# Remembering 9-11 (merged anniversary thread)



## RiflemanPhil

We all wear out deu's to commerorate our veterans on brothers on Nov 11. However, what do people here think about wearing them on the anniversary of 9/11, particularly this 5th year anniversary?


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## Strike

Nov 11th originally signified the end of a war...Sept 11th can be thought of as the beginning of one.  The two should never be compared.


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## geo

Phil.....
Sept 11th may be something that the US may want to comemorate but, to me, it's like any of the other 364 days on the calendar.


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## RiflemanPhil

But this war isn't over yet, so there is no way to commemorate this, or the new global age this has ushered in. In fact, I have profs who would argue that it is as significant or more so than WW2. Certainly it is the most influential event since the war. Good point though.
And Geo, that's really unfortunate, I feel sorry for you. But then again, so many Canadians naturally feel so hostile.


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## Strike

I don't understand how geo's response is hostile.

Anyhoo, I think it would be better served to commemorate on Nov 11th, with all the symbolism that this date holds  (e.g. end of hostilities, lost friends, etc) than to commemorate the beginning of fighting, at least when it comes to a full, all out military parade as we see in November.

My $0.02


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## geo

Phil,

no need to feel sorry for me... thanks for caring though 
I've worn the uniform for 35+yrs and each day & each year has meaning for me.

However, to the Canadian public, they will all tell ya that 9/11 though a terrible event, is not part of Canadian history.  The US asking Canada for support as a result of the event has meaning but, other than lots of planes landing in Canada that day, it's just another date on the calendar.... same a December 7th 1941


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## Koenigsegg

Should we commemorate the Moscow theatre hostage incident, the one that started on October 23 2002?
many innocent people were killed then...

I also See a huge difference in the sense that for Rememberance Day we remember those who fought, and died doing thier duty.  Because of them, we are all here, and speaking english ( or french).  In 9-11, all those people were cut down unsuspectingly, unkowningly, and killed by radicals who were no more than steaming piles of slime.
Remember 9-11, of course...but do we really want to commemorate such a terrible day?


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## RiflemanPhil

I'm not suggesting military parades, just a simple show of support on the one day that seems to important. Geo showed a lack of compassion. Not necessarily hostility. However, in the phrasing of his response, I picked up a negative connotation with the United States of America, which I think is yet again another example of Canadian ignorance - or misguidedness - you can take your pick. America is tied in with us whether we like it or not. Attacking the Twin Towers was an attack on the West. Which, believe it or not, we are a part of. The jihadists hate us just as much, and their hatred is growing.
And Geo, congratulations, I'm sure that you are a great soldier. I have not been wearing the uniform for that long. I haven't even been alive that long. That doesn't necessarily mean that I don't have something reasonable to say, I'm much more of an academic than a soldier. And I believe that we should remember dates like that as well, though Pearl Harbour did not have nearly the same implication on this country as 9/11 did.


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## paracowboy

RiflemanPhil said:
			
		

> However, would do people here think about wearing them on the anniversary of 9/11, particularilly this 5th year anniversary?


how about, NOOOO, ya crazy Dutch bastard? Any other days you want us to dress up for? Bastille Day? Cinco De Mayo? Mao's birthday? They're all equally relevent to Canada. By all means, pause for a minute and commemorate the loss of life. Use it to steel your resolve to kill as many scumbags as you can. But, I got more important things to do in the war effort than bother with a self-inflicted Change Parade.


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## Good2Golf

Don't forget Oklahoma City bombing if your thinking 9/11...terrorism is terrorism, right?

I'm with geo, wearing my uniform with pride everyday and remembering Nov 11 in particular.

G2G


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## geo

Hey.... if you want us to dedicate a day to demonstrate support for our neighbours, Fine, I have no problem for that..... but it does not have to be Sept 11th...... it can be any day.... some could say it should be every day.


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## paracowboy

RiflemanPhil said:
			
		

> However, in the phrasing of his response, I picked up a negative connotation with the United States of America, which I think is yet again another example of Canadian ignorance - or misguidedness - you can take your pick.


before you go any farther (oops, too late!) in your relating geo with anti-Americanism, you just MIGHT want to actually read through his posts.


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## Koenigsegg

"though Pearl Harbour did not have nearly the same implication on this country as 9/11 did. "

Perhaps not nationally, no...but historically and globally it had a profound effect.  It may not have had such an effect at the time of the attack, but a few years down the road that event pretty much saved us and our allies.

If the Americans wish to do something like you are suggesting, let them
Once, or if this current war on terror is won I feel we will surely commemorate it somehow and in that commemoration, 9-11 will certainly be a massive part.
A lot of people know that WW2 started when Germany invaded Poland, and WW1 was set off by the assasination of Arch Duke Franz Ferdinand.  But niether of those days were, or are celebrated (bad word to use, I am sorry)  individually.  Their significance is made clear on Rememberance Day.


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## ZipperHead

I think if one were to put Remberance Day into it's proper perspective, it was originally intended to signify the end of the "Great War" (after all, it wasn't called World War I until there was a World War II, no?!?!). And the notion of "Never again!!" is what it was all about, with the rememberance of all the soldiers, particularly those that made the ultimate sacrifice, who fought in the "war to end all wars".

I think people like to associate things that have some connection to their times as being more important than those things that happened in another generations times. To use a pop culture analogy, have you ever seen the lists of the Top 100 <insert item here: movie, song, album, musicians, etc>? Invariably something that pales in comparison to a true legend or classic will be listed, as it is fresh in people's minds. Putting some boy band or pop tart, like Ashlee Simpson, in the same category as the Beatles, or even Elvis Presley, or Muddy Waters, is blasphemy, but it happens every time a list like that is compiled.

I am with geo, paracowboy, and the others: it (Sep 11) is just another day, with much meaning, but it should not overshadow the day that we (the CF) stop and honour all the soldiers that came before us (and those who are fighting the good fight, even now as we speak) have paid the ultimate sacrifice to ensure that our countrymen, and others, can be free: November 11th, at 1100hrs. To do otherwise dilutes the intent.

Al


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## Journeyman

paracowboy said:
			
		

> *Any other days you want us to dress up for?....Cinco De Mayo?*



Well, since this _is_ down amongst the mindlessness that is the Mess....I'm OK with celebrating Cinco de Mayo. 
But then that opens up the whole can of worms about which massive French defeats one should commemorate - - so many butt kickings, so few days ;D


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## IN HOC SIGNO

The problem with all of this is that it is so media hyped that everyone thinks we should be doing something. Someone pretty high up in authority here called me the other day to see if we were having a memorial service at the Chapel or anything and my response was pretty much what others have said on this page..."no, it's another day, we're moving on..." there was a a pause at the other end and then "oh ok then." a little surprised but didn't press me to get something organized. 
We're busy getting people ready to go on ops....making NOK notifications for the causalities of this war and a myriad of other stuff....we don't need another commemoration day...we need to move on as others have said to prosecute this thing and then we can decide what day might best be utilized to remember the whole period or add this action to our monuments and once again remember them all on the 11th of November....which in my humble opinion should be designated a national holiday (in the true sense a "holy day").
My .02 cents worth


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## Rice0031

I was sitting in the cafeteria early this morning at the college, and I was thinking about 9/11. I was particularly upset because the college is not having, to my knowledge, a memorial (or even moment of silence), for the victims of 9/11. I decided to put my thoughts to paper, which I rarely do. I am going to post what I wrote, just because I want our neighbours to the south know that we care. This is not a post against Islam, or against any nation/culture/religion. This is a tribute to those who died 5 years ago this day.

To those who fell victim in the WTC and surrounding area:
Your death shall not be in vain. You died because foreign extremists were out to prove to the world that we, the "West", are not invincible. It is through your deaths that justice can be exacted on those who vie to see our culture fall simply because we are not of their beliefs. The men and women in Afghanistan are over there for you. They pledge their lives to our freedom, so that such a tragic event may never happen again. May they succeed. Rest in peace.

To the men and women overseas:
You stand for a greater cause than just a "political agenda". You are an expeditionary force through which our culture may defend itself against radical extremism. You put your lives on the line so that those back home can live free. Some of you die for this. None of you have died in vain. You have to died so that others may live. Rest in peace.

To the first-wave responders of the WTC attacks:
You did not take into account your safety or your lives  when you were called to respond to such a disastrous catastrophe. You laid your lives down in the service of your fellow countrymen (and women). You are the perfect example of why the extremists will never be triumphant. Your selflessness lies at the opposite spectrum of the cause of the radicals. You are people of peace, not war. Rest in peace.

In the memory of all those who perished on 9/11, the ensuing chaos, and the following war on terror: May God, Allah, Yahweh, whoever your Lord may be, Rest Your Souls.

--Rice


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## patrick666

Well done, Rice. Have you thought of posting it on a bulletin board - maybe get the gears going, if not for this year, but the next?


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## 1feral1

Five years ago today, when we all sat in front of our TVs and watched in true horror the attacks on the US, all around the world, as we did in suburan Sydney, five years on, I never thought where I'd be tonight. Thats in the thick of it. As I type these words out, the evening call to prayer is blarring accross our compound, and knowing that people out side the wire are already planning tomorrows wicked deeds against their own citizens and us. 

So as many of you read this from your safe computer rooms, or watch TV, having pizza or Thai take-a-way, on what might be a chilly Canadian late summer's night, yes its a time to remember. Yesterday well out and about in Baghdad's IZ, I was near the 10CSH hospital, and I heard some Blackhawks, a whole steam of them coming in. yes they were Medivac choppers, and my heart sank as they headed for 10CSH's helepads. More US wounded coming in.

For some reason that scene has weighed heavy on my mind since, and thats one memory I will take home with me. With todays ever present blasting of VBIEDs and IEDs etc, the constant murders, extortion, executions, terror, torture, and frankly in gerenal all things which nightmares are made of, happens here every day. Some of these blasts are huge, seriously pushing a rather intense shockwave at times. I am beginning to not even realise what going on around me.

So, yes my thoughts tonight are with the families and friends not only of the victims of 2001, but of the growing list of US and allied forces who are paying the toll with their lives, including Canada's finest.

I also think of thousands of Allied soldiers who tonight are in harms way in many AOs in various theatres all in for the common cause. Tonight many are doing it hard, many you know, and many I know.

Wes


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## Pikache

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RbbzKJTjU8Y

Jon Stewart, a comedian's thoughts on 9/11 after it happened.


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## Devlin

I thought about this a lot today as well and sadly we didn't do anything as a group at work though I noticed a few folks aside from myself taking a moment to think/remember that day.


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## Mike Baker

Nice work Rice. I myself was deeply sadden about the 9/11 attacks and, well, it is the reason why we fight and one of the many reasons why I want to join, so this don't happen again. For the people who lost friends and love ones, I'm sorry for your loss.


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## exsemjingo

Strike said:
			
		

> Nov 11th originally signified the end of a war...Sept 11th can be thought of as the beginning of one.  The two should never be compared.



Oops, hate to be picky, but the Terrorist attacks were the catalyst for the war in Afghanistan, not the beginning.  I think the Sept.11th attacks were especially heinous since there was no declaration of war, and no warning.
Germany got in pretty hard at Versailles for attacking through Belgium without declaring war on them first.


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## IN HOC SIGNO

exsemjingo said:
			
		

> Oops, hate to be picky, but the Terrorist attacks were the catalyst for the war in Afghanistan, not the beginning.  I think the Sept.11th attacks were especially heinous since there was no declaration of war, and no warning.
> Germany got in pretty hard at Versailles for attacking through Belgium without declaring war on them first.



Agreed but we don't commemorate the day the came across the border in that undeclared war.


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## Sapplicant

This has *BAD IDEA* written all over it. Good thing Gen. Petraeus is on the ball. Either way, I'll be watching from a safe distance.... 

The short version;
Dove World Outreach Centre, Gainesville Florida, wants to mourn 9/11 with a book burning. Book being the Qur'an, and US top soldier in A'stan says "DON'T DO IT, YOU'RE GONNA PISS THEM OFF, AND WE HAVE TO DEAL WITH IT HERE ON THE FRONTLINES"

The long version;
http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2010/09/07/afghanistan-general-petraeus-quaran-burning.html


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## The Bread Guy

Already a petition out there for people to sign condemning the idea of burning the Koran:
http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/632/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=4685

I can't wait for the Arab media to throw this in with all the previous (typically false) accusations of disrespecting the Koran to whip up the consumer masses.


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## Edward Campbell

See my earlier comments here.

I repeat brainless, mindless fanatics can be found in most religious "families."


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## The Bread Guy

E.R. Campbell said:
			
		

> See my earlier comments here.
> 
> I repeat brainless, mindless fanatics can be found in most religious "families."


True - and you don't need many BMFs to cause problems for the entire "family" (real or perceived).


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## jollyjacktar

Sapplicant said:
			
		

> This has *BAD IDEA* written all over it. Good thing Gen. Petraeus is on the ball. Either way, I'll be watching from a safe distance....
> 
> The short version;
> Dove World Outreach Centre, Gainesville Florida



Yeah, looks like they have the "Outreach" part figured out.   :  A-holes.  They are no better than the Taliban.  E.R. you were bang on with your earlier comments on these losers.  Speaking for myself, I do hope they advance the cause of a Secular world closer.


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## boboyer

Doing this would be bringing themselves right down to the same level. I don't really agree with the press actually publishing this and making it more public then it already was/is. I hope these people don't follow through with it and just drop it where it is.


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## Oh No a Canadian

Rick Sanchez's (of CNN) report on the topic, he interviews the pastor of the church.

http://cnn.com/video/?/video/us/2010/09/06/ricks.quran.burning.contro.cnn


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## Edward Campbell

Mr. (Rev? Pastor? Doctor?) Jones has achieved his aim: he's on TV! I have no doubt that Glen Beck will find something kind to say and Sarah Palin will probably attend the book burning.

This guy and Lindsey Lohan, Paris Hilton and Snookie all belong together. They are, suddenly, _celebrities_ - people whose existence we _celebrate_ -  just for being stupid.


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## Sapplicant

Seems to me that this action would be more of an insult to the victims than anything else. On the anniversary of the worst act of terrorism performed by extremists in North America, those people plan on commemorating it by doing something that only encourages extremists to keep hating, attacking, and killing more innocent people. And all because my God's cock is bigger than your God's cock.  : Ridiculous. I agree with E R, stupidity knows no religion, or race for that matter.


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## Redeye

I heard this - well - I can't use any of my preferred terms for him on army.ca - on CNN this morning, what an absolutely ignorant buffoon, whose idiotic stunt directly threatens lives.

His justifications for doing so are about some of the most inane and ignorant things I've ever heard.

Fortunately, his "church" has now had its fire insurance cancelled - and even better - turns out the mortgage is held by RBC Bank (Royal Bank of Canada's US subsidiary).  According to "Doctor" Jones, RBC has called it in, they want their money now, or they are going to boot them out.  Beautiful.



			
				Sapplicant said:
			
		

> Seems to me that this action would be more of an insult to the victims than anything else. On the anniversary of the worst act of terrorism performed by extremists in North America, those people plan on commemorating it by doing something that only encourages extremists to keep hating, attacking, and killing more innocent people. And all because my God's **** is bigger than your God's ****.  : Ridiculous. I agree with E R, stupidity knows no religion, or race for that matter.


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## a78jumper

Ignorant poor white southern trash in all likelyhood. Meeting people of this ilk is a real eye opener, been there.


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## Redeye

Absolutely.  Sadly I have them in my family in Georgia (in-laws), my wife fortunately is nothing like them.



			
				a78jumper said:
			
		

> Ignorant poor white southern trash in all likelyhood. Meeting people of this ilk is a real eye opener, been there.


