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Mark Steyn provided more to mark the six years. His column the day after 9/11 for Canada’s National Post was reproduced Tuesday on his website. It is interesting to see how consistent Mark has been.

This is what I wrote six years ago, on Tuesday, September 11th 2001, for the following morning’s National Post in Canada and that week’s Spectator in Britain. This version is from The Face Of The Tiger, with second thoughts at the foot of the page:

 

You can understand why they’re jumping up and down in the streets of Ramallah, jubilant in their victory. They have struck a mighty blow against the Great Satan, mightier than even the producers of far-fetched action thrillers could conceive. They have driven a gaping wound into the heart of his military headquarters. They have ruptured the most famous skyline in the world, the glittering monument to his decadence. They have killed and maimed thousands of his subjects, live on TV. For one day they reduced the hated Bush to a pitiful Presidential vagrant, bounced further and further from his White House to ever more remote military airports, from Florida to Louisiana to Nebraska, by a security staff which obviously understands less about the power of symbolism than America’s enemies do.

And, for those on the receiving end, that “money shot”, as they call it in Hollywood – the smoking towers of the World Trade Center collapsing as easily as condemned chimneys at an abandoned sawmill – represents not just an awesome loss of life but a ghastly intelligence failure by the US and a worse moral failure by the west generally.

…

There are cowards elsewhere, too. The funniest moment in the early coverage came when some portentous anchor solemnly reported that “the United Nations building has not been hit”. Well, there’s a surprise! Why would the guys who took out the World Trade Center and the Pentagon want to target the UN? The UN is dominated by their apologists, and in some cases the friends of the friends of the fellows who did this (to put it at its most discreet). All last week the plenipotentiaries of the west were in Durban holed up with the smooth, bespoke emissaries of thug states and treating with them as equals, negotiating over how many anti-Zionist insults they could live with and over how grovelling the west’s apology for past sins should be. Yesterday’s sobering coda to Durban let us know that those folks on the other side are really admirably straightforward: they mean what they say, and we should take them at their word. We should also cease dignifying them by pretending that the foreign ministers of, say, Spain and Syria are somehow cut from the same cloth.

There is also a long-term lesson. The US is an historical anomaly: the first non-imperial superpower. Britain, France and the other old powers believed in projecting themselves, both territorially and culturally. As we saw in Durban, they get few thanks for that these days. But the American position – that the pre-eminent nation on earth can collectively leap in its Chevy Suburban and drive to the lake while the world goes its own way – is untenable. The consequence, as we now know, is that the world comes to you. Niall Ferguson, in his book The Cash Nexus, argues that imperial engagement is in fact the humanitarian position: the two most successful military occupations in recent history were the Allies’ transformation of West Germany and Japan into functioning democracies. Ferguson thinks the US, if it had the will, could do that in Sierra Leone. But why stop there? Why let ramshackle economic basket-cases like the Sudan or Afghanistan be used as launch pads to kill New Yorkers?

…

Let us hope that America doesn’t show the same lack of will. This is, as the German government put it, an attack on “the civilized world”, and it’s time to speak up in its defence. Those western nations who spent last week in Durban finessing and nuancing evil should understand now that what is at stake is whether the world’s future will belong to liberal democracy and the rule of law, or to darker forces. And after Tuesday America is entitled to ask its allies not for finely crafted UN resolutions but a more basic question: whose side are you on?

John Tierney’s last item here was about his sojourn with Bjorn Lomborg. He makes his blog available for his readers to take on Dr. Lomborg.

I’m going to take a wild guess that a few readers differ with Bjorn Lomborg’s message in my Findings column. Here’s your chance to disagree. But first let me present a little more of his argument, and tell you why I like his new book, “Cool It: The Skeptical Environmentalist’s Guide to Global Warming.” …

Victor Davis Hanson with a warning.

Who recently said: “These Jews started 19 Crusades. The 19th was World War (1). Why? Only to build Israel.”

Some holdover Nazi?

Hardly. It was former Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan of Turkey, a NATO ally. He went on to claim that the Jews — whom he refers to as “bacteria” — controlled China, India and Japan, and ran the United States.

Who alleged: “The Arabs who were involved in 9/11 cooperated with the Zionists, actually. It was a cooperation. They gave them the perfect excuse to denounce all Arabs.”

A conspiracy nut?

Actually, it was former Democratic U.S. Sen. James Abourezk of South Dakota. He denounced Israel on a Hezbollah-owned television station, adding: “I marveled at the Hezbollah resistance to Israel. . . . It was a marvel of organization, of courage and bravery.” …

Anne Applebaum analyzes bin Laden’s vid.

