Now there's a decent man -

I mean, the one in the background.


Image via Jim Hoft.

LNC reads history and gets stumped

In an essay “The coronation durbar of 1911-some implications” by Robert Eric Frykenberg published in The Delhi Omnibus(Oxford University Press), there is this interesting bit describing the reactions to the proposed partition of Bengal-

The mere mention of this possibility(of breaking Bengal into smaller, more governable units), however, was enough to set off a chain reaction of protest meetings and demonstrations (300 in January 1904 alone). At least three fears aroused the bhadralok of these eastern districts:
(1) even as a dominant minority, they would surrounded and endangered, swamped by the Muslim majority separated from their 'Hindu' or non-Muslim 'brethren' in Calcutta and western districts;
(2) they would be cut off and separated
from Calcutta, with a loss of opportunities and loss of contact with their cultural centre; and
(3) they would be forced into contact with the 'naked barbarians'  of Assam and pushed into a trackless
wilderness.

(emphasis mine)

Today, reaction (1) would be considered Islamophobia and (3) would be plain racist.
So should we consider the outcry over the division of Bengal as at least partly Islamophobic, racist and just old-fashioned narrow minded? Should the eastern Bengali bhadralok be looked upon as ‘vilains’ as the British have been portrayed as? Or were their reactions legitimate?
Compare – there is fear among some that the native Europeans would, not in a very distant future, be overwhelmed by ever rising numbers of Muslims. However in bien pensant circles, such sentiment is considered racist.
I’m confused. How should one judge the bhadralok – as valiant resistance to the evil machinations of the British or as provincial bigots?
Questions, questions…..

Update – Typed “(2)” instead of “(3)” in the sentence “Today, reaction (1) would be ………”. Corrected. Punctuation also cleaned up.

Can we judge him now?

GatewayPundit -

“Next week the Obama Administration will allow Ahmadinejad, Castro, Chavez, Gaddafi and several other international thugs into New York City to speak in front of the United Nations General Assembly. However, one country’s president will not be allowed into the United States.

President Roberto Micheletti from Honduras will not be allowed to enter into America. The US has suspended the visa policy in Honduras.

For the first time in this country’s history, our leaders in government are siding with Marxists Hugo Chavez, Daniel Ortega, Raul Castro and Evo Morales against a democratic foreign leader.”

Via Patterico,  who says-

Before the Presidential election, we were told it’s wrong to judge candidate Obama by his radical friends and associates. Now President Obama chooses to recognize radical international leaders and reject democratic friends. Can we judge him now?

The messiah snubs a holy man

Obama refuses to meet Dalai Lama-

Michael Goldfarb-

Obama Appeasement of the Day: No Meet for Dalai Lama

             -------snip------snip------

The Dalai Lama has met with every U.S. president since George H.W. Bush in 1991. Tibet's Prime Minister-in-exile reacted strongly, terming the refusal to meet "appeasement."

Obama confidant Valerie Jarret met with the Dalai Lama in India this week to break the news he was not welcome in Obama's White House.

                 -----snip------snip------

Instead of standing up for human rights, cultural autonomy, and the long-suffering Tibetan people, Obama kowtowed to Beijing. Maybe if his name were Chavez, Ahmadinejad, Kim Jong Il or Assad, Tibet's leader could get a White House meeting.

 

 

How did this scoundrel get elected?

Thus spaketh Bush?

Did George W.Bush say this, as alleged in a new book-

on Obama-

This is a dangerous world, and this cat isn't remotely qualified to handle it. This guy has no clue, I promise you.

on Joe Biden-

If bullshit were currency, Joe Biden would be a billionaire.

As John Hinderaker says , if he didn’t then he should have.

From the LNC Quote Shop

Sauvik Chakraverti-

The financial crisis did not occur because of “over-reliance on free market principles.” There is a worldwide recession today only because governments interfere with money and credit, thereby creating bubbles that invariably burst. The real mischief is not the bust; rather, it is the boom – a government creation. Sound money and legitimate free banking are the only solutions to this.

