Wallowing

Through cable TV, the Internet and even AM radio, the United States today is doing what it does best . We are wallowing like pigs in a mudbath of bathos. I am unaware of other nations that celebrate their defeats as much as, if not more than, their victories. Where were the public demonstrations for the recent 65^th anniversaries of V-E and V-J Days?

Yet, you cannot open your eyes or ears on this day and not hear a radio commercial promising proceeds of some fly-by-night promotion going to “wounded warriors,” see a newspaper picture of a sports start giving an autograph to children of someone killed on 9/11, or experiencing politicians of all stripes (including yellow) just before an election dwelling on morbid memories. The victims of 9/11 shouldn’t be forgotten – by their families and friends. But how should I remember someone I don’t know and who did nothing but show up for work on time or board an airplane?

The rest of us are 9/11 victims, too -- of a peculiarly morbid American fixation on terrorism by which we daily accept the victory of the skyjacking Muslim murderers. Our every movement in or near public buildings, our phone conversations, our travel, and even our thoughts are now circumscribed forever lest we “give in” to terrorists.

We gave in from the beginning.

“Terrorists” (and I suppose I would have to include freedom-fighters known by various names such as Minutemen, the Irgun, Algerian rebels or Viet Cong) win at the very moment they replace the concept of “territory” to be won with “terror” that robs ordinary people of their ordinary lives.

We are perpetually honoring servicemen and women who signed up out of patriotism, a lust for adventure or the need for a job and then feel they are denigrated for doing their jobs if we don’t stop every couple of minutes as a nation to worship them. But why don’t we actually fight back against the real enemies – Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Iran, and, yes, the brand of Islam that will fight until it takes over what is left of the world? That would take a much larger mobilization and a larger dollop of courage than the United States is willing to expend – especially when it is so much easier to bitch, moan and wallow

President Obama epitomizes the lunacy that attaches to the memorialization of a terrible event by saying that we must not let our anger override the constitutional rights of our citizens -- at the very same time that his secretary of defense and top military commander “ask” a wacko Christian preacher to give up his constitutional right to burn a Koran.

This fruitcake Terry Jones is the only honest one among those using 9/11 for their personal glory. He believes Islam is evil and wanted to do something about it. If Obama, Secretary of Defense Gates , General Petraeus and the flag-waving news media were honest, they would have ignored Jones. If Muslims acted against American interests as a result, they would have gone to real war against Islam, saying that the American culture believes in freedom of expression and we will fight you to all our deaths to defend that freedom. Not just make laughably empty speeches.