… It is legitimate, of course, to ask whether it matters what is said by a man who is no longer thought to be in control of his organization, even if he still has access to a video camera inside his cave. But that’s precisely the point. Osama will sooner or later die or be captured. But he, or someone close to him, is now trying to ensure that his ideology lives on. And he, or someone, wants it to survive in a form that will appeal to Americans and other Westerners disillusioned with their own political system. To put it bluntly, someone with an Irish or Hispanic name could have a better chance of slipping past the FBI, or through airport security, than someone named Mohammed. In a world in which counterintelligence and security procedures will slowly, slowly improve—that’s the future.

Corner posts with more Hsu puns. Mark Steyn makes a good point about the media. Then the Corner posts on the new transportation and housing bill’s earmarks.

Club for Growth posts on the bill’s peace gardens and baseball stadiums.

The Captain weighs in too.

Gay Patriot has the story of UC Irvine reneging on its offer of law school deanship to liberal Erwin Chemerinsky because he was “too controversial.” Two of our favorites, libertarian Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit and conservative Hugh Hewitt, rose to the defense of Chermerinsky.

Michael Goodwin says the battlefield has shifted. The important battlefield – Congress.

… For Democrats, the hearings were a disaster. They don’t have the votes to force a withdrawal and many were left sputtering mad over their inability to get a usable quote out of Petraeus or Ambassador Ryan Crocker that would allow them to declare defeat for Bush’s strategy. Never before has it been so clear that some – Ted Kennedy, for example – are putting partisanship ahead of country.

Indeed, their performance was so shockingly awful that I am inclined to believe charges that some Democrats actually hope we lose. Up to now, I’ve always viewed such charges as rancid partisanship that demonized legitimate differences. Now I’m not so sure.

My distress began with a smear on Petraeus from Rep. Tom Lantos (D-Calif.), who declared his testimony not credible – before Petraeus had even spoken! Far worse was the scandalous newspaper ad by MoveOn.org that shouted “General Petraeus or General Betray Us?” There is a special place in hell for such vile people.

And there is a special place for a political party that obeys them – minority status. Democrats are flirting with an electoral disaster next year with their strident anti-military tone. It’s almost as though our success in Iraq has driven them to desperation – calling our military leaders liars, shills and traitors. …

Max Boot posts in Contentions on Petraeus.

Peter Wehner, also in Contentions, wishes for more consistency from George Will.

… Prior to the war to liberate Iraq, then, George Will thought Iraq and the Arab world were quite ready for democracy. He was a strong advocate for regime change and nation building. And he thought Iraq would be an easier undertaking than Afghanistan.
It’s fine—it can even be admirable—for an individual to change his mind in the face of new facts and circumstances. But some appreciation for one’s previous views should also be taken into account.

George Will ranks among the finest columnists ever to pick up a pen (quill or otherwise). Over the years his arguments and words have shaped a generation of conservatives, including me. And I wish the best thing I have ever written were half as good as the worst thing George Will has ever written. But it’s fair to ask that he not write as if he always knew better, as if any conservative worth his Burkean salt should have known that the effort to spread democracy to Iraq was Wilsonian foolishness that was fated to fail.

It wasn’t (and isn’t)—and once upon a time George Will thought so, too.

Tech Central’s editors interview Ken Fisher who says the sub-prime mess is not that big.

TCS: Let’s talk about the current status of the subprime mortgage market. Are you worried?

KEN FISHER: The only thing I fear about the subprime mortgage market is what politicians might do, because fundamentally everyone gets this backwards.

TCS: You don’t see major long-term economic consequences?

KEN FISHER: I think intuitively everybody knows that in the long term, this is not a big deal for the economy and the stock market. I don’t think it’s big enough to matter.

…

Tech Central uses Shakespeare to show the link between Larry Craig and the Sermon on the Mount.

… Shakespeare got what so many commentators missed: Jesus as pundit, wisely (and it turns out accurately) predicting the implosion of the two great political parties of His day. The same holds true for us. The Democrats can’t fly around the world in gas guzzling charter jets to give pious sermons about exceeding our carbon footprints. Republicans can’t go on and on about Idaho family values and then cruise men’s rooms for anonymous hook-ups. It’s not just a matter of ‘hypocrisy’. Hypocrisy is inevitable, any standard worth having is a standard that we will sometimes miss. It’s more a matter of reality. You can’t build a political coalition of lasting viability on leaders who trash by their actions the standards the profess with their mouths. The Prophet and the playwright tells us that it just won’t work.