The Good News on 9/11

World Trade Center is a very good movie well worth the price of admission. I had read all the pundits and critics words concerning the movie before I paid for my ticket. I thought I was prepared. I was wrong. The first view of lower Manhattan before the planes hit the towers punched me in the gut. I rode along with the Port Authority cops as they struggled to wrap their brains around the events of the day. I remembered, through them, how I felt that sunny, Tuesday morning five years ago. I was captivated by the acting, but what really stood out was the direction, and the sets. Oliver Stone made me feel that day all over again, and the sets seemed as real as if I were walking around the WTC campus. In fact, the only thing with which I took any umbrage was a scene where a Wisconsin cop is feeding workers inside "the pit." As he hands an EMT a knockwurst he says, "These bastards." That's it. No mention of who the bastards were.

I was not expecting the ever conspiracy minded Stone to take the Islamists to task for their actions, but one line in a more than two hour movie does not seem too much to ask. By the time the supposed conversation took place we knew who the bastards were, and one can only presume that a member of law enforcement standing in the smoking pit would have been a little more....colorful, shall we say with his ire. Other than that gripe though, I must say Stone stayed mostly away from politics; preferring instead to paint his picture through the eyes of both the survivors and their families. It was if we were all waiting for the rescuers with them.

Multiple times I caught myself breathing heavily to stave off tears. I ached for the officers buried beneath 3 stories of rubble, and held my breath when the men tasked with digging them out wormed their way beneath the unstable mountain of twisted steel and concrete. My heart hurt for the wife of one officer who, while awaiting word of her husband's fate, smells the sheets on which they slept. As the two officers struggled to stay awake amidst their broken bones, internal injuries and constricted lungs, that accompany being buried beneath tons of debris, I consciously urged them to hold on just a little longer.

This is no United 93. In that movie I found fuel for anger, and tears for courage. In this one I found.........something else. I found reason to believe, once again, that at base the United States, whatever our disagreements, is a family. A family that squabbles amongst itself, but one that pulls together when the chips are down. A family that reminds those who would intrude on our internal strife that this is a "family affair." I remembered the pain of that sunny Tuesday in September, but I also remembered strangers hugging each other on street corners. I remembered how we came together, black and white, Republican and Democrat, and stood a little taller. I remember the resolve of all of us to avenge the ones we lost that day. I remembered the seemingly endless walls of flyers advertising for missing loved ones, and I remembered Rangers jumping into Afghanistan with those same flyers affixed to their rucksacks. I do not know where all that togetherness went. Maybe it was simply too much to sustain, but I miss it. In many ways, for good or ill, it was us against the world that day, and in many ways it still is. So, go see World Trade Center and when it is done maybe we can all find our way home again.

Who Killed the Children of Qana?

Sunday an Israeli airstrike killed 56 people in the southern Lebanese town of Qana. I, like everyone else, was saddened to see image after image of children being carried lifeless and broken from the rubble. As the father of a precocious, 22 month old, high-energy daughter I was troubled more than most. I could not help but feel pangs in my heart for these dead children's parents. That's where my sympathetic relationship for the Lebanese civilians ends. That may seem a harsh statement, but the truth of the matter is that when women and children die in Lebanon, the Israeli's grieve. When Jewish women and children are slaughtered though, these self same Lebanese dance in the streets. Remember the videotapes of the Lebanese celebrating 9/11? Former Israeli Prime Minister Golda Mier said, "I can, perhaps, forgive them for killing our children, but I can never forgive them for making us kill their children." That, is the true focus of Sunday's airstrike. Hezbollah killed those women and children as surely as if they had lined them up against a wall and shot them; Israeli air power was only the method they chose.

We have all seen the photos and film of the dead in Qana. What has been less prolific is the footage recently released by the Israeli military. It shows the building subsequently struck by the Israelis being used as a firing platform for a Hezbollah rocket launcher. When the two images are shown together an analogy put forth by Harvard Law professor, Alan Dershowitz, seems particularly apropos. Professor Dershowitz likens the terrorists of Hezbollah to an armed bank robber who takes a teller hostage in an attempt to make his getaway from the scene of the crime. "If the bank robber fires indiscriminately at officers outside the bank and his hostage is then killed in the crossfire we still see it as a tragic event, but we recognize that the robber is to blame." That is a decidedly apt analogy for what Hezbollah has been doing in southern Lebanon.

For all too long Hezbollah has been shielding its murderous rampages behind women and children. The United Nations recently castigated Hezbollah for the practice and the BBC has reported it, but yet, the Israel-bashing continues. Hand wringers the world over weep and beat their chests at the inappropriate response of Israel. Never mind that Israel could lay waste to the entire country without risking a single soldier's life, but has chosen instead to expose their soldiers to risk so as to limit civilian loss of life. Nations align against Israel and yet another cease fire commences. Israeli military forces retreat, and Hezbollah, now unencumbered, refits, rearms and rests in preparation for their next unprovoked attack on Israeli civilians. In the meantime, Islamists the world over bleat and cheer another defeat of the west. Somewhere, Osama bin Laden is applauding Hezbollah for making martyrs of their children, and praising their scrupulous attention to the Islamist "culture of death."

Israel, to her credit, has refused to knuckle under to international pressure. They recognize that as long as any of their citizens remain captive to a terrorist group, they all remain captive. Remember this latest Israeli act of aggression began after Hezbollah kidnapped two Israeli soldiers, and then a third. Hezbollah has refused to return them even in the face of mounting military might. Those 56 women and children would be alive if not for Hezbollah's actions. We should always seek to remember that. Hezbollah knows something that the rest of the world has seemingly forgotten. No war has ever been settled conclusively until one side or the other has had their means, and will, to fight eliminated.

The Israelis, if they truly want safety and peace, must destroy Hezbollah. That means that not only will terrorists die, but Hezbollah will see to it that women and children die. You might want to consider why no men, of any age, were killed in the Qana strikes. Hezbollah understands that pictures of dead women and children incite their followers to further mayhem. Hezbollah knows too, that the world press will help their cause, at least as much as Iran and Syria. Finally, Hezbollah also knows that Israel can only be stopped by world opinion. Negotiating with such monsters is absurd; regardless that they hold seats in the Lebanese parliament. Israel must continue to press the military advantage. The terrorist organization that is Hezbollah must be decimated; its criminals killed and weapons destroyed. The Islamists respect nothing else.

Many will read this and gnash their teeth. "Why can't we just give peace a chance?" they will cry. To them I say, "Not only have we given peace a chance, they do not want it." Lebanon is the most visible front in the war against militant Islam. Israel will be rebuked, criticized and upbraided no matter what they do, so they may as well finish the job. My only regret is that we have not been able to provide more support for their actions. Israel is used to this though. "Never again" is their motto, and for good cause. We may have forgotten that a third of all the Jews on the planet were murdered by Hitler, but they have not. They may be forced by world condemnation to reign in their operations before all the Hezbollah fighters have been exterminated, but they will never completely give up the fight against those who would destroy them. I, remembering that, will stand by them, and can only hope you will too.