because there are Republican anti-government regulation haters that constantly advocate against regulation beyond all common sense. During the 90’s they advocated against airport security regulation, because of the added cost, as part of their ongoing anti-government regulation, anti-government spending blind rant.
Well they learned a bitter lesson on 9/11 no matter how much Michael Reagan and media cohorts try to camouflage that fact.
But what did they then create? Why none other than and entire new government agency full of regulation along with the added cost of it! So now it’s a “war”. Which is the only justifiable reason for a Republican to spend money on anything. Yes ok…it’s a “war” against nothing more than a handful of criminals, buddy. So maybe we should just increase the FBI budget and bring our military home and save a few trillion dollars and stop listening to conspiracy theories FOREVER!
In ‘The Osama bin Laden I Know’, (Peter)Bergen argues the attacks were part of a plan to cause the United States to increase its military and cultural presence in the Middle East, thereby forcing Muslims to confront the idea of a non-Muslim government and establish conservative Islamic governments in the region. Bergen (2006), p. 229. Peter Bergen was one of the few western journalists to actually interview OBL who was obsessed with Infidels polluting the Holy Land.
I’d say Mr. bin Laden succeeded in his first objective, at least; though he would probably be distressed by the Arab Spring had he lived to see it. Mr. Reagan’s view that bin Laden wanted the Islamic domination to include the U.S. is unsubstantiated.
Bergan dates OBL’s decision to attack the USA as Aug 7, 1990 – the start of the Gulf War when US troops were deployed to Saudi Arabia as a defense against an attack by Saddam Hussein’s Iraq which had a few days earlier invaded Kuwait.
In re Prof. Krugman, during the recent 10 year anniversary mega-coverage I kept wondering how the world would view Panama remembering the US invasion in 1989 with a week long rememberance of the 500 – 1,000 civilians (reports vary) killed. Or Germany spending a week remembering the more than 20,000 civilians killed in the Dresden fire-bombing by British and American planes.
Wars have consequences in places and times far beyond the battlefields.
Really, the Gulf War never ended-the players changed hats, but all through the rest of the 1990′s we were holding Iraq under seige (U.N. ‘Sanctions’) while scumbags like Bhoutros-Bhoutros and his sons profiteered and embezzled humanitarian aid that wouldn’t have been needed if not for the combination of a psychotic dictator in Baghdad and U.S. navy vessels intercepting goods and blockading ports.
OBL tapped into the natural outcomes of that-and the natural outcomes of Saddam being an American creation, and tied it to the Islamic version of “Manifest Destiny” and their hatred of the West.
Maybe Bergan’s interview was spot-on, but here’s the thing: Al Quaeda was designed to be non-monolithic, and really OBL didn’t run the organization’s day-to-days anymore than the CEO of Chrysler runs individual crews in the factory. The affiliated groups were and are known to range from relatively moderate nationalists(still pretty fanatical by western standards), to fanatical one-world-under-the-Caliphate extremists. It wouldn’t surprise me in the least if OBL was relatively moderate and separatist compared to many of his colleagues-it takes a moderate to run a large organization composed of widely varying ideologies whose only real common tie, is an anti-western, pro-arab sentiment and a hatred of Israel.
Krugman may be a leftist, but a truther? That accusation seems way off base.
Only a suggestion, but read his stuff, make up your own mind.