"United 93"

Colleges and Universities A-Z Service Academy Parents
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<p>Bravery and patriotism do not trump politics. Most left-wing individuals hate America.</p>

<p>Which came first, the chicken or the egg?</p>

<p>It's not that most left-wingers are unpatriotic and most right-wingers patriotic, it's that most patriotic people are right-wing and most unpatriotic people are left-wing.</p>

<p>If by "dealing with our fears" pyewacket meant that we'll all be in the same situation at some point, then I'd have to say he's insane. If, like I suppose he meant, he thinks that their actions can empower us in other ways of our lives, then I'm glad he's living overseas.</p>

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<p>Many of you here have kids, including me, who after the cataclysm of that day became resolute in serving our country. Have your kids said if they will go see the movie? </p>

<p>3/4's of me says I'm not ready to feel that again. The other 1/4 tells me says I need to & it'll be one of the few times a 1/4 wins out. Remembering is good. If I were one of the family of these brave souls I wouldn't want the movie to become some kind of political condemnation though. </p>

<p>And I hope the terriorist, when they arrived at their bowles of Hell destination, found out that Allah was pulling their chain. "Sorry guys. We ran out of all those virgins years ago". </p>

<p>Sorry. That was a vey un-jamzmom like thing to say. My nerves are still rather raw over it. It just popped out of my fingers onto the screen so I'm leaving it.</p>

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<p>Suits me. What I tend to think about these people and anyone who supports them (including here in our own country) would get me banned, so don't feel bad.</p>

<p>My little ones are just under 5 and 6. One was less than two months old that morning. The older one was wise enough to wonder why was daddy sitting in front of the TV, just staring, while loading the small shiny things into the dark grey boxes he kept in the big locked box he told me never to go near without him being there.</p>

<p>I hope this will be one of those movies, like Saving Private Ryan, that I'll be able to say to them one day, "You want to see what really happened? Here, let's sit down and watch..."</p>

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<p>Since I said I was a liberal, some of you don't want to hear what I think. In that case, don't read any further.</p>

<p>But to explain myself: I believe those passengers were heroes. The actions of heroes can inspire us. Whether in a similar situation or in a different one where we feel threatened. The inspiration of heroes empowers us all. It can give us courage. It teaches us what human beings may be capable of. Sometimes ordinary people can rise to a situation and become extraordinary. We can learn that from studying history. We also learn that sometimes ordinary people behave in ways unworthy of human beings. Let us each examine our own lives and do the best we can.</p>

<p>You gotta problem with that? That's your problem, not mine. I may not agree with what you say .....but as a loyal American , you probably know the rest of what Patrick Henry said.</p>

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<p>Typical liberal: taking the ultimate sacrifice of others and pretending it can be applied to "everyone's life" as if we live in some sort of socialistic Utopia. Leave it for what it is: they paid the ultimate sacrifice defending our nation from terrorists. Don't try to apply it to your pathetic life or mine. Don't try to make it seem like we can all "relate" to them. Don't make it for anything less than a sacrifice. THE PURPOSE OF THEIR DEATH WAS NOT SO YOU COULD HAVE A COURAGE YOU PRESENTLY LACK.</p>

<p>What they did doesn't give me courage. It doesn't give me the ability to do greater things. It doesn't give me strenght or wisdom or power.</p>

<p>What it gives me is a will to fight back and kill all those who were part of, or wish to become part of, the killing of Americans.</p>

<p>That's not courage or wisdom or strength, that's hate. I hate.</p>

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<p>"....that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion....."</p>

<p>He said it better.</p>

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<p>And I said the same thing.</p>

<p>They were the first casualties in the new war on terror ('devotion to the cause'). </p>

<p>What you're saying is that we can apply that to other parts of our life. That's wrong.</p>

<p>However, having written what you did and posted that, you have contradicted yourself. Thus I have no further argument.</p>

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<p>If we're going to do this, let's do it right:</p>

<p>
[quote]
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. </p>

<p>Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. </p>

<p>But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us, that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion, that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>How interesting that, with a small number of minor changes, this simple speach is SO applicable to that OTHER field in Pennsylvania.</p>

<p>Hunt them down. Find them. Kill them. ALL of them. If you have to take out their families, their shrines, or anything else in the process, DO IT. We are at WAR, and they WILL do the same thing to us if we don't stop them. Do it to them first.</p>

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<p>Stanley: War? Who are we at war with? </p>

<p>Gabriel: Anyone who impinges on America's freedom. Terrorist states, Stanley. Someone must bring their war to them. They bomb a church, we bomb 10. They hijack a plane, we take out an airport. They execute an American tourist, we tactically nuke an entire city. Our job is to make terrorism so horrific that is becomes unthinkable to attack Americans.</p>

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<p>"He pulls a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the MORGUE."</p>

<p>One of the most brilliant lines ever spoken on the big screen.</p>

<p>ETA: One of the inviolate rules of warfare: If you're fighting fair, you're doing it wrong.</p>

<p>Last night I watched an episode of "Shootout!" on the History Channel. A Marine was killed because they were fighting in an area "holy" to the locals (I've never seen a "religion" with so many damned holy sites), and we didn't want to damage it. Meanwhile, Zarqawi was using it as his base of operations, full of munitions and other resources. </p>

