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September 9, 2011 12:00 A.M.
The 9/11 ‘Overreaction’? Nonsense

NATIONAL REVIEW ONLINE

America’s current demoralization is not a result of the War on Terror.

The new conventional wisdom on 9/11: We have created a decade of fear. We overreacted to 9/11 — al-Qaeda turned out to be a paper tiger; there never was a second attack — thereby bankrupting the country, destroying our morale, and sending us into national decline. The secretary of defense says that al-Qaeda is on the verge of strategic defeat. True. But why? Al-Qaeda did not spontaneously combust. Yet, in a decade, Osama bin Laden went from the emir of radical Islam — jihadi hero after whom babies were named all over the Muslim world — to pathetic old recluse, almost incommunicado, watching shades of himself on a cheap TV in a bare room. What turned the strong horse into the weak horse? Precisely the massive and unrelenting American War on Terror, a systematic worldwide campaign carried out with increasing sophistication, efficiency, and lethality — now so cheaply denigrated as an “overreaction.”

First came the Afghan campaign, once so universally supported that Democrats for years complained that President Bush was not investing enough blood and treasure there. Now, it is reduced to a talking point as one of the “two wars” that bankrupted us. Yet Afghanistan was utterly indispensable in defeating the jihadis then and now. We think of Pakistan as the terrorist sanctuary. We fail to see that Afghanistan is our sanctuary, the base from which we have freedom of action to strike Jihad Central in Pakistan and the border regions.

Iraq, too, was decisive, though not in the way we intended. We no more chose it to be the central campaign in the crushing of al-Qaeda than Eisenhower chose the Battle of the Bulge as the locus for the final destruction of the German war machine. Al-Qaeda, uninvited, came out to fight us in Iraq, and it was not just defeated but humiliated. The local population — Arab, Muslim, Sunni, under the supposed heel of the invader — joined the infidel and rose up against the jihadi in its midst. It was a singular defeat from which al-Qaeda never recovered. The other great achievement of the decade was the defensive anti-terror apparatus hastily constructed from scratch after 9/11 by President Bush, and then continued by President Obama. Continued why? Because it worked. It kept us safe — the warrantless wiretaps, the PATRIOT Act, extraordinary rendition, preventive detention, and, yes, Guantanamo. Perhaps, says the new conventional wisdom, but these exertions have bankrupted the country and led to our current mood of despair and decline.

Rubbish. The total costs of “the two wars” is $1.3 trillion. That’s less than one eleventh of the national debt, less than one year of Obama deficit spending. During the golden Eisenhower 1950s of robust economic growth averaging 5 percent annually, defense spending was 11 percent of GDP and 60 percent of the federal budget. Today, defense spending is 5 percent of GDP and 20 percent of the budget. So much for imperial overstretch. Yes, we are approaching bankruptcy. But this has as much to do with the War on Terror as do sunspots. Looming insolvency comes not from our shrinking defense budget but from the explosion of entitlements. They devour nearly half the federal budget.

As for the Great Recession and financial collapse, you can attribute it to misguided federal policy pushing homeownership through risky subprime lending. To Fannie and Freddie. To greedy bankers, unscrupulous lenders, naïve (and greedy) homebuyers. To computer-enabled derivatives so complicated and interwoven as to elude control. But to the War on Terror? Nonsense. 9/11 was our Pearl Harbor. This time, however, the enemy had no home address. No Tokyo. Which is why today’s war could not be wrapped up in a mere four years. It was unconventional war by an unconventional enemy embedded within a worldwide religious community. Yet in a decade, we largely disarmed and defeated it, and developed — albeit through trial, error, and tragic loss — the means to continue to pursue its remnants at rapidly decreasing cost. That is a historic achievement. Our current difficulties and gloom are almost entirely economic in origin, the bitter fruit of misguided fiscal, regulatory, and monetary policies that had nothing to do with 9/11. America’s current demoralization is not a result of the War on Terror. On the contrary. The denigration of the War on Terror is the result of our current demoralization, of retroactively reading today’s malaise into the real — and successful — history of our 9/11 response.

— Charles Krauthammer is a nationally syndicated columnist. 2011, The Washington Post Writers Group.

KneelandBobDylan wrote:Charles Krauthammer is a village idiot.

Constantine wrote:One of the reasons that Cheney, Silverstien and the New York Port Authority demolished the trade centers was due to the asbestos laden buildings.