(emphasis mine)

From the LNC Quote Shop

Peter Wehner-

We’re only eight months into the Age of Obama—the period in which he promised to unite our divided country, heal our wounds, and bind up our divisions—and Obama’s critics are now routinely labeled as unpatriotic, racists, liars, mobsters, evil mongers, practitioners of un-American tactics, and more. As Obama’s failures mount up, it will only get worse. The volume will only get louder. And the charges will only get more desperate and incendiary.

 

It will be an ugly and sad thing to witness. Nervous breakdowns often are.

A most lying prophet

It’s becoming harder to tell –does the long-awaited(those long,hard Bush years) Messiah speak any truth at all?

Jennifer Rubin-

The Wall Street Journal’s editors gingerly call it an “invention,” but really—it’s a lie. The “it,” of course, is another made-up fact by Obama, who is becoming a font of misinformation and half-truths. The editors explain that Obama’s claim that individually purchased insurance is three times more expensive than employer coverage is false:

The Congressional Budget Office expects premiums for employer-sponsored coverage to cost about $5,000 for singles and $13,000 for families this year on average. “Premiums for policies purchased in the individual market,” adds CBO, “are much lower, about one-third lower for single coverage and half that level for family policies.”

Similarly, the federal Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality finds that the growth rate for premiums is also lower for individuals over employers. Mr. Obama’s health team surely knows this dynamic, given that the CBO report was issued under the auspices of Peter Orszag, now the White House budget director.

In other words, it’s not a little exaggeration; it’s a really big lie, one that tells voters the exact opposite of the truth.

Chris Horner-

Uh oh. First President Obama pointed to Spain and Germany as models for how the U.S. could create a robust "green jobs" economy that even would lift us out of our current — an increasingly approriate term — malaise.

Confronted by meddling academics who analyzed the Spanish situation and laid out the monitory lesson of its green-jobs regime, the White House quickly pivoted and said, uh, look to Denmark and Germany, yeah, that's it, Denmark.

OK. That's been done — by the establishment think tank CEPOS, and you can read it here. The answer is that the president's (repeat) claim that "Denmark produces almost 20 percent of their electricity through wind power" is false. Denmark actually produces much less of its own electricity from wind, as low as 4 percent depending on the year, with the recent average of 9.7 percent. This despite a massive buildout of what they flatteringly call the "wind carpet," on some of the most hospitable terrain for wind power in the world.

The prophet of Liberalism is perhaps the most lying prophet of all times. But you would not hear any of it from our Obama-poodles in the media.

Oooh, they will coo, Obama would like to have Gandhi for dinner. Gandhi is his hero. Oh, so sweet, isn’t he wonderful?

But would Gandhi approve of liars?

(emphasis mine)

As if to say ‘Amen’ to the second last post here, Junk Science has put out ‘WANTED’ pictures of CEO’s attempting to make a huge killing off the global warming alarmism. As they say in India –behti ganga mein haath dho rahen hain.

 

"American workers, taxpayers, consumers, families, and businesses are all gravely threatened by Waxman-Markey," says Milloy. "As explained in the WANTED posters, these CEOs have teamed up with America-hating green groups to lobby for legislation that would make energy dramatically more expensive and eviscerate the American dream and standard of living, while not accomplishing any positive for the environment," Milloy added.

The CEOs featured in the campaign are executives with companies belonging to the U.S. Climate Action Partnership (USCAP,http://www.us-cap.org), a gang of large corporations and Park Avenue environmental groups that have joined forces to lobby for the Waxman-Markey cap-and-tax bill.

How will Tom Brokaw answer the unanswerable?

Jeffrey Lord has one of the best pieces on media-bias in recent times-

Americans have learned the hard way that there was and is a serious effort by some of the most powerful figures in American journalism to quite deliberately keep Americans from making "informed decisions" by denying them accurate information. By ignoring major news stories. By not reporting stories that were or are at variance with liberal politics, as if, like Mary Meyer's diary or John Edwards' affair with Rielle Hunter or Van Jones' speeches or ACORN's scandals or Mark Levin's book they simply didn't exist.

             --------snip----snip----

What's particularly interesting is that the stories not reported about JFK were in the early 1960s, the effort to not report the story about President Clinton was in 1998, the story on John Edwards was hushed through the time it counted most, in the election cycle of 2008 when he was a serious presidential candidate, and the decision not to report on Van Jones was -- well -- two weeks ago, and ACORN but last week. Which is to say, September of 2009.