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## HavokFour

Oh boy, this will go down well.  :-\


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## SeanNewman

a78jumper said:
			
		

> Ignorant poor white southern trash in all likelyhood.



Wow, a bit of irony in that statement.

You're using a stereotype to broadbrush Americans from the South as white trash who stereotype Muslims as Jihadists.


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## a78jumper

I did not say everyone from the south was that way, just apparently members of this so called "Church" . I do not believe most non whites are capable of such hate, as they themselves are victims of those that do, and there are some very nice and rational people in the southern USA as well, white and otherwise.  And not all Christians are Muslim haters either-my Church is just finishing a Ramadan based series to pray for our fellow citizens during their holy month.


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## George Wallace

a78jumper said:
			
		

> ....... . I do not believe most non whites are capable of such hate, as they themselves are victims of those that do,



I would say that is a completely false statement.  Hatred is not a predominately "White" fault.  It is a fault found in all races.  Some other ethnic groups carry "hatred" to even more extremes than you will find in the White Anglo Saxon West.  

Your statement either represents the "White Apologists" or the racist comments of non-Whites we find around the Western world today.


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## Fishbone Jones

Petamocto said:
			
		

> Wow, a bit of irony in that statement.
> 
> You're using a stereotype to broadbrush Americans from the South as white trash who stereotype Muslims as Jihadists.


'trash' is the operative word and denotes a particular group. Had he said 'Ignorant poor white southern _people_ that would have been a selective broad brush.

If you're going to attack, you better know what your objective is


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## Sapplicant

George Wallace said:
			
		

> I would say that is a completely false statement.  Hatred is not a predominately "White" fault.  It is a fault found in all races.  Some other ethnic groups carry "hatred" to even more extremes than you will find in the White Anglo Saxon West.
> 
> Your statement either represents the "White Apologists" or the racist comments of non-Whites we find around the Western world today.




Hate, much like joy, love, sorrow, guilt, etc... are all parts of what "God" instilled in EVERY person, regardless of colour or beliefs. Religion seems to fail to communicate the REAL importance of these. Our actions lead to what we feel inside, and by doing things that produce "negative" feelings, we distance ourselves from "God". The things that make us feel "positive" feelings bring us closer to "God". We have consciences for a reason, and what we feel is our conscience either rewarding us, or punishing us, to let us know in which direction we're headed. 

Fortunately, we as humans are constantly evolving. Unfortunately, our concept of this "God" thing hasn't quite caught up yet, and we've allowed ourselves to place some nearly immovable wedges between these belief systems, these "religions". We can land a man on the moon and bring him back safely. We can screw up sending some there, and STILL get them back safely. We can re-attach limbs, transplant organs, cure diseases. But we can't agree on what name to give this "God", and we allow wars to be fought "in his name". No wonder so many people refuse to acknowledge "it's" existence and think that the people who do are retarded. Sorry/rant.


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## vonGarvin

Sapplicant said:
			
		

> And all because my God's cock is bigger than your God's cock.


The irony for these so-called Christians is that they fail to realise that it's the same God in the Qur'an as in the bible.  The story of Adam and Eve is told in the Qur'an as but one example, as is the story of Moses (Musa).  Do they also not know that both Jesus and Mary are in the Qur'an as well?  Friggin' idiots.


Anyway, I hope that the average Joe will react strongly against this proposed barbarism and THAT will be the message that gets out to the world.

Shit like this calls for leadership and shows of unity:







I know that G.W. Bush got a lot of negative press over images like this.  In fact, the blog-site where I found this called it "Bush hand holding saudi queen".  

But....






U.S. Presidents aren't supposed to bow to anyone.  This "event" requires top level leadership, it's that important.


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## vonGarvin

a78jumper said:
			
		

> I do not believe most non whites are capable of such hate, as they themselves are victims of those that do..


This, sir, is a blatantly racist statement that supposes that "brown people"* are incapable of the advanced thought processes that we whites have.
Trust me, ignorant people can be found in any colour or culture on the planet.



			
				a78jumper said:
			
		

> And not all Christians are Muslim haters either-my Church is just finishing a Ramadan based series to pray for our fellow citizens during their holy month.


*No* Christian is a muslim hater.  Any "christian" who hates a muslim because they are muslim is ignorant and a hypocrite.

*"Brown People" = any person who isn't white.  I use this term deliberately to illustrate the idiocy of the quoted text.


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## vonGarvin

Sapplicant said:
			
		

> and we allow wars to be fought "in his name".



Though I've often heard the argument that religious, or "holy" wars have killed more people than...well, anything, it's a myth.  Heck, I think that the second world war alone shattered any previous record (though one "neo-atheist" claimed to me that since Hilter was raised Roman catholic, then World War 2 was a holy war : )

But your point is well-made.  And as I stated previous, many fail to realise that Muslims, Christians and Jews all worship the same God: where Christianity evolved from Judaism, Mohammedism, or Islam, evolved from Christianity.


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## readytogo

I agree with Technoviking, if you do a little digging into the history of religion you will quickly find that it is all one base "story" that has evolved into what we see today over many different religious groups simply adapted to serve the needs of whomever is listening.  Extremeists will see this as another reason to keep hating and spreading the hate.  I certaintly hope these folks werent thinking they were helping the problem!!! :  Blatent publicity stunt that may have extemely negative consequences.


RTG


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## PuckChaser

All these idiots wanted, and got, was national media attention for their "church". Claim to do something awful, and you get free advertising on the news. I bet they received hundreds of dollars in donations from wackos like themselves to "support" their cause. Now even if they don't do it, people will remember the name "Dove World Outreach Centre" for months to come.


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## JesseWZ

Though Wikipedia is not a reliable source, it itself contains reliable sources for its articles. The article on the Dove World Outreach Center claims that they support the wackos over at the Westboro Baptist Church.

Link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dove_World_Outreach_Center

To take a quick trip through history, the WBC are the ones that picket soldiers funerals, as well as attempted to cross into Canada to picket Timothy Mclean's funeral.  (the poor fellow that was killed on the Greyhound.) 

I hope the rest of the public agencies that deal with the DWOC take a page from their insurance company and start revoking permits. 

Edit: Whoops, brain fart.


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## Jarnhamar

I can go out on my step and burn a bible wrapped in a flag, it's how we roll in the land of the free.

Why is this church burning the koran a bad idea?
Oh ya, it'll start violence or something right?  I guess that's only fair considering how opposed (Radical?) Islam is to burning American flags, bibles and the odd service member.

Don't see these guys as any different than the West Buro church.


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## Sapplicant

JesseWZ said:
			
		

> Mcveigh's



Mclean. McVeigh was the one who blew the OKC building up.


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## crooks.a

That's a *really* bad idea. Have any of you seen the South Park episode where Family Guy shows Muhammad on TV? I estimate this may have a similar outcome...


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## George Wallace

crooks.a said:
			
		

> That's a *really* bad idea. Have any of you seen the South Park episode where Family Guy shows Muhammad on TV? I estimate this may have a similar outcome...



Intersting.  Perhaps this belongs in the "I wonder why" thread, but after reading this:



			
				HavokFour said:
			
		

> *Lasers could defend helicopters against missiles*​
> 
> 
> 
> "Our lasers give off a signal that's like throwing sand in the eyes of the missile," said Mohammed Islam, a professor in the department of electrical engineering and computer science at UM.
> 
> 
> 
> Read more...
Click to expand...



Why do Muslims get in such an uproar about a cartoon, when so many of them name themselves after Mohammed?  Seems to be two sides of the same coin.  Perhaps we should call in the Jedi and declare "This is not the Mohammed that you are looking for."


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## Sapplicant

Technoviking said:
			
		

> Though I've often heard the argument that religious, or "holy" wars have killed more people than...well, anything, it's a myth.  Heck, I think that the second world war alone shattered any previous record (though one "neo-atheist" claimed to me that since Hilter was raised Roman catholic, then World War 2 was a holy war   )
> 
> But your point is well-made.  And as I stated previous, many fail to realise that Muslims, Christians and Jews all worship the same God: where Christianity evolved from Judaism, Mohammedism, or Islam, evolved from Christianity.



"It" transcends all religion, be they based in Judaism or otherwise. "It" also has a lot of secret societies that have had much influence over certain countries over certain time periods. The Nazi party, for example, takes some of it's core ideologies from a secret society which was into some of "it's" darker aspects. The USA was founded by a lot of people who were Freemasons, where you must submit to a belief in "it" to be a member (I'm not badmouthing freemasonry in any way, for the record. The USA turned out pretty alright if you ask me). Anyhow, I've said enough. "It" is telling me to put my tinfoil hat back on...


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## vonGarvin

Sapplicant said:
			
		

> "It" transcends all religion, be they based in Judaism or otherwise. "It" also has a lot of secret societies that have had much influence over certain countries over certain time periods. The Nazi party, for example, takes some of it's core ideologies from a secret society which was into some of "it's" darker aspects. The USA was founded by a lot of people who were Freemasons, where you must submit to a belief in "it" to be a member (I'm not badmouthing freemasonry in any way, for the record. The USA turned out pretty alright if you ask me). Anyhow, I've said enough. "It" is telling me to put my tinfoil hat back on...


But World War Two wasn't started to spread any religious ideology.  Neither was world war one.  My point is that people may dress up wars as "religious" in some cases; however, it is almost invariably man's lust for power that causes wars.  

This is not to say that "if you're religious, then there's no wars", because I think we all know that's bunk.


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## SeanNewman

recceguy said:
			
		

> ...If you're going to attack, you better know what your objective is...



Not worth it on this thread old chap.  I made my comment; some agreed, some didn't.

The new and improved me picks his battles  :-X


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## Fishbone Jones

Petamocto said:
			
		

> The new and improved me picks his battles  :-X


 Things haven't been in vain then 8)


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## M Feetham

So i'm sure by now everyone has seen the news about the Pastor in the States that wants to hold a book burning of the Quran. I am flabbergasted, not only is his intent to burn a holy book, but a book from a part of the world where the US, Canada and a host of other countries have troops stationed. What is he thinking. Any thoughts from all the good people out there.

Marc


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## tomahawk6

I hope God speaks to Pastor Terry Jones to tell him not to burn the Quran. "Bad idea Terry but you did get your 15 minutes in the limelight now move on."


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## ArmyRick

I would ask they go ahead and do their Quran book burning BUT one condition, to show they're true resolve they must go deep into taliban country and in front of muslim extremist, they must demonstrate what they intend to do...

I'll bet they back down in a really big hurry.


This is white trash stupidity all over it. This is not what christianity is about. Religion can be a good thing or a really bad thing, its all in how one chooses to apply the principles of their religion.

Now wars are rarely if ever about religion. They are a struggle for power IMO. Sure they may use religion as the cause (in some cases many of the followers will be beleive thats what it is about) behind it but ultimately the leaders are after the power that comes with victory.

Opinions on that statement?


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## 57Chevy

Interesting to note is that Jones is the author of a book called Islam Is Of The Devil.
The burning is likened to a scheme to sell his book. At the cost of what ? 
money money money


Canadian Defence Minister Peter MacKay called Jones's initiative "insulting" to Muslims and Canadians of all faiths.

Read more: Qu'ran burning 
           (Reproduced under the Fair Dealings provisions of the Copyright Act


----------



## boboyer

ArmyRick said:
			
		

> I would ask they go ahead and do their Quran book burning BUT one condition, to show they're true resolve they must go deep into taliban country and in front of muslim extremist, they must demonstrate what they intend to do...



I think there are a few muslims that would have 'words' with them here at home, if they did the burning in front of them.




			
				ArmyRick said:
			
		

> Now wars are rarely if ever about religion. They are a struggle for power IMO. Sure they may use religion as the cause (in some cases many of the followers will be beleive thats what it is about) behind it but ultimately the leaders are after the power that comes with victory.
> 
> Opinions on that statement?



If they are fought about religion, I would like to think that it is mostly in the middle east. I mean, in North America the recruiters aren't hanging up posters around town that say "God wills it!"
Instead of a struggle for power, maybe a better word is display? I don't know.


----------



## readytogo

I think if you look back in history there have been very VERY few wars fought truly over religion....The crusades were sanctioned by the church to "spread the word" but were only a ploy to control more countries, The Roman empire at one point controlled most of the known world for thier "gods" (again just a play to control the most land and rule the world)  Neither world war was religious and so on and so on.  Religion is smoke and mirrors to distract poorly educated people in third world countries (and sometimes in southern florida) from the true intentions of a leader or another country.  This is especially true in history when the church still very much had its thumb on the pulse of the state.


my :2c:
RTG


----------



## Sapplicant

Technoviking said:
			
		

> ...it is almost invariably man's lust for power that causes wars...



Bingo-bango. Until the power of love overcomes the love of power, we're all pretty much f***ed. Religion aside, this illusion of power can actually be attributed to "it". People can mistake being in positions of power for being closer to "it" without religion being involved in the least. That position of power fills one with an energy, a drive to keep going. This driving force, unfortunately, drowns out that voice inside which would guide a normal person to do the right things, things which please "it". Religion has *nothing* to do with "it" in cases such as these, follow?


----------



## Sapplicant

George Wallace said:
			
		

> Why do Muslims get in such an uproar about a cartoon, when so many of them name themselves after Mohammed?



I think that the "M" word (and images thereof), in this case, can be compared to the "N" word. It's *THEIR* prophet, not ours. We aren't allowed to draw it, or give the "M" name to a teddy bear, etc...


----------



## PuckChaser

Its an honour for them to be named after their prophet. When they refer to the actual Muhammad in literature or in speaking, normally you'll see "P.B.U.H." or Peace be upon him, as a sign of reverence.


----------



## Redeye

There's no "M" word to it.  The name itself is just a name.  It is imagery of any sort of the Prophet Mohammend that they proscribe.  Any such imagery, as they see it, is essentially idolatry.  As someone mentioned, when a Muslim refers to the Prophet Mohammed they'll usually add "Peace Be Upon Him" (or just pbuh in writing) to specify to whom they are referring.



			
				Sapplicant said:
			
		

> I think that the "M" word (and images thereof), in this case, can be compared to the "N" word. It's *THEIR* prophet, not ours. We aren't allowed to draw it, or give the "M" name to a teddy bear, etc...


----------



## Sapplicant

Redeye said:
			
		

> There's no "M" word to it.  The name itself is just a name.  It is imagery of any sort of the Prophet Mohammend that they proscribe.  Any such imagery, as they see it, is essentially idolatry.  As someone mentioned, when a Muslim refers to the Prophet Mohammed they'll usually add "Peace Be Upon Him" (or just pbuh in writing) to specify to whom they are referring.



My bad, I forgot to add [sarcasm] [/sarcasm] to my post. I'm aware of the traditions, and they're supposed to add PBUH EVERY time they mention the name. When referring to the prophet. Also aware that the term "jihad" is VERY misused these days...


----------



## Haggis

Apparently Reverend Terry has called off his Biblical BBQ.  Shared with the usual disclaimer.


----------



## jollyjacktar

Redeye said:
			
		

> There's no "M" word to it.  The name itself is just a name.  It is imagery of any sort of the Prophet Mohammend that they proscribe.  Any such imagery, as they see it, is essentially idolatry.  As someone mentioned, when a Muslim refers to the Prophet Mohammed they'll usually add "Peace Be Upon Him" (or just pbuh in writing) to specify to whom they are referring.



I heard the head of the Islamic Society of PEI wrt this subject today.  When he mentioned JC he even pbuh him as well.



			
				Haggis said:
			
		

> Apparently Reverand Terry has called off his Biblical BBQ.  Shared with the usual disclaimer.



Perhaps he is not as stunned as he looks and sounds.