If they did not demollished the towers they would have had to clean all that asbestos out of the building a huge cost.
On top of that, the towers were half empty and a financial burden, a loss.

911 was a false flag event and the truth will hold over all time.

KneelandBobDylan wrote:Charles Krauthammer is a village idiot.

EvilMadman wrote:

KneelandBobDylan wrote:Charles Krauthammer is a village idiot.

Gee, what a very thorough, well thought out critique.

So, where was he incorrect, exactly?

The Arab Sunni "awakening" handed Al-Qaeda a major defeat. Fact. The Afghan war enabled the the U.S. Military to both spy on, and launch constant drone strikes against Al-Qaeda/Taliban targets hiding out everywhere in Pakistan, on a moments notice. Fact. And as far as the economic turmoil, it was mostly the fault of Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac and bungling government (i.e. Dodd, Frank and Pelosi). Fact.

Those points are pretty much right on the money.

KneelandBobDylan wrote:

EvilMadman wrote:

KneelandBobDylan wrote:Charles Krauthammer is a village idiot.

Gee, what a very thorough, well thought out critique.

So, where was he incorrect, exactly?

The Arab Sunni "awakening" handed Al-Qaeda a major defeat. Fact. The Afghan war enabled the the U.S. Military to both spy on, and launch constant drone strikes against Al-Qaeda/Taliban targets hiding out everywhere in Pakistan, on a moments notice. Fact. And as far as the economic turmoil, it was mostly the fault of Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac and bungling government (i.e. Dodd, Frank and Pelosi). Fact.

Those points are pretty much right on the money.

Mostly the fault of Fannie Mae/Freddy Mac?....Hahahaha

I guess deregulation...admittedly under both dems and Repubicans had nothing to do with it.

Oh, and by the way, an inside the beltway idiot is more appropriate than village idiot.

"... Enabling these institutions [Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac] to
increase in size - and they will once
the crisis in their judgement
passes - we are placing the total
financial system of the future at a substantial
risk."

Alan Greenspan / Federal Reserve Chairman
House Financial Services Committee Hearing
February 17, 2005

ROADHEAD wrote:And there were no airplanes that hit it! Fucking dingbat.

Constantine wrote:

ROADHEAD wrote:And there were no airplanes that hit it! Fucking dingbat.

Enlight us about building 7 collapsing and the absence of video evidence of the plane that crashed into the Pantagon Sherlock!

Constantine wrote:

ROADHEAD wrote:And there were no airplanes that hit it! Fucking dingbat.

absence of video evidence of the plane that crashed into the Pantagon Sherlock!

EvilMadman wrote:

Constantine wrote:

ROADHEAD wrote:And there were no airplanes that hit it! Fucking dingbat.

Enlight us about building 7 collapsing and the absence of video evidence of the plane that crashed into the Pantagon Sherlock!

Building 7 was very heavily damaged by the collapse of WTC 1.

And there was no real clear video footage of Flight 77, because the security cameras the Pentagon had sucked, and were in a bad position to capture the plane in flight.

Now, please shut up!

bane wrote: I'm not realty down with all the conspiracy theorist bullshit, but do you really buy that the security cameras at the PENTAGON sucked? Are you serious? Really?

vlad wrote:As for the original article posted. Krauthammer was one of the fuckwits that spoke out for the Iraq War amongst other things. Fuck him.

Nevermind wrote:

vlad wrote:As for the original article posted. Krauthammer was one of the fuckwits that spoke out for the Iraq War amongst other things. Fuck him.

Yeah! Fuck Hillary! Fuck you John Kerry! Fuck you Joe Biden. Fuck you Harry Reid!

Nevermind wrote:

vlad wrote:As for the original article posted. Krauthammer was one of the fuckwits that spoke out for the Iraq War amongst other things. Fuck him.

Yeah! Fuck Hillary! Fuck you John Kerry! Fuck you Joe Biden. Fuck you Harry Reid!

AliceManson wrote:

Nevermind wrote:

vlad wrote:As for the original article posted. Krauthammer was one of the fuckwits that spoke out for the Iraq War amongst other things. Fuck him.

Yeah! Fuck Hillary! Fuck you John Kerry! Fuck you Joe Biden. Fuck you Harry Reid!

You leave out the fact that they were lied to and given false evidence.

EvilMadman wrote:The security cameras the Pentagon had sucked

Constantine wrote:

EvilMadman wrote:The security cameras the Pentagon had sucked

Good work Colombo!