In other words, across five decades of American journalistic history, the instinct of many Old Media institutions -- specifically including NBC and the New York Times -- has been to deliberately withhold the truth. To quite deliberately use their journalism skills and tools to misrepresent those whose politics they do not favor.

Were this, say, the field of medicine, practitioners of this kind of thing would lose their license to practice, sued for and surely convicted of malpractice. As it is, the examples listed here are what might be termed "media malpractice," evidencing a clear and convincing pattern of deceit.

Do, do, do read it all.

(emphasis mine)

Environmentalism is unhealthy for the humans and the environment

Environmentalism is unhealthy for the humans –just ask all those millions who died from malaria after the DDT was banned to soothe the feelings of the environmentalists(rhetorically speaking, of course since one cannot query the dead –though some people claim to).

 

But environmentalism is bad for the environment too. Just a couple of instances.

First-

Windmills Are Killing Our Birds

One standard for oil companies, another for green energy sources.

On Aug. 13, ExxonMobil pleaded guilty in federal court to killing 85 birds that had come into contact with crude oil or other pollutants in uncovered tanks or waste-water facilities on its properties. The birds were protected by the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, which dates back to 1918. The company agreed to pay $600,000 in fines and fees.

                ------snip---snip----

Yet there is one group of energy producers that are not being prosecuted for killing birds: wind-power companies. And wind-powered turbines are killing a vast number of birds every year.

A July 2008 study of the wind farm at Altamont Pass, Calif., estimated that its turbines kill an average of 80 golden eagles per year. The study, funded by the Alameda County Community Development Agency, also estimated that about 10,000 birds—nearly all protected by the migratory bird act—are being whacked every year at Altamont.

                  ------snip---snip----

The number of birds killed by wind turbines is highly variable. And biologists believe Altamont, which uses older turbine technology, may be the worst example. But that said, the carnage there likely represents only a fraction of the number of birds killed by windmills. Michael Fry of the American Bird Conservancy estimates that U.S. wind turbines kill between 75,000 and 275,000 birds per year. Yet the Justice Department is not bringing cases against wind companies.

"Somebody has given the wind industry a get-out-of-jail-free card," Mr. Fry told me. "If there were even one prosecution," he added, the wind industry would be forced to take the issue seriously.

                     ------snip---snip----

Why aren't wind companies prosecuted for killing eagles and other birds? "The fix here is not easy or cheap," Mr. Lee told me. He added that he doesn't expect to see any prosecutions of the politically correct wind industry.

This is a double standard that more people—and not just bird lovers—should be paying attention to. In protecting America's wildlife, federal law-enforcement officials are turning a blind eye to the harm done by "green" energy.

 

 

And then this(this is actually two instances)-

When Renewable Is Not Sustainable

Ethanol and solar power deplete land and water resources.

It takes 2,500 gallons of water to grow enough corn to refine a single gallon of ethanol. Congress has mandated the production of 36 billion gallons of ethanol per year by 2022.

                 ------snip---snip----

Energy production requires water. Producing petroleum, natural gas, coal or methane consumes a lot of water, but much less than it takes to make ethanol.

                ------snip---snip----

Consider the implications for California, which aspires to produce 1 billion gallons of ethanol annually. To grow the necessary corn would require using every drop of water currently diverted from the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta. That water irrigates 7 million acres in the Central Valley and provides critical supplies to Southern California’s cities—uses that can hardly be superseded by those of growing and refining corn for ethanol.

                 ------snip---snip----

The solar energy industry is similarly benefiting from federal legislation that paid no attention to water and land availability.

                 ------snip---snip----

For commercial power plants, solar companies use a technology known as “concentrating solar thermal” (CST). The sun heats a fluid that boils water. The steam spins a turbine that generates electricity. All thermal power plants produce waste heat as a byproduct and use cooling towers to release the waste heat to the ambient atmosphere—usually by the evaporation of water. Apart from the first step that uses the sun’s heat, CST is an old-fashioned thermal power plant that consumes vast quantities of water.