----------



## vonGarvin

jollyjacktar said:
			
		

> I heard the head of the Islamic Society of PEI wrt this subject today.  When he mentioned JC he even pbuh him as well.


Naturally.  Jesus Christ is, for Muslims, a prophet, just as Mohammed is.  


			
				Haggis said:
			
		

> Apparently Reverend Terry has called off his Biblical BBQ.  Shared with the usual disclaimer.





			
				jollyjacktar said:
			
		

> Perhaps he is not as stunned as he looks and sounds.


Oh, yes he is.


----------



## Alea

Oh yes... he definitely seems "stunned" and more...

*"US pastor cancels Qur’an-burning, then reconsiders, saying imam lied about moving NYC mosque"*

_GAINESVILLE, Fla. - An anti-Islamic preacher backed off and then threatened to reconsider burning the Qur’an on the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, angrily accusing a Muslim leader of lying to him Thursday with a promise to move an Islamic centre and mosque away from New York's ground zero. The imam planning the centre denied there was ever such a deal._

http://www.news1130.com/news/world/article/99220--us-pastor-cancels-qur-an-burning-then-reconsiders-saying-imam-lied-about-moving-nyc-mosque


----------



## Brad Sallows

The desecration is ignorant, but the problem isn't people who want to burn books or flags or behold religious symbols in a jar or piss to make a political or artistic statement.  The problem is people who think those provocations justify a violent response.  If you fail to define a problem correctly, you can not solve it.

Undoubtedly the stunt will in some way assist Al-Qaeda recruitment, but so will the erection of a victory monument near the site of their greatest triumph (how they - not us - see these things is what matters).  If we're going to fight the propaganda war, let's not do it by half measures.


----------



## hold_fast

Brad Sallows said:
			
		

> The desecration is ignorant, but the problem isn't people who want to burn books or flags or behold religious symbols in a jar or piss to make a political or artistic statement.  The problem is people who think those provocations justify a violent response.  If you fail to define a problem correctly, you can not solve it.
> 
> Undoubtedly the stunt will in some way assist Al-Qaeda recruitment, but so will the erection of a victory monument near the site of their greatest triumph (how they - not us - see these things is what matters).  If we're going to fight the propaganda war, let's not do it by half measures.



While I disagree with the "erection of a victory monument near the site of their greatest triumph" statement, I find it sad that it took me until the latest post to find someone who pointed out the obvious; that it is within Jones' rights to destroy his own property.

He enjoys the freedoms of a democratic Western nation. This freedom is why we are hated by extremists. Sure, the act of burning a 'sacred text' will only ignite more violence. But an extremist apt to cause violence will do so anyway.

This shouldn't have caused such a stir as it did - it has been blown out of proportion. The media should not have given Jones so much attention, but practicing Muslims should not have cared as much as they did. It would have been in everyone's best interest to shrug their shoulders and *move on*.

Hate Jones all you want because you consider him stupid, ignorant, or hateful. However, his actions are within the realm of the very freedoms we all enjoy, and to censor him because factions on the other side of the world will be offended by his expression of this said freedom *would be wrong*.


----------



## Sapplicant

hold_fast said:
			
		

> While I disagree with the "erection of a victory monument near the site of their greatest triumph" statement, I find it sad that it took me until the latest post to find someone who pointed out the obvious; that it is within Jones' rights to destroy his own property.
> 
> He enjoys the freedoms of a democratic Western nation. This freedom is why we are hated by extremists. Sure, the act of burning a 'sacred text' will only ignite more violence. But an extremist apt to cause violence will do so anyway.
> 
> This shouldn't have caused such a stir as it did - it has been blown out of proportion. The media should not have given Jones so much attention, but practicing Muslims should not have cared as much as they did. It would have been in everyone's best interest to shrug their shoulders and *move on*.
> 
> Hate Jones all you want because you consider him stupid, ignorant, or hateful. However, his actions are within the realm of the very freedoms we all enjoy, and to censor him because factions on the other side of the world will be offended by his expression of this said freedom *would be wrong*.




Messages of hate are a touchy area as far as freedom goes. Sure, I can punch holes in my wall and break my TV if I so feel, it's not hurting anyone but myself. But this is a completely different kind of destruction. To do something as dumb as this only lowers us to the level of people who trample and burn burn American and Canadian flags as well as effigies, chanting something along the lines of "Death to the West". Sure, those flags and effigies are "their property". Still doesn't make drumming up messages of hate the right thing to do, does it?

If we want "them" to adopt our systems and freedoms, we have to show that our systems and freedoms are, in fact, better than the ones they already have in place. Crap like this and the WBC have no place in our society, only only prove that our "system" needs some tweaking.


----------



## hold_fast

Sapplicant said:
			
		

> Messages of hate are a touchy area as far as freedom goes. Sure, I can punch holes in my wall and break my TV if I so feel, it's not hurting anyone but myself. But this is a completely different kind of destruction. To do something as dumb as this only lowers us to the level of people who trample and burn burn American and Canadian flags as well as effigies, chanting something along the lines of "Death to the West". Sure, those flags and effigies are "their property". Still doesn't make drumming up messages of hate the right thing to do, does it?
> 
> If we want "them" to adopt our systems and freedoms, we have to show that our systems and freedoms are, in fact, better than the ones they already have in place. Crap like this and the WBC have no place in our society, only only prove that our "system" needs some tweaking.



I am not debating the morality of burning the Qur'an. It is also entirely legal for individuals to burn American or Canadian flags.

What is right and what is wrong? Morality is subjective, and I will not get into a debate about whether burning a 'sacred text' is right or wrong. Nor will I discuss whether Jones' actions are "drumming up messages of hate". We should not censor our freedoms to make democracy appear more attractive. The freedom of a democratic nation is how it is - you will not always like what everyone has to say or do. You have the right to voice your opinions as to the opposite. You have the right to start burning bibles in protest of Jones' burning Qur'ans. 

Jones is a moron, I don't debate that fact. It does not change the fact that his freedom to burn a book remains.
I will not budge on the idea that we must protect the freedom to destroy and vandalize symbols, even if in this case that freedom is being used by an idiot who is seizing opportunities for publicity and acting in total ignorance.

If the moral majority didn't like what he had to say or planned to do, then the media shouldn't have engaged in his bottomfeeder methods of publicity.


----------



## SeanNewman

hold_fast said:
			
		

> ... It is also entirely legal for individuals to burn American or Canadian flags.



There are however all sorts of first-world countries who make it illegal to varying degrees, such as Denmark, France, Japan, etc.


----------



## Jarnhamar

Sapplicant said:
			
		

> To do something as dumb as this only lowers us to the level of people who trample and burn burn American and Canadian flags as well as effigies, chanting something along the lines of "Death to the West". Sure, those flags and effigies are "their property". Still doesn't make drumming up messages of hate the right thing to do, does it?


So a citizen burning a book, which is entirely in his legal right to do so, lowers ALL of us to the same level?

Do you think a Muslim committing a terrorist act lowers ALL Muslims to that same level?



> If we want "them" to adopt our systems and freedoms, we have to show that our systems and freedoms are, in fact, better than the ones they already have in place. Crap like this and the WBC have no place in our society, only only prove that our "system" needs some tweaking.


We shouldn't care if they want to adopt our system and freedoms, it's when they try and take ours away from us when it becomes an issue.  We don't have to show anyone our system is better. We know it is, they can accept it or not.
What has no place in our society are religions that promote violence and use the threat of violence as co-hersion.  "You better not do this that or the other thing or we'll loose our shit and start killing people".


----------



## PuckChaser

Haggis said:
			
		

> Apparently Reverend Terry has called off his Biblical BBQ.  Shared with the usual disclaimer.



He got his national publicity, donations and probably boosted his book sales. Mission accomplished, why go through with it?


----------



## Brad Sallows

>Crap like this and the WBC have no place in our society

If by WBC you mean the Westboro mob, then you are pointing to a very small number of people - by using an extremely discriminating filter with respect to the ideologies for which they stand.  If we widen the arc of view to consider all the other groups who stage desecrations of symbols as part of their protests and statements and conduct themselves poorly in various ways - without respect to their politicial or religious stances - we find a number several orders of magnitude larger.  That brush is going to strike too, too many people and suppress much more freedom than it ever gives the illusion of creating.

If the point of our freedoms isn't to allow the most mean-spirited among us to go about their troubled lives in whichever ways they choose, our freedoms aren't really exceptional.


----------



## SeanNewman

I am happy to see Obama and Harper both going public to condemn him though.

I am sure there is an Info Ops campaign going on in theatre for how to mitigate it, possibly stating that we also condemn it and are just as offended.  Can't say for sure because I have been out of that chair for a year.

If nothing else, I am also happy to see that we have learned from our lessons in the past.  What we did in WW2 to Japanese Canadians was only marginally better than what the Germans did to Jewish people so we didn't have the moral high ground to claim.  No we didn't exterminate them all, but we still rounded them all up and put them in camps.

Although I do get the feeling that there is still a minority who would prefer that we do that to Muslims today, the majority of Canadians would not tolerate it.


----------



## The Bread Guy

Petamocto said:
			
		

> I am sure there is an Info Ops campaign going on in theatre for how to mitigate it, possibly stating that we also condemn it and are just as offended.  Can't say for sure because I have been out of that chair for a year.


You KNOW the Taliban had to take a crack from their side (screen capture of statement attached as PDF)....


> US invaders martyr 8 civilians as they protest burning of Holy Quran
> Saturday, 11 September 2010 19:50 Zabihullah Mujahid
> 
> FARAH, Sep. 11 – US invaders shot and martyred 8 civilians protesting against the inhumane act of bringing Holy Quran by the US church in Florida, while protesters in Kabul city burned to government vehicles in protesting against Quran.


Alleged civilian casualties + Alleged outrage committed by puppets/infidels/terrorists/colonialists = Touchstones for a typical Taliban statement

And if there's one statement on the English web page, I'm guessing the Taliban Info-machine's spreading the word all sorts of other ways as well.


----------



## Fishbone Jones

Petamocto said:
			
		

> If nothing else, I am also happy to see that we have learned from our lessons in the past.  What we did in WW2 to Japanese Canadians was only marginally better than what the Germans did to Jewish people so we didn't have the moral high ground to claim.  No we didn't exterminate them all, but we still rounded them all up and put them in camps.



I've tried to stay clear of engaging some of your thoughts here, so as not to appear biased. I'll even commend you for the massive strides you attempt to be making in correcting your previous history. However, I see that every once in awhile you still hit the send button without proofreading or subjectively editing your own posts. This is a classic example.

It is also one of the most assinine and offensive statements I've read on these boards in quite some time.

Now that's only my opinion, and I'm not going to try discuss with you why. Let's just say I have way more on my side than you on yours. You're just going to have to reflect and figure it out for yourself, but if your lines between right and wrong are so minuscule that you figure what we did is only _marginally _  above what they did I can understand why you have such a hard time relating to regular people and why your priorities are so skewed.

_edit for spelling_


----------



## mariomike

Petamocto said:
			
		

> What we did in WW2 to Japanese Canadians was only marginally better than what the Germans did to Jewish people so we didn't have the moral high ground to claim.



Canada did not starve millions of people to death, did not force their inmates to work under brutal conditions, and did not send them to gas chambers if they were "unfit" to work.


----------



## Infanteer

Petamocto said:
			
		

> What we did in WW2 to Japanese Canadians was only marginally better than what the Germans did to Jewish people so we didn't have the moral high ground to claim.  No we didn't exterminate them all, but we still rounded them all up and put them in camps.



Huh?

You have quite a grasp on history if you are unable to differentiate between an internment camp and a death camp....


----------



## Old Sweat

I am going to refrain from joining to the mass dump-on, other than to say I am disappointed that the maturity and discernment you had been displaying went all to sh.t. I don't understand why you continually seem to have this urge to stick your thingee in a food processor set on puree.


----------



## observor 69

Continuing to refrain from making an ass of myself with some blurted out response.
Dam !


----------



## 57Chevy

Two Afghan protesters killed as Qur'an tensions simmer

Word of the intention to burn the Qu’ran had already triggered outrage in Afghanistan and across the Muslim world.

President Barack Obama warned it could hurt the United States deeply abroad, endanger U.S. troops in Afghanistan and risk attacks in U.S. and European cities.
"DEATH TO AMERICA"
In Afghanistan, angry protesters chanting "Death to America" and "Death to Christians" before clashing with security forces in Logar, south of the capital. 

The protesters threatened to attack foreign military bases. There are almost 150,000 foreign troops fighting a growing Taliban-led insurgency in Afghanistan, where violence is at its worst since the hardline Islamists were ousted.

"The governor must give us an assurance that the church is not going to burn the Qu’ran, otherwise we will attack foreign troop bases in our thousands," protester Mohammad Yahya said

article continues:  Qur'an tensions 
                    (Reproduced under the Fair Dealings provisions of the Copyright Act)


----------



## SeanNewman

The Germans made mass decisions based on race and not individual guilt/innocence, and so did we.  If you want to call me immature, ignorant of history, or even retarded because I pointed that out, then that's quite alright.  I stated there was a difference because we did not kill them all, but we still violated individual human rights because of race.

There were three decisions made:
1. Do we think all people are guilty because they are the same race?
2. Do we contain them all just to be safe?
3. Do we kill them all just to be _really_ safe?

We made 2/3 of the same decisions the Germans did.  Granted the last one is the "biggy", but it hardly puts us in a position to point fingers and act high and mighty because we "only" rounded up thousands of innocent people based on their race and it's a bit hypocritical.

As per the purpose of my original post, if people did not have the courage to stand up and admit that what we did was horribly wrong we would probably be rounding up Muslims right now and putting them in camps.


----------



## PuckChaser

I think you make a pretty good point once explained, but some people have an axe to grind against you and the direct Holocaust comparison was just fuel to the fire.

Back towards the original topic: Its really sad to see what just a threat of a Koran burning has done to help the Taliban IO campaign. We've just lost a whole lot of credibility, and our troops have done absolutely nothing to deserve it. Going to be a long, uphill battle to convince the general populace that nothing did happen, nor would we ever allow it to happen.


----------



## Infanteer

Petamocto said:
			
		

> We made 2/3 of the same decisions the Germans did.  Granted the last one is the "biggy", but it hardly puts us in a position to point fingers and act high and mighty because we "only" rounded up thousands of innocent people based on their race and it's a bit hypocritical.



I see - genocide is a "biggy"; I guess we can leave that minor detail out so the your idea of moral equivalency holds water.  I don't, as the above poster mentioned, have any bone to pick with you but you do realize how ridiculous your flimsy comparison is sounding?


----------



## vonGarvin

Petamocto said:
			
		

> The Germans made mass decisions based on race and not individual guilt/innocence, and so did we.  If you want to call me immature, ignorant of history, or even retarded because I pointed that out, then that's quite alright.  I stated there was a difference because we did not kill them all.
> 
> There were three decisions made:
> 1. Do we think all people are guilty because they are the same race?
> 2. Do we contain them all just to be safe?
> 3. Do we kill them all just to be _really_ safe?
> 
> We made 2/3 of the same decisions the Germans did.  Granted the last one is the "biggy", but it hardly puts us in a position to point fingers and act high and mighty because we "only" rounded up thousands of innocent people based on their race and it's a bit hypocritical.
> 
> As per the purpose of my original post, if people did not have the courage to stand up and admit that what we did was horribly wrong we would probably be rounding up Muslims right now and putting them in camps.


Superficially the two "things" appear quite similar; however, you fail.

In Europe, anti-semitism was rampant, and there was no good reason for it.  "They" were just Jews, they owned all the businesses, they were in league with the Bolshevists, etc.  All that garbage.  It went from outright persecution and went from there.

