Oliver Stone finally gets one right

We went to see World Trade Center the other night. WOW! I think this is the first of Oliver Stone’s movies that didn’t make me want to throw something through the screen. For once he kept his kooky politics out of it and just told the story. It certainly brought back a lot of intense emotions as I sat there reliving that awful day. Even though it has a rather narrow focus (the story of a single pair of trapped policemen and their families), the broader picture kept intruding as I remembered my own reactions and feelings on that day. It certainly makes you remember what the war on terror is really about. I couldn’t help thinking that too many have forgotten that central fact in the 5 years since these events. In my opinion, too many people carp and complain and find fault with everything that the Bush administration does rather than actually trying to make a constructive contribution. Have they made mistakes during those 5 years? Sure… who hasn’t? But judging by yesterday’s news of the foiling of another monstrous plot, they must be doing something right. At least we won’t be left lamenting August 10th the way we do September 11!

Haven’t we been here before?

It has been somewhat sad to witness the fact during the last several years that we seem to have learned absolutely nothing from our history. So many people seem to be ignorant (willfully or otherwise) about the things in our history that we keep making the same mistakes over and over again. One case in point has been all the controversey about our involvement in Iraq, our support for Israel and the rest of the war on Islamic terrorism. In more ways than I can count, it seems to be the 1930s all over again. All the “smartest” people kept insisting that Hitler really wasn’t a threat, that the Nazis could be reasoned and negotiated with, that if we just gave Hitler what he wanted he would leave the rest of us alone, etc.,etc. All the while Adolf just took every concession as a sign of weakness and demanded more. Sound familiar?? Have you actually listened to Amenijad (sp?) the Iranian president? He just said last week that the way to have peace in the Middle East is to destroy Israel. And for this he gets praised by the French foreign minister as a “force for stability” in the region??? This is the person leading the country actively pursuing nuclear weapons capability! And yet, when Israel finally takes action to stop Iran’s puppets in Lebanon from continually attacking across the Israeli border, it is Israel that gets condemned as if they were the ones who started things. The Israelis understand something that too many of us sitting comfortably in the West have forgotten: this is a battle for survival! We can pretend that if we ignore the problem, it will go away. However, it didn’t work very well in the 1930s. What makes us think it will work any better this time?  Santayana definitely had it right with “those who do not remember history are condemned to repeat it”!
See the excellent article by Victor Davis Hanson: The Brink of Madness