 

If these were ‘normal’, ‘non-green’ industries there would be such a hue and cry among the usual suspects –Sunita Narain would be issuing indignant reports and Vandana Shiva would be bouncing up and down in outrage. But environmentalist’s pet projects are unaccountable and untouchable.’Green’ rules do not apply to the ‘green’ programs. No wonder so many traditional businesses are jumping on the green bandwagon(among other reasons).Who can resist the no-questions-asked means of making easy money –especially if it is being subsidized by the taxpayers(ullu ka patthas* like you and me) as most green schemes are?

 

(emphasis mine)

 

*The colorful Indian language translator-

ullu ka pattha -“The phrase 'Ullu Ka Patha' is generally used as a curse and is considered a superlative degree of just the word 'Ullu' which is translated to a mild 'fool'.”

From the LNC Quote Shop

Roger Kimball-

Wealth produces wealth. Taxes reduce wealth. Got it?

Masturbating for Earth

This will quell global warming for sure-

Hand-cranked vibrators !

Green fans are getting a buzz out of a new hand-cranked vibrator that makers say could help save the planet.
The eco-sex toy - dubbed the “Earth Angel” - uses a small wind-up handle to power up rechargeable batteries inside the casing.
It had originally been planned as a sex aid for the Third World where batteries and electricity supplies are unreliable.

 

 

I can just imagine all those jhola-wali NGO-type behenji’s panting and pushing and sweating it out to the limit to save the world. Yuck!

 

P.S.- anything for men to save the planet?

Discovering Sauvik Chakraverti

I met Sauvik Chakraverti many years ago when I was more closely involved with the Liberty Institute, one of the few pro-liberty organizations in India.

I did not interact much with him but his fiesty arguments in a loud(very loud), booming voice and his professed fondness for nautch-girls and ganja left an impression that still lingers.

It is only today that I discovered he has a blog, ANTIDOTE –and a very good one; colorful and no holds-barred from my first read.His own chosen emblem on the blog is a ganja leaf. A sample from his latest post, A Democracy Rigged By And For Nikammas -

Anyway, the sudden demise of the main opposition party to Chacha Manmohan’s populist excesses is worthy of note. This, when it is quite apparent that the Congress is also devoid of genuine political leadership. Chacha is a baboo, Sonia is a housewife, and Rahul is a non-entity. It is amazing that the UPA has a second term in office, and this undoubtedly has a lot to do with the fact that the BJP has gone down the drain.

 

His take on dancing girls-

Take the case of dancers. A poor girl cannot dance and entertain clients in Mumbai – while all the page 3 actresses make their fortunes dancing on screen. There is some Principle of Law being flouted here – and I hope you see it. Where this Principle does not hold, there can never be Liberty. The Law, which is our safeguard, becomes instead a Tyrant: arbitrary, capricious, unjust.

At no time in Indian history has the nautch-girl been banned. The Mughals, the British, all the princely states – they all patronised them. But in socialist India they are banned – while weighty women talk of “reservations for women in politics.”

Well worth a visit, I think -again and again.

        (emphasis mine)

Right on dot-

via Instapundit

 

 

Update -

Grover Norquist on the 9/12 march-

Obama and ACORN fancy they are the community organizers. They should drop by and see what real outrage and real community organizing--without taxpayer subsidies or paid union staff in purple T-shirts--looks like.

Protesting statism

It’s a HUGE crowd –wow! Sick and tired of socialism!

 

9/12 Tea party rally in Washington D.C

Image via Instapundit.

Some signs seem to be targeted at Gautam Adhikari and like minded ‘racism’ whiners-

 

Gautam won’t like this one, no way -

Is Newsweek demented?

I often tear into the media for their biases, ignorance, agendas,cluelessness, idiocy….the list is long.(John G. Winder has something to say on this in the context of today’s events)

To this one might add dementia –I’m inclined to agree with Cliff Thier-

Mark today as the date that the mainstream media put a gun in it's mouth and pulled the trigger.

The cover of Newsweek:

IS YOUR BABY RACIST?

Illustrated with a close up photo of a (white) baby. To ask the question is to answer it. Welcome to the post-racial world of Barack Obama.

This is ghor kaljug*- how long before a baby fuehrer rises up ?

 

What next –is your dog racist?