<p>Under the Geneva Convention (that rag the Left loves to wrap themselves in when bashing their own country), if a protected site (hospital, church, school, etc.) is utilized by the enemy for a military purpose, the site immediately loses its protection and can be attacked.</p>

<p>We should have sent that mosque/shrine/whatever raining down upon Zarqawi's head, immediately followed by a few 500-pound bombs. </p>

<p>But NOOOOOOOOO. We had to protect the place, and some of OUR troops died so that the enemy could have their pathetic little church preserved. But hey, they're Americans, and there's no point in offending the locals when Americans can die instead. :mad:</p>

<p>What does this have to do with United 93? Simple. If we continue to "fight" this "war" in a manner where it's more important to impress the BBC and CNN and not upset the enemy than it is to WIN, then the valiant sacrifice those folks made that morning over Pennsylvania WILL have been in vain, and that would be UNFORGIVEABLE.</p>

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<p>I think that those are the realities of fighting a war against insurgents mixed in with the general population vs a conventional war where the enemy is more or less clearly defined and identifiable. Blowing up religious sites while "tactically" might be the right thing to do at the time can lead to bigger problems strategically. Fighting an insurgency is tough enough, fighting one when the general population is ****ed off at you as well is a disaster. You know my feelings about being in Iraq in the first place so I won't repeat them, but I will say that this kind of problem is inevitable given the circumstances we failed to plan for.</p>

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<p>Great Article.....</p>

<p>"United 93... The filmmakers got it right."</p>

<p>BY DAVID BEAMER </p>

<p>"...I encourage my fellow Americans and free people everywhere to see "United 93."..."</p>

<p>Mr. Beamer is the father of Todd Beamer, a passenger on United Airlines Flight 93. </p>

<p><a href="http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110008294%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110008294&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

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<p>
[quote]
I think that those are the realities of fighting a war against insurgents mixed in with the general population vs a conventional war where the enemy is more or less clearly defined and identifiable. Blowing up religious sites while "tactically" might be the right thing to do at the time can lead to bigger problems strategically. Fighting an insurgency is tough enough, fighting one when the general population is ****ed off at you as well is a disaster.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Well, that didn't stop us from taking it to the Japanese and the Germans, did it? We firebombed Dresden and Tokyo, and NUKED Hiroshima and Nagasaki, all in the name of breaking the enemy and bringing them to heel. It worked. Brutal, but it worked, and thousands, if not over a million, American lives were saved by ensuring the ENEMY died instead of US.</p>

<p>Look, I see your point, and am not discounting it in the slightest. My argument is simply that you have to defeat the enemy and make them realize the futility of having opposed you in the first place before you start playing nice with them. We didn't do that out of some misguided notion of being better than the enemy and wearing the white hat. Perhaps you and I agree on this and this is part of why you label the administration as incompetent, and if that is the case then we are in agreement on that one point.</p>

<p>
[quote]
You know my feelings about being in Iraq in the first place so I won't repeat them, but I will say that this kind of problem is inevitable given the circumstances we failed to plan for.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>If we're thinking the same thing, then I agree. As for the reasons going in, I still say the bloodbath at CIA should have been of biblical proportions, but I suppose it's easier to blame one person rather than the hundreds that messed up (not accusing you, Shogun), especially when those hundreds decide to save their own tails by selective leaking and other shenanigans that make me wonder if all the crazy tales of CIA being a shadow government of its own are true. </p>

<p>Either way, we're there, so now we either we get it right or we fail, and we cannot afford to fail. I still think the situation there is far better than we're being told. I just wish we had remembered the old line, "Diplomacy is what happens after one side has gotten it's *** kicked."</p>

<p>ETA: Oh, and the sentiment goes for Afghanistan, too. Had I been able to have it my way, we would never have invaded Afghanistan because before noon on September 12th, 2001, there would not have been an Afghanistan left to invade. Or an Iran. The rest of the nations might (if I was in a good mood, which I would not have been in) have been given one chance to condemn the attacks, turn over all terrorists, expose all funding, or join their permanently-airborne brethren.</p>

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<p>
[quote]
"United 93... The filmmakers got it right."</p>

<p>BY DAVID BEAMER </p>

<p>"...I encourage my fellow Americans and free people everywhere to see "United 93."..."

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Gotta love endorsements like that....</p>

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<p>


</p>

<p>That's how you deal with terrorism.</p>

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<p>BTW, you folks do know that the guy who plays the air-traffic-control top guy in the movie is THE GUY who was ACTUALLY doing it that day, right? That's not an actor, it's REALLY HIM.</p>

<p>An interesting twist, to be sure...</p>

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<p>I think they tried to use as many real-life people as possible.</p>

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<p>I only heard of the one. Were there really others?</p>

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<p>Googled, couldn't find the answer.</p>

<p>I think you're correct that it's just the one guy, but something in the back of my mind says there were others. LMK if you find out.</p>

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<p><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/27/AR2006042702509_pf.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/27/AR2006042702509_pf.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Some interesting discussion about entertainment and (or versus) historic accuracy.</p>