For us, in late November 1941, Japanese Canadians were just another group of immigrants, along with the Chinese, Ukrainians and others.  Then, waking up on 8 December, Japan was suddenly an enemy, and looking around, we "realised" that there were hundreds (thousands?) of "enemy aliens" in Canada.  Having citizenship of Japan, they were citizens of an enemy state.  Yes, hindsight is 20/20 and all that, but we felt that these enemy aliens (along with Germans and Italians) had to be watched, whatever.  

So, question one: we didn't consider them guilty or innocent.  They were citizens of an enemy nation, ergo, they were the enemy.
Question 2: the Germans didn't lock up the Jews, Gypsies, Homosexuals, etc, because they wanted to be safe.
Question 3: they didn't kill them to be safe.
So, none of the questions apply.  The apologists of history will want us to believe that we mistreated the "yellow" people, dropping the bomb on them and all, just because we are mean white people.  Yet "they" forget that we firebombed our cousins by the millions, because they were the enemy in a full-up and declared war.  
Were we right to do what we did?  Sure.  So, it's not hypocritical at all, because the situations were completely different.  We didn't make even 1/3 of the same decisions as the Germans.  What we did wasn't horribly wrong, or even midly wrong.  Given the same circumstances and some knowledge, I would advocate doing the same.  And given that the people who attacked us way back in 2001 were from a variety of nations, it is a false premise to assume that I would advocate rounding up Muslims.  I do advocate the use of nuclear weapons on known insurgent areas, but that's just me.  (And probably a good reason why I'm not the guy in charge of putting my finger on the button).

But I refuse to consider what we (as Canadians) did as wrong, given that Canada was at war with Japan, a formal war, and we took enemy aliens and interned them: we had no other choice.


----------



## Journeyman

PuckChaser said:
			
		

> I think you make a pretty good point once explained......


I think TecViking used too many big words for this discussion. Let me try.

Using the _Petamocto Logic Construct_: *
There were three decisions made:
1. Do we carry weapons in Afghanistan?
2. Do we capture those who are not on our side?
3. Do we slice their throats and throw acid into the faces of their daughters?

Two out of three ain't bad. 

If you agree with the Nazi/Canada argument, _logically_, you must also believe that we're pretty much the same as the Taliban.


* Not copyrighted, because no rational person would use it; you're welcome to it


----------



## PuckChaser

Maybe I didn't explain enough.... comparing our actions to the Germans/Nazis is overboard, but that doesn't diminish the fact that we interned people strictly based on race. Not as bad as Nazis, but definitely bad and I hope we're past that point in our socio-economic evolution so it never happens again in this country.


----------



## SeanNewman

Ahhh, my good friend Journeyman.  Living up to your reputation of waiting for others to disagree with me before adding on.

Techno,

Your core argument is flawed.  22,000 Japanese Canadians were interred.  14,000 of them were born in Canada.

On February 24, 1942 an Order-in-Council passed under the War Measures Act gave the Federal Government the power to intern all "persons of Japanese racial origin."

As per PuckChaser's comments, we have all made our positions known and we're all too stubborn to change our opinions on this matter so let's be mature enough to move on.


----------



## vonGarvin

PuckChaser said:
			
		

> Maybe I didn't explain enough.... comparing our actions to the Germans/Nazis is overboard, but that doesn't diminish the fact that we interned people *strictly based on race*. Not as bad as Nazis, but definitely bad and I hope we're past that point in our socio-economic evolution so it never happens again in this country.


Based on nationality, actually.  An enemy nation.  And we also interred Germans and Italians.  We also interred others who were deemed to be a danger to the security of the state, such as fascists.  So, it wasn't like one day we suddenly said "we don't like them japs, let's lock 'em up with them krauts and wops!".


----------



## 57Chevy

PuckChaser said:
			
		

> Back towards the original topic: Its really sad to see what just a threat of a Koran burning has done to help the Taliban IO campaign. We've just lost a whole lot of credibility, and our troops have done absolutely nothing to deserve it. Going to be a long, uphill battle to convince the general populace that nothing did happen, nor would we ever allow it to happen.



Well said.
I don't think that one individual like Rev Bookburning should be allowed to stir up such an international commotion
as he has already done.
It just seems totally against the idea of homeland security, and puts many peoples lives in danger.
What was he thinking ?   He should be arrested for outright ignorance and stupidity. My :2c:

Petamocto........You cannot even compare the two. May I suggest you read up on german concentration camps.
                         Pick one.........and I don't think it matters which one.


----------



## Jarnhamar

PuckChaser said:
			
		

> Back towards the original topic: Its really sad to see what just a threat of a Koran burning has done to help the Taliban IO campaign. We've just lost a whole lot of credibility, and our troops have done absolutely nothing to deserve it. Going to be a long, uphill battle to convince the general populace that nothing did happen, nor would we ever allow it to happen.



You'll never convince the general population of that. They're too hard wired.   It doesn't matter what we do, the automatic reaction is
Protests
Outrage
We're going to do violence!
DEATH TO THOSE WHO INSULT ISLAM.

They know everyone else wants peace and use it as a threat everytime. Give it a few months, something else will come up and it'll be the same thing.
That upsets us! We're going to protest, we're outraged we're going to cause violence!  

My ex does the same thing. I have a great little girl and anytime my ex is upset over something real or trivial OUT come the big guns. I'm not going to let you see your daughter. Deep down I know she can't but I don't like the drama or headache so I give in everytime because I just want to see my daughter. She knows that and knows the threats work so why stop. I cancel picking my daughter up for the day because I have Pneumonia and I'm a bad parent ignoring my daughter and she might rethink the visiting arrangements blah blah blah.   :

These guys are the same way. They know that anytime they feel like getting upset over something they just rattle their sabres and the west falls over itself trying to appease them. When does it stop?  When they don't want us to vote anymore and threaten to start riots if a certain political party is allowed to be voted for?

Sorry for going off on a rant. I'm just saying nothing we do will work. Their going to use the same threats over anything they feel like.  The members of Islam who have their heads screwed on straight already understand peace and tolerance.  For the hundreds of thousands of others that don't there's just no changing their mind._ Death to those who insult Islam._


----------



## SeanNewman

But when we say "they" (their general population), are we potentially not just talking about a small percentage of them who are protesting?

They see media coverage of a small percentage of us burning Qurans and assume it's all of us, and we see a small percentage of them protesting and chanting death to anyone who insults Islam, and before you know it it's their 1 billion vs our 1 billion.


----------



## vonGarvin

Apollo Diomedes said:
			
		

> They're going to use the same threats over anything they feel like.



Very good point.  No matter the catalyst, there are those who will incite voilence using anything as an excuse, I suppose.  But, in the end, all we have to do is train up the ANA and ANP, etc, such that they are at least _functionally _ retarded, and then leave.  But I would also hang a Sword of Damocles  over their heads as a nation, if I were in charge.  But I'm not. And I'm not even running for office, so, that point of mine is moot.


----------



## Rifleman62

1. Could have been an internee, but went to Japan just before the war:

Kanao Inouye (1916-August 27, 1947) was a Canadian citizen convicted of treason for his actions during World War II. Known as the "Kamloops Kid", he served as an interpreter and prison camp guard for the Japanese Army and military police.

A Nisei (second-generation Japanese-Canadian), Kanao Inouye was born to immigrant parents in Kamloops, British Columbia. His father, Tadashi Inouye, had emigrated to British Columbia from Tokyo, and had been a decorated Canadian soldier during World War I.[1] Although his father died in 1926, Inouye at his first trial described his life in Canada as happy. His family nevertheless maintained close ties to Japan, where his grandfather, Chotahara Inouye, was a Member of Parliament and the House of Peers.[1] After he graduated from Vancouver Technical School, Inouye's family urged him to go to Japan to continue his education. He did so in 1938 and was still there when World War II began.

In 1942, Inouye was conscripted into the Imperial Japanese Army as an interpreter. Made a sergeant, he was assigned to Sham Shui Po prison camp in Hong Kong, which housed Canadian prisoners of war from the Hong Kong Garrison. Inouye was noted for his unusual brutality. He beat prisoners at random, claiming it was in retaliation for discrimination he had received in Canada. In contrast to his later trial testimony about his childhood, he allegedly told them: “When I was in Canada I took all kinds abuse. ... They called me a little yellow *******. Now where is your so-called superiority, you dirty scum?” 

Inouye was discharged from the army the following year, but in 1944 he was conscripted as an interpreter for the notorious Kempeitai military police in Hong Kong. Trial testimony stated he had been an enthusiastic torturer of suspected spies and traitors. Former POWs would later testify that Inouye was responsible for the torture and death of at least 8 Canadian POWs.

After the Japanese capitulation in August 1945, Inouye was arrested in Kowloon and tried for war crimes by a military tribunal. He was convicted and was sentenced to death. However, the verdict was overturned on appeal, since as a Canadian citizen, he could not be prosecuted for war crimes committed by an enemy army.

In April 1947, Inouye was tried on the criminal charge of treason. He was again found guilty, and on August 27, 1947, he was executed by hanging at Hong Kong's Stanley Prison. His last word was "Banzai!"

2. Japanese submarine operations

Several ships were torpedoed within sight of West Coast cities such as Los Angeles and Santa Monica. During 1941 and 1942, more than 10 Japanese submarines operated in the West Coast. They attacked American, Canadian and Mexican ships, successfully sinking 10 vessels.

Bombardment of Estevan Point lighthouse

On June 20, 1942, the Japanese submarine I-26, under the command of Yokota Minoru,fired 25-30 rounds of 5.5" shells at the Estevan Point lighthouse on Vancouver Island in British Columbia, but failed to hit its target.This marked the first enemy shelling of Canadian soil since the War of 1812. Though no casualties were reported, the subsequent decision to turn off the lights of outer stations was disastrous for shipping activity.

3. Japan bombs Saskatchewan

On Jan. 12, 1945, 15-year old Ralph Melle of Regina witnessed the Japanese bombing of Saskatchewan. "We stepped on one… it was covered up but it never went off," he remembers in this clip. The only casualty was a fence. The bombs were part of a bizarre initiative carried out by the Japanese during the Second World War. From 1944 to 1945, Japan's Special Balloon Regiment launched more than 9,000 balloons filled with bombs. 

The balloon bombs were targeted at the Pacific Northwest of North America to start forest fires as well as divert resources and create public panic. Some made it far further east. 

• Balloon bombs were 10 metres in diameter and held about 540 cubic metres of hydrogen. 
• Of the 9,000 balloon bombs that were launched from Japan, only 300 made it to North America. The reason for the poor success rate was the weak antifreeze used in the balloons, which failed to prevent the batteries from freezing. 
• Balloon bombs were discovered as far as Alaska and Texas as well as in Mexico and Canada. 
• The sole lethal attack of the balloon bombs took place in May 1945. A minister's wife and five children, aged 11 to 14, were killed when bombs exploded in the woods in Oregon. 
• Fewer than 100 balloon bombs landed on Canada. British Columbia had the second-largest number of balloon bombs dropped in North America. The largest number of bombs fell in Oregon. 
• In Canada, balloon bombs were discovered in Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, the Northwest Territories and the Yukon. 
• The last balloon bomb was launched in April 1945. 
• In 1955, the last known lethal balloon was discovered in Alaska. 
• Although the bombs caused little damage, officials in North America worried about the bombs' potential psychological effect on the public. The Canadian and U.S. governments asked the media to not publish balloon bomb incidents. As a result, the Japanese only learned of one bomb reaching Wyoming, landing and failing to explode. The balloon bombs were dubbed a failure and the Japanese quickly abandoned the campaign after six months. 


It was war. Ask people, even those living in Canada, it was "dark days". The war news was more often very bad up until late 1943 or early 1944. 

Don't think it won't happen again.


----------



## Jarnhamar

Petamocto said:
			
		

> But when we say "they" (their general population), are we potentially not just talking about a small percentage of them who are protesting?


I think this is an automatic reaction by the moderate Muslims who aren't embaracing the genocidal views of their more radical Islam worshiping fellows.
"It's a small percent who are violent,  99% of the rest of us are peaceful and we condem their actions".

Same thing moderate christians say about the fire and brimstone types or the child molesters in the church. "It's a small percent most of us are normal".

The thing is, I think the amount of "Death to Those who insult islam!" Muslims are a little more than "just a few". There's a hell of a lot of them out there and acting like it's just a few bad apples is going to cost some lives in the future.


----------



## George Wallace

Just going back to this for a second:



			
				Petamocto said:
			
		

> If nothing else, I am also happy to see that we have learned from our lessons in the past.  What we did in WW2 to Japanese Canadians was only marginally better than what the Germans did to Jewish people so we didn't have the moral high ground to claim.  No we didn't exterminate them all, but we still rounded them all up and put them in camps.



As has been pointed out; it was WAR.

Japanese Canadians were not the only ones interned in Camps during the Second World War.  Large populations of Ukrainians were interned as well, as were German and Italian Canadians.  Heck, even the mayor of Montreal, an Italian Canadian, was interned.  The same thing was happening in the U.S. of A. and many other countries.


----------



## SeanNewman

George Wallace said:
			
		

> Just going back to this for a second:  As has been pointed out; it was WAR.
> 
> Japanese Canadians were not the only ones interned in Camps during the Second World War.  Large populations of Ukrainians were interned as well, as were German and Italian Canadians.  Heck, even the mayor of Montreal, an Italian Canadian, was interned.  The same thing was happening in the U.S. of A. and many other countries.



That other people did it does not make it okay.

We were at war against countries, and I am 100% all for everything we did against those countries.

That does not make it okay to racially discriminate against people who were completely innocent (which we did).

My original post was merely to state that I am happy we are not doing that to Muslims now.


----------



## Infanteer

Petamocto said:
			
		

> On February 24, 1942 an Order-in-Council passed under the War Measures Act gave the Federal Government the power to intern all "persons of Japanese racial origin."



So that should be put on the same level as the Final Solution?



> As per PuckChaser's comments, we have all made our positions known and we're all too stubborn to change our opinions on this matter so let's be mature enough to move on.



If you don't care to submit your statements to any sort of critical discussion, than by all means cop out.  But don't cover your lack of any defence for your logic with an "obviously nobody is right and this can't be solved" smoke-and-mirrors trick.


----------



## George Wallace

Petamocto said:
			
		

> That does not make it okay to racially discriminate against people who were completely innocent (which we did).
> 
> My original post was merely to state that I am happy we are not doing that to Muslims now.



As you point out, we are not so likely to do so today.  

How did this happen, when only 60 some years ago our "Values", "Ethics" and "Morals" were so different?  We are evolving, hopefully for the better.  The question to ask is why the Western Asian states do not seem to be evolving as well.  In fact, they seem stuck in an era that is hundreds of centuries old.   I think we have touched on the answers in many of our discussions here already.  For those who are paranoid, or mildly suspicious of events, there could be the theory of Islamic World Domination and this could most likely be the factor feeding some of these radical religious sects of other Faiths.


----------



## Infanteer

George Wallace said:
			
		

> How did this happen, when only 60 some years ago our "Values", "Ethics" and "Morals" were so different?  We are evolving, hopefully for the better.



Are we "evolving"?  We (the collective we) now hold weapons and have "strategies" that would see the wholesale destruction of societies in minutes.  Moralizing the attack of cities with W88s is a tricky one....


----------



## PuckChaser

George Wallace said:
			
		

> Just going back to this for a second:
> 
> As has been pointed out; it was WAR.
> 
> Japanese Canadians were not the only ones interned in Camps during the Second World War.  Large populations of Ukrainians were interned as well, as were German and Italian Canadians.  Heck, even the mayor of Montreal, an Italian Canadian, was interned.  The same thing was happening in the U.S. of A. and many other countries.