 

 

*The colorful Indian language translator-

 

 kaljug - “Kalyug is the fourth and final era in the spiritual evolution of man” when “it becomes common for tyrants to be accepted and approved”

ghor –absolute,utter,complete

Aesop in our time

This is too good to pass up –Aesop’s Ant and the Grasshopper updated for our times:

The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter.

The grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away.

Come winter, the shivering grasshopper calls a press conference and demands to know why the ant should be allowed to be warm and well fed while others are cold and starving.

CBS, NBC , PBS, CNN, and ABC show up to provide pictures of the shivering grasshopper next to a video of the ant in his comfortable home with a table filled with food. America is stunned by the sharp contrast.

How can this be, that in a country of such wealth, this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so?

Kermit the Frog appears on Oprah with the grasshopper and everybody cries when they sing, ‘It’s Not Easy Being Green.’

Acorn stages a demonstration in front of the ant ’s house where the news stations film the group singing, ‘We shall overcome.’ Rev. Jeremiah Wright then has the group curse God for the grasshopper’s sake.

Nancy Pelosi & Harry Reid exclaim in an interview with Larry King that the ant has gotten rich off the back of the grasshopper, and both call for an immediate tax hike on the ant to make him pay his fair share.

Finally, the EEOC drafts the Economic Equity & Anti-Grasshopper Act retroactive to the beginning of the summer.

The ant is fined for failing to hire a proportionate number of green bugs and, having nothing left to pay his retroactive taxes, his home is confiscated by the Government Green Czar.

The story ends as we see the grasshopper finishing up the last bits of the ants food while the government house he is in, which just happens to be the ant’s old house, crumbles around him because he doesn’t maintain it.

The ant has disappeared in the snow.

The grasshopper is found dead in a drug related incident and the house, now abandoned, is taken over by a gang of spiders who terrorize the once peaceful neighborhood.

MORAL OF THE STORY: Be careful how you vote in 2010.

Gautam Adhikari – sitting blind in Washington

Gautam Adhikari (who has an op-ed in the Times of India today) sits in a gay bar in downtown Washington and comes to the conclusion that despite Obama’s election a large part of America is still rabidly racist-

Obama was elected by a majority of the people but there is a significant minority that hasn't got over that watershed event in US history. Much of the diatribe on talk radio and the Fox News channel would seem to be against creeping "socialism" that might come if Obama succeeded in pushing through his policies, particularly his health-care policy. But, every now and then, stray voices scream out a deeper hatred.
Thus, we have the 'birthers', who are trying desperately to prove that Obama was not born in America and therefore cannot be president. There are religious loonies who say he is the Anti-Christ. But i was struck by the rant of one gentleman on TV last week when he bellowed that Obama was going to impose "Afro-Leninism". The 'Afro' is a giveaway. They hate him because he is a different kind of American.

I have no idea what the 'rant' was or the context -was it more rabid than Adhikari's own rant?- but assuming it to be straightforward racist, doesn't then Adhikari's logic (or lack of it)comes down to this level:

there is a bus full of people who don't act the way I would like them to(people on the “Fox News channel“and “talk radio”), but one or two (“stray voices”)are really behaving very atrociously(‘birthers’, those who speak of "Afro-Leninism").So the whole bus is full of atrocious people.

 

He is tarring the whole swathe of libertarians-conservatives-moderate Democrats -who actually outnumber hardcore Obama supporters by many millions- by the actions of the very few whose deeds and words may or may not be dubious.

Adhikari is evidently quite enamored of the Dear Leader. He cannot fathom how anybody can ever not worship at the same altar. His is the one true faith –in Obama. Those who don’t agree can only be – RACISTS!

The reason a large number of Americans have become more and more suspicious of Obama is obvious –but not to Adhikari. Obama is pushing very hard for a big government–no, not just ‘big’ but a HUGE government.

He is spending other people’s money(taxes) and those of not yet born(national debt) like a punch-drunk sailor. The deficits are now in trillions –the earlier records of hundreds of billions now seems like small change.

He is politicizing every part of American life,from art to justice to science –like a true Marxist would and does when given a chance.

Obama ran as a centrist, a soothing moderate –he is governing like the hard-leftist he is.