Just because everyone else did it, does that make it right? War is not an excuse to go and do bad things to people based on race or ethnicity because they might be the enemy. Innocent until proven guilty is a huge tenet in our legal system.


----------



## aesop081

Infanteer said:
			
		

> Moralizing the attack of cities with W88s is a tricky one....



You would think so but, no, not realy.


----------



## Edward Campbell

Petamocto said:
			
		

> Thank you for the personal attack, but don't worry I'm sure you'll be fine.
> 
> What has really happened here is that many people have wrongly stated that I said they were the same thing, but they don't get in trouble for violating the site guidelines though even though they are misquoting me.
> 
> What I will accept responsibility for is saying something that was unpopular, but that does not mean it was wrong or "stupid" or that I should apologize for it.




Arrant nonsense!

You said: _*"What we did in WW2 to Japanese Canadians was only marginally better than what the Germans did to Jewish people so we didn't have the moral high ground to claim."*_

Both TV and JM faulted you, correctly, for the inconsistency of your 'logic.' You have no need you apologize for your _opinions_, even when they are, demonstrably, sophomoric, but you should grow up and acknowledge the flaw in your reasoning.

What we did (and didn't do) to anyone (Japanese, Germans, Italians and Eastern Europeans resident in and even citizens of Canada) was not, in any measurable way, "only marginally better" than _Kristallnacht_ and _Auschwitz_, and to suggest they were is a grave insult to millions of Canadians in generations past, including those who fought and died to defeat the Germans, and you owe them all an abject apology for your casual, thoughtless insult.

We have things, in our modern 20th century history, about which we need to hang our heads in shame - the MS St Louis, for example - but the _internments_ of suspected enemy aliens, during a *war*, aren't amongst them. They _may_ have been unnecessary acts; there _may_ have been few enemy agents and _fifth columnists_ amongst e.g. German Canadians and Japanese Canadians but only hindsight is 20/20.

Of course there was racism and xenophobia in Canada in 1941 - it persists today - and of course some of the pressure to segregate and even imprison _aliens_ came from racists and xenophobes, but the historical evidence suggests that the decision was made, despite the military's view that it was unnecessary (at least for the Japanese), out of an honest, albeit _largely_ misguided, concern for national security. That is not what motivated the Germans in the 1930s and 40s. There is, simply, no way to equate the two situations; they were not alike; they are incomparable. You compared them, one to the other, you likened them, one to the other; you were and remain wrong.

Your original statement is wrong and you should accept and acknowledge that fact and we can all move on.


----------



## Edward Campbell

You are still missing the point.

German-Canadians, Italian-Canadians, Japanese-Canadians and Ukrainian-Canadians, at least, were all interned; thus it (internment) was not based, solely, on race, it was based on _ethnicity_ and _connection_ to enemy nations. (Ukrainians were interned because, we thought, the Germans found too many allies amongst the nationalistic Ukrainians in 1941/42.) _Ethnicity_ was considered important in the much less multi-cultural 'world' of the 1940s; it was presumed that "blood was thicker than water" and it was, therefore, presumed that e.g. Japanese-Canadians might have deep emotional ties to Japan, (and Italian-Canadians to Italy, etc) where they had _kith and kin_ - and a few did.

Further: the fundamental _natural_ right to life was never threatened. _Liberty_ was restricted; but so was the _liberty_ of most Canadians - not as severely as the restrictions imposed on German, Italian, Japanese etc Canadians, but restricted all the same. It's what we might describe, in 21st century _charter-speak_, as being demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society, when the country is at war. _Liberty_ is a _natural_ right (along with life and property) but it is of a different order; _liberty_ is never absolute (if it was it would be nothing better than licence), but life and, to some degree, property, are. Thus, in a free society, _liberty_ can be constrained, temporarily, for good reason; one of those good reasons is to protect the public. Depriving e.g. German and Japanese Canadians of some, actually a lot of their _liberty_ was, and remains, justifiable, in a war. Once again, hindsight is 20/20.

Thus, there was no *threat* to life and, consequently, no conflict with _freedom_ because _liberty_ and _property_ were justifiably restricted. (There is some doubt, in my mind, as to whether or not Japanese property claims in the late 1940s were properly adjudicated, but that's another issue.)

You are still wrong.


----------



## Edward Campbell

I'm taking one, final, shot: I think that you, Petamocto, actually *believe* what you said - that Canadians of your grandfather's generation had only "marginally better" moral compasses than the Nazis. If that's the case then you are a bigger fool than you too often let us imagine, and you are an unworthy fool, to boot.

I, personally, am deeply offended by your comment because I, personally again, knew some of those people. You apply a broad and logically flawed brush to tar good, brave, honourable men and women; they don't deserve it.

_______________
On a personal note: I went to high school in Richmond, BC. Many of my classmates came from the village of Steveston then, in the 1950s, the biggest Japanese-Canadian community in Canada; my (Japanese-Canadian) girlfriend went to one of the camps when she was a babe in arms; two of my good Army friends, staff college classmates (Ken Murata and _Tak_ Takahashi) were also _internment camp kids_. It is a subject with which I have more than just a passing familiarity. While I have the deepest sympathy for those (mostly) good, honest, loyal Canadians whose _rights_ were (temporarily - for the duration of hostilities) violated neither I nor they, my friends from school and the Army, would ever, under any circumstances, compare the actions of Canadians to those of the Nazis. They were/are all _waaaay_ to smart for that.


----------



## mariomike

If interested:
Regarding the internment of Japanese-Americans, this is a memo from FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover to the US Attorney General on the subject, less than two months after Pearl Harbor:
http://courses.csusm.edu/hist347as/di/ps_hoover.htm


----------



## Brad Sallows

>Imprisoning people solely because of their race, whether in war or not, is wrong.

We did (and do, and will do) things in war which are wrong.  Interning people is not the worst on the list.  But here's the thing: we do misdeeds because and while we are at war, and the worst things we do only when driven by the most vicious conflicts.  When war is over, we stop.  The wrongs are not cornerstones ("solutions") of public policy to be effected at all times.  Is the difference understood?

And scale always matters in the moral calculation, because intentions, means, and ends always matter.


----------



## readytogo

Very interesting read Mike,

     so if i read that right even Hoover saw the existance of japanese pers on the west coast(or anywhere in North America) as a threat on 2 fronts, 1 being espionage and sabatoge and the other being the constant threat of "race riots" pertaining to "atrocities committed by the japanese" in the phillipenes and that the local filipino population may seek a measure of revenge.  Even though the Japanese were law abiding citizens they are very loyal to country due to the close relationship of religion and government, and he sought some kind of temporary control over this threat.  Sounds perfectly logical to me, certainly of higher moral quality than Hitler and the SS.  War is war and every country has dark passages in thier history books pertaining to it.  But come on... the attempted destruction of entire races for no reason other than the fact that they exist, slightly different situation :nod:

my :2c:
RTG


----------



## mariomike

I am glad you took the time to read it, RTG. That was only the first four pages of it. Here is the rest:
http://www.internmentarchives.com/showdoc.php?docid=00094&search_id=49729&pagenum=005
http://www.internmentarchives.com/showdoc.php?docid=00094&search_id=49729&pagenum=006
http://www.internmentarchives.com/showdoc.php?docid=00094&search_id=49729&pagenum=007
http://www.internmentarchives.com/showdoc.php?docid=00094&search_id=49729&pagenum=008
http://www.internmentarchives.com/showdoc.php?docid=00094&search_id=49729&pagenum=009
http://www.internmentarchives.com/showdoc.php?docid=00094&search_id=49729&pagenum=10

Although 60 years apart, some have compared the emergencies of 2001 and 1941.


----------



## readytogo

So Hoover attempted to recruit japanese-american civillians in San Fransisco and others to provide information and insight into the activities as "almost all Japanese americans have relatives in Japan" and found them to be uncooperative.  So we have a percieved threat from another country during a time of war and X number of potential spies and or sabatouers with conceviably unlimited access to potential military targets and shipping lanes???  The people of the US and Canada then and today entrust our elected officials/security(intelligence)and military to protect us and our borders by whatever means neccesary, i say that they did just that and remarkably did so with minimal loss of life. 


RTG


----------



## Container

Ahh the Quran burning.

I actually have a problem with the objection to the ridiculous "protest".  I can go outside and burn a bible everyday of the week. People would believe I was acting in bad taste but generally speaking I wouldn’t need to fear violent reprisal. The fact that this preacher was able to drum up such a reaction from North Americans sends a bigger message than the act itself. 

Its like how I felt when having a black president was treated as such a monumental accomplishment.
Call me when you guys don’t care what color he is.

By stamping our feet and yelling "somebody think of the children!" we show how quick we will put aside the freedoms that make us who we are. I can say I worship the noddle monster if I choose- I can burn whatever paperback I want. I can also say that someone who burns a Quran is an asshole and I wouldn't hang out with him. The people that would kill western soldiers over this would kill them over something else- we save no lives and show weakness by appearing like cowards (at least its how I looked at media coverage). I love my country because a man can be an absolute douche and I can say- you're a douche. No one dies.

What do we gain by tricking the "others" into adopting our "system" if they will throw a fuss when they disagree? Our type of society wont work if they kill everyone they disagree with. So until these countries are ready to let alternate views exist there is no victory. We are actually in danger of reducing our own liberty. Obama should have just went on TV- big press release and say- "that guys an idiot- Western Hemisphere out". Just like we let idiots like the Westboro Baptists roam we must let these guys go about their business as well. Say and do whatever you want within the confines of the laws of the land (of which we already have too many). If we bend that at all we've lost already. 

When you start advocating murder and violent upheaval then society needs to step in. But until then- feel free to rant.

Im open to an explanation of how the opposite would benefit us.


----------



## Kat Stevens

Container said:
			
		

> Ahh the Quran burning.
> 
> I actually have a problem with the objection to the ridiculous "protest".  I can go outside and burn a bible everyday of the week. People would believe I was acting in bad taste but generally speaking I wouldn’t need to fear violent reprisal. The fact that this preacher was able to drum up such a reaction from North Americans sends a bigger message than the act itself.
> 
> Its like how I felt when having a black president was treated as such a monumental accomplishment.
> Call me when you guys don’t care what color he is.
> 
> By stamping our feet and yelling "somebody think of the children!" we show how quick we will put aside the freedoms that make us who we are. I can say I worship the noddle monster if I choose- I can burn whatever paperback I want. I can also say that someone who burns a Quran is an asshole and I wouldn't hang out with him. The people that would kill western soldiers over this would kill them over something else- we save no lives and show weakness by appearing like cowards (at least its how I looked at media coverage). I love my country because a man can be an absolute douche and I can say- you're a douche. No one dies.
> 
> What do we gain by tricking the "others" into adopting our "system" if they will throw a fuss when they disagree? Our type of society wont work if they kill everyone they disagree with. So until these countries are ready to let alternate views exist there is no victory. We are actually in danger of reducing our own liberty. Obama should have just went on TV- big press release and say- "that guys an idiot- Western Hemisphere out". Just like we let idiots like the Westboro Baptists roam we must let these guys go about their business as well. Say and do whatever you want within the confines of the laws of the land (of which we already have too many). If we bend that at all we've lost already.
> 
> When you start advocating murder and violent upheaval then society needs to step in. But until then- feel free to rant.
> 
> Im open to an explanation of how the opposite would benefit us.



Best post in this thread by a long shot.  Well said.


----------



## vonGarvin

Rogo said:
			
		

> Anyways let's not confuse ourselves with the belief that what we as Canadians do is the bar for what is right or wrong.   Just because we had created internment camps in a time of war does not mean it is correct.


Good point.


			
				Rogo said:
			
		

> This is though just my opinion that people should not be racially prosecuted regardless of whatever foreign enemy of the state they may share a common yet not threatening trait. (ie. religion)


A bit of a stretch.  Yes, we may have over-reacted; however, it was a rational reaction to an irrational situation.  And it wasn't racial profiling _per se_, but given that the war was "clean" in that those with whom we were at war were nations (and not loose affiliations, such as "Asians" or "Yellow" or "Gooks", but rather the Empire of Japan), it should not be confused or led down a path to assume that just because the 9/11 terrorists (as well as those involved with the USS Cole, or the US Embassy bombings, or the previous attempt on the WTC, etc) were muslim, that we should "round 'em all up".  Heck, if that were the case, then I would have been rounded up when the IRA were bombing, (being both Catholic and of Irish descent!!!)

Anyway, in the end, this dolt in somewhere USA decided that he wanted to associate Islam with Terrorism, and that he wanted to express his misguided anger by burning their holiest of books.  Naturally, the dolts in Afghanistan decided to kill, burn and protest themselves.  Yes, the world is full of idiots, and "their" idiots would kill us for any reason.  In the end, "our" idiot is off the front page, and hopefully finds himself buried in obscurity as an odd footnote of history.


----------



## Rogo

Point taken and yes the situations are different, and admittedly WWII had different public values than we have now and will have in the Future.


----------



## PuckChaser

Technoviking said:
			
		

> In the end, "our" idiot is off the front page, and hopefully finds himself buried in obscurity as an odd footnote of history.



I sincerely hope that he doesn't even make a footnote.


----------



## jollyjacktar

I also put some or a good portion of blame for this fiasco on MSM.  They created this monster, fed it's ego and gave it life.  If they would self police to a greater degree as they once did on a regular basis and not give air time to air heads perhaps this crap would not happen.


----------



## Fishbone Jones

Thread has been cleaned. Keep it on topic.

Milnet.ca Staff


----------



## Foxhound

I hope this story has legs.  BZ to the young man.

Quote:
'Dude, you have no Qur'an!'   8)


----------



## PuckChaser

Foxhound said:
			
		

> I hope this story has legs.  BZ to the young man.
> 
> Quote:
> 'Dude, you have no Qur'an!'   8)



Not big on the guy's haircut, but his actions are an example to everyone.


----------



## Nemo888

I was rather impressed that the preacher burning it publicly admitted he never bothered to read it.  

Even I've read it. Scared to say what I thought of the latter chapters though.


----------



## readytogo

IM having a hard time finding the info, did the pin eyed preacher actually light one on fire?


----------



## bdave

readytogo said:
			
		

> IM having a hard time finding the info, did the pin eyed preacher actually light one on fire?



Supposedly, and I may be wrong about this, the preacher did not set anything on fire.
However, certain individuals not related to said preacher did and it says on yahoo news that one of them was recently fired from his job.
Hope that book burning was worth it.


----------



## A-ryathker

go to youtube.com and type in Bible burnings. Where are the voices of tolerance and the champions of love of peace and the advocates for a hate free society on these guys? No one cares and rightfully so. Also this isnt a free speech issue burning something isnt speaking its doing an act. As long as your not violating fire safety laws, in the free world go ahead and burn whatever you want without worrying someone may get pissed and kill you. Of course depending on what you burn you may end up dying of old age alone, unloved and unwanted  but if thats what you want go for it.........


----------



## Rogo

But there is a difference between burning a holy book in your private dwelling in a fire place (violating no fire laws) and keeping it in a private setting and... creating a public stir and making huge signs and trying to justify your freedom to act this way against another's freedom from arbitrary harassment.


----------



## Jarnhamar

Imagine if we burned every holy book?


----------



## Rogo

SPOILER ALERT!


Isn't that somewhat the premise for that Denzel movie Book of Eli?
Or almost the exact premise?


----------



## readytogo

SPOILER ALERT 2.0

yes but in the movie the holy burning had happened so long ago(along with every other book they could get their hands on) that nobody even knew what a holy book was or why it mattered???


----------



## Edward Campbell

Apollo Diomedes said:
			
		

> Imagine if we burned every holy book?




Even this? There's a problem with the word 'holy' or 'sacred;' who gets to decide? I do not regard the Tao Te Ching as either _holy_ or _sacred_ because many scholars have decided, and I am satisfied with their decision, that the _religious_ components of Taoism are quite secondary to its _philosophical_ components. In fact, as far as I know, Lao Tsu did not intend that his Tao Te Ching (or Daodejing, if you prefer) should be 'sacred' nor that he should be a god. He was a philosopher, akin to and a near contemporary of Confucius, who focused his thinking on ways to achieve spiritual _balance_ and to _comprehend_ (rather than understand) the universe and our place in it.

Let's not burn *any* books. The 'freedom of speech' (actually _freedom of expression_ - which includes e.g. burning flags, displaying a crucifix in a jar of urine and so on) we many of you have pledged to defend as a fundamental right (but not a _natural_ right, I think) only counts when the most reprehensible speech must be defended; neo-Nazis and anti-Semites and racists and xenophobes and religious bigots and fools must be allowed to spew their venom - otherwise the 'freedom' is meaningless and our your defence of it is worthless.


----------



## OldSolduer

E.R. Campbell said:
			
		

> Even this? There's a problem with the word 'holy' or 'sacred;' who gets to decide? I do not regard the Tao Te Ching as either _holy_ or _sacred_ because many scholars have decided, and I am satisfied with their decision, that the _religious_ components of Taoism are quite secondary to its _philosophical_ components. In fact, as far as I know, Lao Tsu did not intend that his Tao Te Ching (or Daodejing, if you prefer) should be 'sacred' nor that he should be a god. He was a philosopher, akin to and a near contemporary of Confucius, who focused his thinking on ways to achieve spiritual _balance_ and to _comprehend_ (rather than understand) the universe and our place in it.
> 
> Let's not burn *any* books. The 'freedom of speech' (actually _freedom of expression_ - which includes e.g. burning flags, displaying a crucifix in a jar of urine and so on) we many of you have pledged to defend as a fundamental right (but not a _natural_ right, I think) only counts when the most reprehensible speech must be defended; neo-Nazis and anti-Semites and racists and xenophobes and religious bigots and fools must be allowed to spew their venom - otherwise the 'freedom' is meaningless and our your defence of it is worthless.



I heartily concur. While I find the burning of flags reprehensible, it's a right that over 100,000 Canadians have died for.


----------



## George Wallace

readytogo said:
			
		

> SPOILER ALERT 2.0
> 
> yes but in the movie the holy burning had happened so long ago(along with every other book they could get their hands on) that nobody even knew what a holy book was or why it mattered???




Interesting point.  In the distant past, the majority of the population was illiterate.  Only the scribes could read and write.  So if a book was burned in front of a mob, who would really know what the name of the book really was?


----------



## Container

When I was a kid the big thing was whether it was actually okay to burn the American flag. If it was covered by free speech or not.

Eventually it was seen to be okay. Terrible. But okay.

Now we are at the point where its not okay to burn a book because you might make someone in another country angry. But its okay to burn something you're own people find important. 

Of course there are American Muslims who hate the idea as well but also love free speech. But the concern is for the offending of the fringe elements(extremists of any stripe) we're already at war with.


----------



## Rogo

The fear is not of offending enemy combatants it is:

1) Destroying domestic support.
2) Giving fuel to the fire for recruiters of enemy combatants. When they get their hands on a story like this they can say "hey look, they hate our religion. Take up arms"


----------



## Container

People in those "countries" think we hate their religion because we have McDonalds or because my wife wears a bikini. 

A hick pastor burning a "Coorun" should never have even made it to the news. 

As for domestic support- this isnt a war on Islam. So maybe if we could differentiate between combat and religion we might not have to worry about Billy Bobs effect on domestic support.

If the president burned a "holy book" that would be different.

They believe what ever stories confirm their own ridiculous ideas- we have some of those over here too. If they didnt have this story they'd make up something similar- The great leader was the first man on the moon according to N.K. 

The man who is recruited because he can't abide other peoples different viewpoints, like the "pastor", wont abide other ideas like how I like to live my life. He's only being recruited by those he already has so much in common with.


----------



## Jarnhamar

Jim Seggie said:
			
		

> I heartily concur. While I find the burning of flags reprehensible, it's a right that over 100,000 Canadians have died for.



People burn Canadian flags all the time, I'm sure.  It's standard anti-government protest 101. Grab a flag, roll cameras, burn the flag, celebrate badassery.
How fast would our "right" be challenged if someone wanted to burn an Islamic Flag? 




			
				E.R. Campbell said:
			
		

> Even this? There's a problem with the word 'holy' or 'sacred;' who gets to decide? I do not regard the Tao Te Ching as either _holy_ or _sacred_ because many scholars have decided, and I am satisfied with their decision, that the _religious_ components of Taoism are quite secondary to its _philosophical_ components. In fact, as far as I know, Lao Tsu did not intend that his Tao Te Ching (or Daodejing, if you prefer) should be 'sacred' nor that he should be a god. He was a philosopher, akin to and a near contemporary of Confucius, who focused his thinking on ways to achieve spiritual _balance_ and to _comprehend_ (rather than understand) the universe and our place in it.


Touche. Can't argue with any of that.



> Let's not burn *any* books. The 'freedom of speech' (actually _freedom of expression_ - which includes e.g. burning flags, displaying a crucifix in a jar of urine and so on) we many of you have pledged to defend as a fundamental right (but not a _natural_ right, I think) only counts when the most reprehensible speech must be defended; neo-Nazis and anti-Semites and racists and xenophobes and religious bigots and fools must be allowed to spew their venom - otherwise the 'freedom' is meaningless and our your defence of it is worthless.


The Bible and others have gone through numerous revisions haven't they?  What if we took all the applicable religious texts and edited out all the violent cut your left hand off, stone people, kill whoever parts and had a  V.2010 kinder gentler edition.  Slowly but surely we start weeding out all the violent parts of the bible, quran etc.. and in a few generations religion won't be a reason to kill each other.


----------



## OldSolduer

Apollo Diomedes said:
			
		

> People burn Canadian flags all the time, I'm sure.  It's standard anti-government protest 101. Grab a flag, roll cameras, burn the flag, celebrate badassery.
> How fast would our "right" be challenged if someone wanted to burn an Islamic Flag?



As far as I know, there is no such thing as an "Islamic" flag. Islam is a religion, not a nation.


----------



## Rogo

Apollo Diomedes said:
			
		

> The Bible and others have gone through numerous revisions haven't they?  What if we took all the applicable religious texts and edited out all the violent cut your left hand off, stone people, kill whoever parts and had a  V.2010 kinder gentler edition.  Slowly but surely we start weeding out all the violent parts of the bible, quran etc.. and in a few generations religion won't be a reason to kill each other.



Now I am not religious so I can't speak for this with any degree of certainty however, I was under the impression that many religious texts have underlying messages meant to be aimed at maintaining social norms and order. The whole do this or go to hell is a way of motivating people to act the way they do. 
Many revisions of religious texts can be attributed to people adding information (or maybe adding their "spin") on existing texts. If people continue to follow this "newer gentler" holy book of whatever kind, someone will take it and change it in order to influence people's actions against someone who may challenge the beliefs.   Seems realistic to me.


----------



## Jarnhamar

Jim Seggie said:
			
		

> As far as I know, there is no such thing as an "Islamic" flag. Islam is a religion, not a nation.



Generally speaking.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_flags


----------



## Brad Sallows

When a book, a flag, an effigy etc is burned, it is generally in protest: to make a political statement; hence, an act of freedom of expression or speech.  It is not an act of hatred except to the extent the protestors dislike whatever it is they protest.  A critic who announce he has discovered an act of hatred is like a tourist to London claiming he has discovered England.


----------



## bdave

Rogo said:
			
		

> But there is a difference between burning a holy book in your private dwelling in a fire place (violating no fire laws) and keeping it in a private setting and... creating a public stir and making huge signs and trying to justify your freedom to act this way against another's freedom from arbitrary harassment.



I don't understand.
The reason you are making a public stir is because you disagree with it, vehemently.
That is how you show others, and the government that you disagree with X.
Displaying this is a form of protest and a form of "speech".
As far as I know, burning my bible/koran/qur'an/flag does not impede on anyone else's freedom.
Making someone uncomfortable does not mean I am imposing on them. I am simply expressing myself in a manner that will get the most attention, which will further my cause. Which is the point of protesting in the first place.


----------



## A-ryathker

E.R. Campbell said:
			
		

> Even this? There's a problem with the word 'holy' or 'sacred;' who gets to decide? I do not regard the Tao Te Ching as either _holy_ or _sacred_ because many scholars have decided, and I am satisfied with their decision, that the _religious_ components of Taoism are quite secondary to its _philosophical_ components. In fact, as far as I know, Lao Tsu did not intend that his Tao Te Ching (or Daodejing, if you prefer) should be 'sacred' nor that he should be a god. He was a philosopher, akin to and a near contemporary of Confucius, who focused his thinking on ways to achieve spiritual _balance_ and to _comprehend_ (rather than understand) the universe and our place in it.
> 
> Let's not burn *any* books. The 'freedom of speech' (actually _freedom of expression_ - which includes e.g. burning flags, displaying a crucifix in a jar of urine and so on) we many of you have pledged to defend as a fundamental right (but not a
> _natural_ right, I think) only counts when the most reprehensible speech must be defended; neo-Nazis and anti-Semites and racists and xenophobes and religious bigots and fools must be allowed to spew their venom - otherwise the 'freedom' is meaningless and our your defence of it is worthless.



Very true, Theres no real such thing as holy books by saying a physical object is holy your in essence making a idol of it, which is something Christians and Islam both condemn. You can believe a book contains what you think is the truth or is sacred.  Im sure if i burn a twilight novel outside the premier I will have an angry hoard of "Team Jacob" or "Team Edwards" after me.

On a different note I was disappointed to see our leaders and politicians using this as an excuse to make peace and love speeches to groom certain groups for votes. They should keep out of piety religious issues. Its inappropriate to use their public office titles to publicly take sides on a stupid issue that's not even in our country. They should be neutral and indifferent cause if they speak out on one instance of religious disrespect they should speak out on all, or it looks like their playing favorites.


----------



## George Wallace

A-ryathker said:
			
		

> ....... They should keep out of piety religious issues.



Ah!  But is this a "Religious" issue or is it a "Cultural" issue?  

The question Canadians may ask is “Do we give up our personal and public security for a cultural "tradition" of a minority?”..........................In Canada we do.  The Sheiks set the precedence years ago.


----------



## Blackadder1916

A-ryathker said:
			
		

> . . .
> 
> On a different note I was disappointed to see our leaders and politicians using this as an excuse to make peace and love speeches to groom certain groups for votes. They should keep out of piety religious issues. Its inappropriate to use their public office titles to publicly take sides on a stupid issue that's not even in our country. They should be neutral and indifferent cause if they speak out on one instance of religious disrespect they should speak out on all, or it looks like their playing favorites.



Which Canadian leaders and politicians were making "peace and love speeches" and which groups were they grooming for votes?  Could you provide examples?  After a while all the noise about this issue started to meld into one giant buzzing sound which many (myself included to a certain point) found to be only a distraction, so maybe I missed the crass politicking that you allege.  Not that I wouldn't put it past any politician (IMO a despicable species in any and all event) to use such an opportunity.  However in this case (and to my recollection only), most of the statements made by "Canadian" leaders and politicians were generally appropriate to the situation.  While the specific action may have occurred (or was threatened to occur) in an other country, the consequences of that action affected Canadians, most specifically those serving in uniform overseas alongside Americans.  Perhaps you should consider that the intended target audience (of some of those statements) were located nowhere near Canada or the USA.

Now you may think that this is a "stupid" issue, but I don't know which dictionary you use.  Whether we like it or not, the attention paid to this issue makes it far from "uninteresting", "dull", or "obtuse".  Would most (both here on this forum or in the wider world) like the actions of this person in Florida to be considered irrelevant (_which I am supposing is closer to what you meant_); I would hope so.  But that is not the case.


----------



## Fishbone Jones

My thoughts on religion.


----------



## Blackadder1916

> . . . The Sheiks set the precedence years ago.



I'm supposing you mistyped and meant "Sikhs".

These are Sikhs






And these are Sheiks





Both historically significant in the military, but not interchangeable.


----------



## Rogo

Good comic strip.  ;D


----------



## A-ryathker

Blackadder1916 said:
			
		

> Which Canadian leaders and politicians were making "peace and love speeches" and which groups were they grooming for votes?  Could you provide examples?




After ramadan (muslim month of fasting and etc) A huge group of Muslims in the Toronto gathered at the ex Where several Islamic leaders used this as a platform to raise this issue and stir people up. After several Mayoral candidates addressed this crowd and did give peace and love speeches, The Ontario premier who is (slipping fast in the polls) and city councilors also make media statements etc. Even if you think that we should not allow such acts or our people overseas will suffer, tell me is national security or the war in Afghanistan really on these local politicians Job description? No. Diversity and tolerance are huge issues in Toronto since over 50 percent of people weren't born here, which im all for. But I have a problem with half hearted tolerance  and people who are so quick to condemn one side and fight for their opinions but not the other, and my opinion is that elected leaders should not interfere. I refuse to believe that there are 1,000s of mindless robots out there and that by burning a Koran you trigger an involuntary act of violence beyond their control and it is the fault of the one who triggered the act. They are people capable of making the right decisions in life, and by all the coverage against Mr Jones your reinforcing that  attitude that they cant help it its not their fault, they just really love that book thats all, its up to us not to set them off. The extremist hate us anyways and declared war on us a long time ago cause we allow strip clubs, bars, sex before marriage, Islam is not our official state religion etc....


----------



## jollyjacktar

Thanks RG.   I love Red Meat, and that is why.


----------



## George Wallace

Blackadder1916 said:
			
		

> I'm supposing you mistyped and meant "Sikhs".
> 
> These are Sikhs
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> And these are Sheiks
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Both historically significant in the military, but not interchangeable.



You are correct...........Damn Spell Check in a rush to get a post in before rushing off to the Dentist.


----------



## Privateer

George Wallace said:
			
		

> Ah!  But is this a "Religious" issue or is it a "Cultural" issue?
> 
> The question Canadians may ask is “Do we give up our personal and public security for a cultural "tradition" of a minority?”..........................In Canada we do.  The Sheiks set the precedence years ago.



I think that the Scots brought their dirks and sgian dubhs over with them before the Sikhs brought their kirpans.  The precedent was already set.


----------



## Nemo888

In Pakistan, arguably the country most closely aligned with Sharia Law, burning the Koran is punishable by life imprisonemnt. Insulting the Prophet or Allah are capital offenses. Perhaps said offenders should be extradited. The US has had an extradition treaty with Pakistan since 1973,.....

Just making trouble.

http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/2/54/39365414.pdf
http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/the-newspaper/front-page/16-pakistan-has-extradition-treaty-with-us,-says-fo-110-hs-10


----------



## 57Chevy

George Wallace said:
			
		

> You are correct...........Damn Spell Check in a rush to get a post in before rushing off to the Dentist.