Many Americans are rightly suspicious of all this.

But in Adhikari’s brain swamps all that takes on an unreal quality.He cannot believe that those on the Fox News or in the numerous tea-parties(not reported by his paper)can have an intellectual case –RACISTS, RACISTS, RASICSTS ALL!

It is possible that it is really Adhikari’s paper, the Times of India, which is is at least partially responsible. This ‘news’paper hardly ever reports anything that reflects negatively on Obama.

“He is introducing transparency in government”

“He is appointing super-intelligent experts to vital posts”

“Michelle is growing an organic garden” 

“How lovely her arms look”

Such is the nature of most ‘news’ about Obama.

Pravada couldn’t do it better.

 

But what about the ‘truther’ and communist Van Jones, Obama’s now ex-green czar? (What ‘truther’? What resignation in the middle of the night on Saturday?What controversy? –the Times’ readers never learnt a thing from this ‘news’paper)

What about eugenics minded enviro-nut John Holdren, Obama’s science czar(that has an Orwellian ring to it, no?) who believes among other things that ”The population at large could be sterilized by infertility drugs intentionally put into the nation’s drinking water or in food”?

What about Obama administration’s ongoing thuggish behaviour in bailout deals?

 

Not a pipsqueak about these and many, many other issues that reflect extremely badly on Obama.The Times of India dare not inform it’s readers. And Gautam Adhikari dare not write about them.

 

If Adhikari would get out of that gay club(unless he is having a whale of a time) he might see a bit of the world.Since he is in Washington, may we suggest he go over to the massive protest that is taking place against Obama’s policies there on 9/12(which is right now)? Here is a traffic cam pic(more pics here)-

Run, Gautam, run! It might just open your eyes and save your soul.

From the LNC Quote Shop

Tim Blair-

Green types exaggerate, or just plain make things up, all the time. It’s pathological.

Readings for 9/11 – “Betraying the dead”

Ralph Peters-

We resolved that we, the People, would never forget. Then we forgot.

We've learned nothing.

Instead of cracking down on Islamist extremism, we've excused it.

Instead of killing terrorists, we free them.

Instead of relentlessly hunting Islamist madmen, we seek to appease them.

Instead of acknowledging that radical Islam is the problem, we elected a president who blames America, whose idea of freedom is the right for women to suffer in silence behind a veil -- and who counts among his mentors and friends those who damn our country or believe that our own government staged the tragedy of September 11, 2001.

Instead of insisting that freedom will not be infringed by terrorist threats, we censor works that might offend mass murderers. Radical Muslims around the world can indulge in viral lies about us, but we dare not even publish cartoons mocking them.

Instead of protecting law-abiding Americans, we reject profiling to avoid offending terrorists. So we confiscate granny's shampoo at the airport because the half-empty container could hold 3.5 ounces of liquid.

(Shahrukh, are you listening? –ed)

        ---------snip----snip-----------.

Instead of taking every effective measure to cull information from terrorists, the current administration threatens CIA agents with prosecution for keeping us safe.

          ---------snip----snip-----------

Instead of insisting that Islam must become a religion of responsibility, our leaders in both parties continue to bleat that "Islam's a religion of peace," ignoring the curious absence of Baptist suicide bombers.

       ---------snip----snip-----------

Instead of pursuing our enemies to the ends of the earth, we help them sue us.

We've dishonored our dead and whitewashed our enemies. A distinctly unholy alliance between fanatical Islamists abroad and a politically correct "elite" in the US has reduced 9/11 to the status of a non-event, a day for politicians to preen about how little they've done.

        ---------snip----snip-----------

We've forgotten what we owe our dead and what we owe our children. We've even forgotten who attacked us.

We have betrayed the memory of our dead. In doing so, we betrayed ourselves and our country. Our troops continue to fight -- when they're allowed to do so -- but our politicians have surrendered.

This sounds so right, doesn't it – in Obama there is a president who would rather fight the Republicans than the jihadis. Somewhere down the line, one expects him to surrender –as soon he can figure out how to come out looking holier and blessed from it.

Hate to be repetitive, but do read the whole thing.