That would be sheikh, but  sheik  is more commonly used. First known use 1577

And  sikhs  are of Indian origin of the Punjab region, also 15th century


----------



## mariomike

Remembering 9/11:

I was working that day. They sent us into the financial district in downtown Toronto. We saw all the skyscrapers and the Eaton Centre being evacuated. Huge crowds of office workers streaming towards Union Station to go home in the A.M. on a business day. The court houses at Old City Hall, Osgoode Hall, University Ave. were all shut down because they were so close to the American Embassy. The CN Tower was also evacuated. 
T-EMS sent a convoy of 50 Paramedics driving ambulances to NYC. ( They made it almost as far as the border, before being cancelled. )    

From New York:

"Nine years":
http://www.fdnyemswebsite.com/Page15.html

Ground Zero:
http://www.fdnyemswebsite.com/Page8.html
http://www.fdnyemswebsite.com/Page13.html

11 Sept., 2010:
"A solemn ceremony was held at the site of the World Trade Center in lower Manhattan, as well as at the Firefighter's Memorial on Riverside Drive; the EMS Memorial Wall in Fort Totten, Queens; FDNY Headquarters in Brooklyn; the Fire Museum in Manhattan; and at firehouses and EMS stations throughout the City.":
http://www.nyc.gov/html/fdny/html/events/2010/091110a.shtml

( In New York City, firefighters, paramedics and EMTs are members of FDNY. ) 
http://home2.nyc.gov/html/fdny/html/community/ems_overview_042607.shtml


----------



## Blackadder1916

A-ryathker said:
			
		

> After ramadan (muslim month of fasting and etc) A huge group of Muslims in the Toronto gathered at the ex Where several Islamic leaders used this as a platform to raise this issue and stir people up. After several Mayoral candidates addressed this crowd and did give peace and love speeches, . . .



I didn’t consider a few Toronto local wannabes to be worthy of any inclusion (or the title ‘Canadian leader’) when I drafted the post to which you responded.  Actually, I didn’t think of them at all; I was discussing leaders on the 'national' stage.  I barely pay attention to the more than dozen mayoral candidates in our upcoming civic election.  To pay heed of similar no-name brands (and not even a President’s _or anyone else’s_ Choice) from another city would be asking too much, even despite Toronto thinking it the centre of all things.

I was surprised by your description of this “gathering” of Muslims in Toronto.  Where was the media coverage of this demonstration during which the crowd was exhorted to frenzy?  It took a little searching to find the reports of this; I was able to find only two.  

Ramadan ends with condemnation of Qur'an burning


> By TOM GODFREY, Toronto Sun
> Last Updated: September 10, 2010 5:29pm
> 
> Threats by a Florida preacher to burn the Qur’an dominated a Muslim Eid al-Fitr celebration attended by more than 10,000 worshippers at the Exhibition Grounds Friday.
> 
> *A hall at the Better Living Centre was converted into a large mosque* that was packed with Muslims who kneeled on cardboard and rugs to pray as they celebrated a holiday that marks the end to the holy month of Ramadan.
> 
> The crowd was addressed by three mayoral candidates, in addition to provincial and federal politicians, who blasted preacher Terry Jones for threatening to torch the holy book.
> 
> *Imam Abu Khudra chastised Jones for threatening the holiest book in his religion.*
> 
> “There is a tiny minority who want to burn the Qur’an,” Khudra told a cheering crowd. “If Jesus was here he would chastise and denounce this preacher.”
> 
> Ontario immigration minister Dr. Eric Hoskins said his government also condemn the offensive act.
> “The Qur’an is a holy book that is respected and provides guidance for millions,” Hoskins said. “We are committed to fighting ignorance and intolerance in Ontario.”
> 
> Toronto mayoral candidate Joe Pantalone said he’s been a friend of the Muslim community for many years.
> “I am one of you,” Pantalone said. “If you vote for me I will be the first mayor whose first language is not English.”
> 
> Mayoral hopeful Rocco Rossi said he is the son of immigrants and knows how community members feel.
> “If I am mayor it will show far the son of immigrants can rise,” Rossi said. “This is a country built by immigrants.”
> 
> George Smitherman told the crowd that as a gay man he knows what its like to be a minority.
> 
> The celebration was among several that took place on Friday at mosques throughout the GTA. More than 6,000 worshippers took part in another service at the International Muslims Organization mosque, on Rexdale Blvd.



And from the CBC
Toronto Eid celebration attracts thousands


> 'It's all about lending a helping hand'
> Last Updated: Friday, September 10, 2010 | 10:54 PM ET
> CBC News
> 
> Thousands of Muslims across the Greater Toronto Area are gathering to celebrate Eid al-Fitr, the holiday that marks the end of Ramadan.
> 
> After starting in 1985 with only several hundred people, the GTA Eid Festival now is described as the largest Muslim gathering in Canada. Organizers expected 15,000 people at the Direct Energy Centre at Exhibition Place on Friday, to pray and celebrate the end of a month of fasting.
> 
> "You see so many of the friends that you haven't seen since months — and you see them, greet them, wish them an Eid Mubarak, that's my favourite part," Sawitri Mardyani told CBC News.
> 
> Shabaz Khan, with the Muslim Association of Canada, said the theme this year is civic engagement.
> 
> "It's all about lending a helping hand, even people who are not in the same faith as you," he said. "So basically you're talking about prosperity as a country, as a nation, and community in general."
> 
> Eid pinches taxi users
> 
> The holiday is so pervasive in Toronto that it puts a noticeable dent in the cab business. Gail Beck Souter, general manager of Beck Taxi, said about 75 per cent of her workers practise Islam, and about half of them took the day off.
> 
> "The analogy I would use is a snowstorm, where the city pretty much comes to a halt," Beck Souter said.
> She added that even though it took as long as 45 minutes to get a cab during the morning rush hour, customers are respectful of the holiday, which she said illustrates how accepting and multicultural Toronto is.
> 
> Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/toronto/story/2010/09/10/toronto-eid-festival.html#ixzz0zpsFsq3L



I find it difficult to equate your suggestive description of the event with the reported gathering in a mosque and a festival (albeit a temporary house of worship, but still a house of worship) where a few people said that the Jones character was “a bad man, a very bad man . . . very, very bad”.  





As for the statements from the mayoral candidates – “I’m an immigrant; I’m the son of an immigrant; I’m gay” hardly rises to the level of “peace and love speeches” unless you consider Smitherman’s statement to be an enticement for the “love that dares not speak its name” (not that there’s anything wrong with that).  If anything the greatest disruption in Toronto from this Eid celebration was the inconvenience to Bay Street traders who had to take public transit because they couldn’t find a cab.

If you think that campaigning for election/re-election is not part of a politician’s job description, you may be hoping for a utopia that will never arrive.  And if you think that they won’t comment on an issue that is of importance to the constituency de jour, now you’re fantasizing.  The following day when they may have attended a gathering of left-handed, one-eyed, hunchbacked bellringers they would have agreed with a proposition for counter-clockwise twisted ropes and free safety glasses (_or safety monocles?_) in cathedrals.

With regard to general denunciations of Jones, I would question the sensibilities of anyone who would condone his actions.  It would have been better that no media attention was paid him from the get go, unfortunately, we no longer live in a world where that is going to happen.  Therefore, statements from elected officials reiterating the official policy of the various levels of government is entirely appropriate.


----------



## A-ryathker

Blackadder1916 said:
			
		

> I didn’t consider a few Toronto local wannabes to be worthy of any inclusion (or the title ‘Canadian leader’) when I drafted the post to which you responded.  Actually, I didn’t think of them at all; I was discussing leaders on the 'national' stage.  I barely pay attention to the more than dozen mayoral candidates in our upcoming civic election.  To pay heed of similar no-name brands (and not even a President’s _or anyone else’s_ Choice) from another city would be asking too much, even despite Toronto thinking it the centre of all things.



I see your point but still, Toronto city councilors are elected to lead over 2.5 million people, yes Toronto has its own little "Canada" and dose not speak for the nation at all. From talking to local muslims here in the area it was more than Jones is a bad bad man,



> The crowd was addressed by three mayoral candidates, in addition to provincial and federal politicians, who blasted preacher Terry Jones for threatening to torch the holy book.



Again if Federal and Provincial politicians not just mayor wannabes "blasted Jones" also blast the people who sent him death threats and blast the people who are threatening the lives of our citizens and the citizens of our allies.



> Ontario immigration minister Dr. Eric Hoskins said his government also condemn the offensive act.
> “The Qur’an is a holy book that is respected and provides guidance for millions,” Hoskins said. “We are committed to fighting ignorance and intolerance in Ontario.”



This to me is out of line from Dr Eric Hoskins, the Bible, Torah, Koran and Webster dictionary are not "holy" books, citizens are allowed to believe they are. Any Govt has no right to endorse any religion as holy and their book as some how elevated from every other book in the library. 



> Toronto mayoral candidate Joe Pantalone said he’s been a friend of the Muslim community for many years. “I am one of you,” Pantalone said. “If you vote for me I will be the first mayor whose first language is not English.  Mayoral hopeful Rocco Rossi said he is the son of immigrants and knows how community members feel. “If I am mayor it will show far the son of immigrants can rise,” Rossi said. “This is a country built by immigrant



Yes politicians will campaign, expect for this issue is a bigger picture of a fight between one world that wants freedom even the freedom to be a jacka** and another that likes the middle ages and wants to kill anyone out site their mainstream. A lot of people have died fighting in this struggle and its in appropriate for a politician  to blast a guy excising his freedom in a foreign country, and then use it as a elect me platform. Canada was founded by settlers, Mr Jones wants to burn a Koran, all Muslims are upset, Hey look 10,000 Muslims voters most are immigrants or the second generation of immigrants, hey look Im a son of a immigrant Jones is bad!! elect me for mayor???


----------



## Fishbone Jones

Folks, we're starting to go in circles. Please keep future responses to something new......if possible.

Milnet.ca Staff


----------



## mariomike

The 10th anniversary will be one month from today. There will be many thoughts, prayers and news stories. I hope this is the correct thread to post this news story from four days ago.

"In NYC, a police force just for ground zero: Site is a target for terrorists because of its 'tremendous symbolism':
 http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44051119/ns/us_news/t/nyc-police-force-just-ground-zero/

"The multiple thousands who will visit the Sept. 11 memorial after it opens this fall will endure airport-style screening and be watched by hundreds of closed-circuit cameras as part of the attack site opens publicly for the first time since 2001."


----------



## The Bread Guy

The Defence Minister's headed to Washington DC to speak tomorrow at a 9/11 Commemoration Summit:


> On September 8, the Honourable Peter MacKay, Minister of National Defence, will deliver the keynote Canadian address to a 9/11 Commemoration Summit in Washington, organized by the Center for National Policy, the Voices of September 11th, and support from the Rockefeller Foundation. In his speech, Minister MacKay will speak to Canada and the U.S.’s ambitious security and defence agenda—bilaterally, within the hemisphere, and globally. Media are invited to attend.
> 
> The Town of Gander, Newfoundland, will also receive an International Community Resilience Award at the gala dinner following the Summit, accepted by the Mayor of Gander and introduced by Canadian Ambassador to the U.S. Gary Doer. Eminent reporter Tom Brokaw’s new documentary will be screened. The dinner will be attended by members of the 9/11 Commission, survivors of 9/11, Members of Congress, and senior officials from the U.S. government including Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta ....



Also, according to the PM's web site RSS feed, the PM may be announcing this soon:
*"Prime Minister Harper declares September 11 a National Day of Service"*
The link to the announcement, though, doesn't seem to work yet.

As for the memory, I was sitting in a newsroom doing other work when the TV over my head showed the first plane hitting.  We thought it was a HUGE accident, and carried on with our regular work.  When the second plane hit, it was a "holy s**t" moment.  The rest, as they say (at the risk of being cliche), has been history.

BZ to all those who did their jobs (military and civilian) in keeping us safe to this point, and helping hunt down the bad guys.


----------



## The Bread Guy

Remember, you read it here first  


			
				milnews.ca said:
			
		

> .... according to the PM's web site RSS feed, the PM may be announcing this soon:
> *"Prime Minister Harper declares September 11 a National Day of Service"*
> The link to the announcement, though, doesn't seem to work yet.





> *The federal government will announce Friday that Sept. 11 will become a "national day of service" to inspire Canadians to show the kind of compassion and generosity that were in abundance following the attacks of 10 years ago.*
> 
> "It is important to recall the incredible acts of courage, sacrifice and kindness by Canadians on and following that infamous day," a senior official in the Prime Minister's Office said.
> 
> As an example, the official's remarks cited the efforts of the people of Gander, N.L., who hosted thousands of foreign airline passengers who had been re-routed to Canadian soil following the grounding of passenger flights in the days following Sept. 11, 2001.
> 
> The day of service is also meant to honour the "selfless service of civilian and military volunteers who continue to stand up in the face of terrorism; and the outpouring of Canadian support in the aftermath of the attacks."
> 
> The national day of service will be marked every Sept. 11 ....


CBC.ca, 8 Sept 11

Meanwhile, south of the border:


> .... This September 11th, Michelle and I will join the commemorations at Ground Zero, in Shanksville, and at the Pentagon.  But even if you can’t be in New York, Pennsylvania or Virginia, every American can be part of this anniversary.  Once again, 9/11 will be *a National Day of Service and Remembrance* ....


Transcript, President's weekly radio address, 27 Aug 11


----------



## Mainz

As part of the lead-up to September 11 ceremony here at Camp Eggers in Kabul, the PA office produced 10 videos.
These are all of servicemembers on Camp Eggers giving their memories of 9/11/01.
Two of the 10 videos are of Canadians.
CWO Michel Blain and Col. Philip Garbutt.
Worth the watch at

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2OsgvGbNaU8&feature=related

and

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhY4_u1YHIU&feature=related


----------



## The Bread Guy

It's now official - this statement from the PM:


> Nearly a decade ago, the world was shaken by a series of senseless and cowardly terrorist attacks that took place in New York, Virginia and Pennsylvania.
> 
> On this tenth anniversary of 9/11, we honour the nearly three thousand innocent people from 90 countries who lost their lives in the attacks and pay respect to their family and friends who still suffer with the losses of that horrible tragedy.
> 
> It is equally important to recall the incredible acts of courage, sacrifice and kindness by Canadians on and following that infamous day – acts like a community of 10,000 in Gander hosting several thousand diverted air passengers and treating them like part of their families; the selfless service of civilian and military volunteers who continue to stand up in the face of terrorism; and the outpouring of Canadian support in the aftermath of the attacks.
> 
> I hope that this National Day of Service, observed hereafter on September 11, will inspire Canadians to once more show the same kind of compassion to strangers in need, by engaging on that day in charitable activities, fundraisers and community service for worthy causes across the country.
> 
> It is a fitting way to pay tribute to the Canadians and others who were lost in 9/11, to show continued support for the families of victims, to honour the sacrifices made by those who served in the rescue efforts, and to turn an infamous date into a day of hope marked by a communal outpouring of warmth and generosity.


----------



## OldSolduer

I was working in the jail that day conducting a "program" to attempt to get the criminals to change their ways. 
I was rounding the horseshoe when Mike (another CO) pointed to the TV in one of the units. I gave him that "look" that says "I have no idea what you are talking about". He pointed to the unit, which only had one inmate up and about, so I went in, sat beside him and watched the TV. I asked the inmate (gang member by the name of Eric) what was going on....he had no idea either. That was my intro to 9/11. 
My first thought as I watched was that it was terrorist related. What a horrific sight - I'll never forget  that  plane that flew into one of the towers -  how they showed it on TV over and over. 
Then the scenes of the towers collapsing and over 3000 people dieing...including firefighters who ran into the buildings....
What a world we live in when the slaughter of over 3000 innocent people is politicized by the "conspiracy theorists". That's another rant.

RIP to the victims of 9/11.  
I won't forget, as I am sure others on here will not either.


----------



## Container

I remember getting up on the 12th having worked weird hours on the 11th, strange coincidence that I didnt hear until the next day- solo duties followed by the gym (headphones) and then bed. I got up in the morning and I asked my dad (yes I was living with my pops) what movie he was watching. He was stunned and said "You dont know?".

That day at work I was given a task to keep an eye on several houses in town associated to the Lebanese family in town. When they had saw the news in the sandwich shop at the mall in the food court a few got on a table and started yelling "death to America" and clapping and cheering. They received so many threats that we were required to pay special attention to make sure they were okay. I thought the people threatening them were dickheads....and I thought the people doing the cheering and chanting were dickheads too. I find myself thinking that about most people now-adays.