Readings for 9/11 – Obama confuses 9/11 with the Earth Day

Jennifer Rubin-

Plant a Tree

As this report explains, 9/11, on its eighth anniversary, is being recast as “a day of national service”:

“Instead of us simply remembering the horrible events and more importantly the heroes who lost their lives on 9/11, we are all going to turn into local heroes,” said Ted Tenenbaum, a Los Angeles repair shop owner who offered free handyman services Thursday and planned to do so again Friday.

Similar donations of time and labor were planned across the country after President Barack Obama and Congress declared the day would be dedicated to service this year for the first time.

Some Americans are suspicious about the new commemoration, though, fearing it could overshadow a somber day of remembrance for nearly 3,000 people killed aboard four jetliners and at the World Trade Center in New York, the Pentagon, and a field in western Pennsylvania.

Well, count me among the suspicious — and the outraged. This is quite obviously part of the grand exercise in amnesia, in recasting 9/11 as a feel-good celebration, as opposed to the act of war and Islamic-fundamentalist terror it was.

I’d be less suspicious had not the idea for de-horrifying 9/11 come from the crowd who has gone to war, not against those who would kill Americans, but against those who protected us and extracted life-saving information when we were most at risk. I’d be less suspicious had the president not set forth on a charm offensive with the “Muslim world,” in which through winks and nods and spitting back to them their own twisted version of history, the president assured them that America finally gets just how delinquent we’ve been and just how insensitive we’ve been to the Muslim world. I’d be less suspicious of the “plant a tree on 9/11″ crowd if a “truther” hadn’t made it to the White House and hadn’t received a rousing defense from many “respectable” liberals when he was finally shoved out the door — so as not to embarrass the president on 9/11, which isn’t really about 9/11 anymore.

            ---------snip—snip-----------

And now the appeal to 9/11 is muted and diffused because the Obama crowd would rather 9/11 not be about 9/11. It is shameful, but it is not surprising. This administration just isn’t into the war on terror. So go plant a tree.

Read it all.

Readings for 9/11 –False choice between the ‘good’ and the ‘bad’ war

I think on this day one can safely bypass MSM and their cliché soaked reports. Here is a small but essential reading list, starting with the excellent FOUAD AJAMI

This distinction between a war of choice (Iraq) and a war of necessity (Afghanistan) has become canonical to American liberalism. But we should dispense with that distinction, for it is both morally false and intellectually muddled. No philosophy of just and unjust wars will support it.

            ---------snip----snip-----------

Those were not Afghans who had struck American soil on 9/11. They were Arabs. Their terrorism came out of the pathologies of Arab political life. Their financiers were Arabs, and so were those crowds in Cairo and Nablus and Amman that had winked at the terror and had seen those attacks as America getting its comeuppance on that terrible day.

           ---------snip----snip-----------

Grant George W. Bush his due. He drew a line when the world of the Arabs was truly in the wind and played upon by powerful temptations. Mr. Obama and his advisers need not pay heroic tribute to the men and women who labored before them. But they have so maligned their predecessors and their motives that the appeal to 9/11 rings hollow and contrived. In those years behind us, American liberalism distanced itself from American patriotism, and the damage is there to see.

           ---------snip----snip-----------

Wars are great clarifiers. Barack Obama's trumpet is uncertain. His call to arms in Afghanistan does not stir. He fears failure in Afghanistan, and nothing more. Having disowned Iraq, kept its cause at a distance, he is forced to fight the war in Afghanistan. So he equivocates and plays for time. Forever the campaigner, he has his eye on the public mood, the steel that his predecessor showed in 2007 when all was in the balance in Iraq is not evident in Mr. Obama.

        ---------snip----snip-----------  

Eight years ago, we were visited by the furies of Arab lands.

---------snip----snip-----------

Our country answered that call, not always brilliantly, for we are fated to be strangers in that world and thus fated to improvise and make our way through unfamiliar alleyways. We met chameleons and hustlers of every shade and had to learn, in a hurry, incomprehensible atavisms and pathologies. We fared best when we trusted our sense of things. We certainly haven't been kept safe by the crowds in Paris and Berlin, or by those in Ankara and Cairo who feign desire for our friendship while they yearn for our undoing.

Read the whole thing, as they say.