I was moonlighting as a doorman as well and I still recall my DJ selling tomatoes to throw at a giant picture of OBL. 

It was a strange time. I've met a few first responders that have survived and the stories are incredible. Its amazing to me still how an event that big brings out the absolute worst in us (cowardice and mean spiritedness) and in others brings out some of our BEST qualities.


----------



## Edward Campbell

Part 1 of 3

The _National Post_ and _Financial Post_ both have major 9/11 editions today. Here,  reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions (§29) of the Copyright Act from the _National Post_ and Financial Post[/i], respectively are two views that I think are worth a careful read:

First from Robert Fulford at http://www.nationalpost.com/news/expect+after+this/5380589/story.html



> How can we expect to go on after this?'
> 
> Robert Fulford, National Post
> 
> Sept. 10, 2011
> 
> I went home and cried, wrote Norman Stock, a poet and librarian in the New York borough of Queens. His prose poem appeared in a book of lamentations called to. When he stopped crying he asked himself, "What will any of us do now and how will we live and how can we expect to go on after this?" In asking that question he was not alone.
> 
> Nothing will ever be the same, some people said, but that turned out not to be quite true. The poet Stock and most other people discovered they could, in fact, go on. A few months after 9/11, when even the most persistent of the fires at the Twin Towers were at last extinguished, the everyday flow of life picked up. The mass media recovered their footing. Soon politics in the U.S. and Canada hardened into an intensified version of the familiar left-right struggles of the 1990s.
> 
> While thousands of people bitterly mourned relatives and friends who were lost at Ground Zero, there were probably millions of others who turned away from their TV sets with a sharpened sense of life's cruel limits and a fresh awareness that even on the most beautiful day in early autumn, in a place of historically unprecedented prosperity, there is always the possibility that a catastrophe is waiting to happen, an outrage waiting to be perpetrated.
> 
> Many tried to get over 9/11, to move on and not let the terrorists win - and many believed they succeeded. Rich bankers discovered, to their delight, ways to get still richer. The sex lives of politicians recaptured the tabloid headlines. On college campuses beer remained, just as before, a cherished focus of student life. People resumed their complaints over gas prices. The fall of the stock market in 2008 seized as much of our attention as the fall of the World Trade Center.
> 
> Even so, marking the tenth anniversary of 9/11 means understanding that a great deal has, in fact, changed. We Canadians, Americans and Europeans are not the same people we were.
> 
> The biggest changes, bigger even than the developments in technology, have been in attitude and disposition and sensibility. We have grown more cautious, more addicted to security and at the same time more militant. Principles once considered firm have proven shaky. Our mindset, the standard equipment we bring to each new situation, has been fundamentally altered in a dozen different ways.
> 
> *TO WAR AGAIN*
> 
> This spring we demonstrated how much we've changed in one crucial way. Canadians joined Americans and Europeans in a NATO mission to assist the Libyan rebels - and did it with hardly a moment's hesitation. In a stunningly brief period, talk about an innocent-sounding "no-fly zone" was followed by hundreds of bombing raids.
> 
> Notably, no sizable group of Americans or Canadians objected, except during the period when it seemed the progress of the revolution was stalled. We were all appalled by the clownking Gaddafi; we were sure which side deserved our help, so we went briefly to war.
> 
> Consider that in the last decades of the old century, Canadian textbooks increasingly taught a sanitized version of history that emphasized our record as peacekeepers and just about ignored the many wars in which Canadians fought and died. Before 9/11, pacifist opinion had grown so prevalent that many Canadians agreed with the NDP's since-abandoned view that we should give up our membership in NATO and NORAD.
> 
> New and unexpected choices have been made. Our interest in maintaining our safety since 9/11 has weakened our interest in civil rights.
> 
> When weighing the needs of security against traditional liberties, the public (perhaps after a brief moral skirmish) comes down firmly on the side of security. We are much more likely than before to acknowledge that for everyone's sake the government probably has to do what it does.
> 
> Every airport has become a theatre where we act out the details of our pathetic acquiescence. Herded by insolent guards, made to wait meekly for interminable periods, submitting to bizarre indignities, we tell ourselves that it doesn't matter all that much and perhaps it has to be this way, for security's sake - even as we watch a great-grandmother struggle out of her wheelchair to prove her underwear contains nothing combustible.
> 
> Those of us who once looked forward to a plane trip don't bother to tell children how it used to be. They wouldn't believe us - and would find it hard to understand how much we have changed.
> 
> *MULTICULTURALISM IN QUESTION*
> 
> Multiculturalism ended the 20th century as a mainly amiable, clearly hopeful idea. It defined a nation in which immigrant minorities could choose to live in more or less self-contained clusters (usually with some government help) and let future generations decide how they will or will not make their way within the larger community.
> 
> But in the 21st century multiculturalism has become shrouded in suspicion. We now speak of it warily as something that must be "handled" with care; some countries are said to handle it well, others badly. Canadians, who once took it for granted that we know how to do this sort of thing, discovered that we don't. Our old mixture of carefully kept distance and official encouragement has proven inadequate. "Tolerance" is a much-loved word with a noble history but it no longer does the job.
> 
> Non-Muslims, so far as we can tell, believe that most of the 657,000 Muslims in Canada abide by the laws and seek only a happy private and religious life in their new home. But we have learned that we will not get through to a permanent social peace without serious tensions and anxieties, several of which are beginning to appear in the criminal courts. Mention the phrase "honour killing" and you ignite furies, even when "honour killing" is the best available term for what has happened.
> 
> Muslims sometimes claim they are the victims of Islamophobia. That word was seldom used before 9/11 but has now become an all-purpose accusation, available for use by Muslims in whatever inter-group disagreement arises; which is not to say that Muslims have no grounds for suspicion when they hear their lives and customs carelessly discussed in public.
> 
> Before 9/11, discussion of the burka was rare; many did not know what the word meant. No one would have believed in the 1990s that Canadians would ever find themselves debating whether the state should allow people to wear this or that garment on public streets. Most of us would have dismissed it as a personal matter, beyond the realm of public discussion. This libertarian attitude changed, to the consternation of Muslims and everyone who believes in individual liberty.
> 
> But if we feel free to discuss the role of the burka, we are far more inhibited when it comes to talking about the nature of Islamic beliefs.
> 
> In Canada for four or five generations people have felt free to discuss critically the Roman Catholic church, first because of its power in Quebec and various European countries, more recently because of its evident difficulty in dealing with the sexual offenses committed by priests against children.
> 
> Even earlier, many of the great scholars of the 19th-century world turned sharply critical eyes on the credibility of the Bible, the great and cherished book of Protestants.
> 
> These two traditions of robust criticism have been among the pillars of free speech in Canada as in much of the West. But no parallel stream of scholarly criticism has been directed toward Islam and the Koran. The reason in the past was probably lack of interest. Today it is sensitivity. Traditional Muslims believe the Koran is a divine book, beyond discussion. This question, muted now, is bound to surface again as multiculturalism requires us to learn more, in the normal course of education, about Muslim history.
> 
> *MISSILES, HUMAN AND ROBOTIC*
> 
> In this one decade the nature of war also changed radically, whether we speak of the war made by al-Qaeda against the West or the war the West makes against terrorists. Recently George Bush reflected on 9/11 in a TV interview, "It became apparent we were facing a new kind of enemy. This is what war was like in the 21st century."
> 
> This new form of conflict was carried to America by men eager to surrender their lives so that Americans would die, in itself a startling and bizarre notion to many North Americans - although not of course to Israelis, who have lived for many years under the threat of Palestinian suicide killing.
> 
> Abu Jandal, the former chief bodyguard of Osama bin Laden, knew a great deal about suicide bombing, saw its appeal broadening across radical Islam and understood how it threatened the West. He happened to be in a Yemeni jail when the Twin Towers were destroyed. Summoned from his cell, he co-operated with the FBI and identified the 9/11 pilots. He explained the future of al-Qaeda by citing the 1998 bombings of American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, which killed more than 200.
> 
> "Can you imagine how many joined bin Laden after the embassy bombings?" Jandal asked the FBI man. "Hundreds came and asked to be martyrs." He understood what we all know now, that the suicide bomber was becoming the signature of 21st-century terrorism and one of the emblematic figures of this era. "These are our missiles," he said.
> 
> About 3,000 terrorists, according to the best estimate, have died as suicide bombers in the past 30 years. These selfchosen victims have forced on us a reappraisal of one corner of the human psyche. There have been isolated political suicides in the past, including suicide bombings, but no one guessed (until the Palestinians' Second Intifada) that volunteers for this duty would become available by the hundreds.
> 
> With these human missiles, bin Laden turned American ingenuity and industry in on itself. In an unprecedented triumph of symbolism, he used one of the great American achievements, the commercial aircraft, to destroy an equally significant American success, the skyscraper.
> 
> Suicide bombing was unknown in Islamic societies until the 1980s. It was discouraged by most religious authorities but finally approved by some. Today it's impossible to talk about the warriors of the Islamic jihad without mentioning those lonely young men (and a few women) who decide they can give meaning to their wretched lives by strapping on a suicide belt and going forth for one moment of glory.
> 
> The more we know of them, the more trouble we have maintaining a good opinion of humanity. All of them are backed by elaborate and well-trained teams of instigators, fearquellers, financial backers and coaches, several of whom have admitted with chilling frankness that they would never dream of killing themselves. The bombers are also backed, in many cases, by proud families, their mothers in the forefront, awaiting praise and financial compensation.
> 
> Suicide bombers have installed their presence in global consciousness. They live now in our nightmare gallery of human menaces, alongside rapists of children and psychopaths who murder for pleasure.
> 
> Partly in response to those human missiles, the U.S. has developed a non-human missile of even greater force and brought a new kind of terror to Iraq, Afghanistan and other places. Pilotless aircraft were barely in use in 2001. Now they routinely fly far out of sight, photograph onthe-ground details, send the pictures back to controllers in Nevada, then rain sudden death on selected targets.
> 
> The drones are expensive where the suicide bombers are cheap. They are usually precise in their effects where the suicide bombers kill at random. While the operators of the drones see only obscure figures on television monitors, the suicide bombers see many of their victims up close, for a moment. Each method seeks to deal sharp, swift blows; and each seeks to protect the political status of those directing them.
> 
> Suicide bombers can be depicted as martyrs, enhancing with their lives the meaning of their cause. Drone aircraft can fight battles without spilling a drop of blood, except on the enemy side.



---------- End of Part 1 ----------​


----------



## Edward Campbell

Part 2 of 3

http://www.nationalpost.com/news/expect+after+this/5380589/story.html


> *OBAMA'S WAR*
> 
> Like so much warfare today, the missions of the drones are of course kept secret beforehand and are disclosed afterward only if they kill an al-Qaeda leader or mistakenly kill civilians. There are at least 7,000 in the air and roughly 12,000 more on the ground. Their numbers have increased threefold since Barack Obama became president; a U.S. Air Force general has predicted that the wars of the future will involve tens of thousands of these robots.
> 
> The U.S. government knows that casualties are blamed on political leadership. With the help of the defence department and the drone program, the Obama government has done everything possible to limit military casualties. This is war in the Obama era and its development would have startled almost everyone who supported his campaign for the presidency in 2008. Mr. Obama's career as a war president illustrates how much political power is now in the hands of forces he cannot hope to control.
> 
> The hard-to-believe survival of the Guantanamo Bay detention camp is the most famous symbol of the brutal realities confronting him. Established in 2002 to hold prisoners from Afghanistan and Iraq, it was among the most unpopular innovations of George W. Bush's government. Mr. Obama promised he would close it soon after becoming president. He would also take the job of judging the prisoners out of the hands of military tribunals and have them heard, with all the usual constitutional guarantees, in criminal courts in the U.S.
> 
> But many in Congress, including many Democrats, opposed the closing and opposed the change of jurisdiction. Moreover, it appeared that no community in the United States would welcome the prisoners, whether they remained jailed or were freed as immigrants.
> 
> For now, and for the indefinite future, Guantanamo remains open, a standing rebuke to Mr. Obama's over-confident campaign rhetoric. He didn't know what he couldn't do. (But of course his predecessor was equally innocent when he became president in 2001, planning to lead a peaceful and prosperous era.)
> 
> Republicans and Democrats bicker viciously about budgets and health care but Mr. Obama seems determined to revive the old ideal of a bipartisan war policy, although without quite admitting it. He's maintained the essence of the Bush approach to the struggle but executed it in a different way and with different words.
> 
> He doesn't speak of a war on terror or evildoers but he employs many of the same tools. Like Mr. Bush, he allows security officials to intercept telephone signals without going to the trouble of obtaining warrants. Like Mr. Bush, he permits the armed services and the terrorist-hunters to maintain the practice of "rendition," sending prisoners to foreign countries that may or may not have U.S.style rules prohibiting torture.
> 
> *DEATH IN ABBOTTABAD*
> 
> It was Operation Neptune Spear, which reached its climax on May 2, 2011, with the shooting of bin Laden at his residence in Abbottabad, Pakistan, that registered as both the most successful single accomplishment of the Obama government and the most vivid illustration of how consciousness has been affected by 9/11.
> 
> It was handled, first of all, by a team of U.S. Navy SEALS acting under the direction of the CIA, which itself has been transformed by 9/11. Once it focussed its most earnest efforts on collecting data but now it's a paramilitary agency (and this week acquired as its director a distinguished soldier, General David H. Petraeus). Its Counterterrorism Center, where only 300 people were working on 9/11, now employs more than 2,000, a tenth of the whole agency. Recently the Washington Post quoted the chief of the Counterterrorism Center on current progress in dealing with al-Qaeda, "We are killing these sons of bitches faster than they can grow them."
> 
> Placing the SEALS under the direction of the CIA was a result of the post-9/11 revelations that turf-obsessed security agencies were jealously guarding their findings from each other, to the great detriment of American security. That became clear with the release in 2004 of "The 9/11 Commission Report" from the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks. In response, the Bush administration fundamentally restructured the Washington security world.
> 
> One result was that long before bin Laden was located, Special Operations units working under the CIA made five practice flights into Pakistan, testing their ability to reach a target without being detected by Pakistani radar.
> 
> This remarkable killing revealed the new style of security in other ways. Ten years ago it would have been unimaginable that the government would have sent Special Forces to kill an enemy and drop his body into the North Arabian Sea, in the process violating the territory of an American ally, Pakistan. In the 1990s, before bin Laden's attack changed the ethical landscape of America, none of that was regarded as normal or acceptable. The decision not to return his body to his family may be unprecedented.
> 
> When Mr. Obama announced the death of bin Laden, he did it with pride in a job well done. The public response indicated that on at least this one occasion, his fellow citizens were behind him.
> 
> *THE PERSISTENCE OF DREAD*
> 
> When major attacks in Madrid, London, Bali and Mumbai followed 9/11, they imprinted on our collective psyche the idea that terrorism may be a permanent fact of life.
> 
> Perhaps the war against it will not be "the long war," as some security specialists call it, but instead, the permanent war. After all, what would end it?
> 
> This harrowing question, once articulated, is impossible to banish from the mind. It is one of the important ways that our imagination is held hostage by 9/11.
> 
> So much of what matters to us has been invaded, swamped, by terrorism. Anyone who thinks about religion and its history, for example, finds it hard not to wander off mentally in the direction of two themes bin Laden forced us to consider: what he and his colleagues planned to do to the West and what he blamed the West for doing to Islam many centuries ago.
> 
> Those of us with a little knowledge of the Bible have heard of punishment extending unto the generations that follow. But bin Laden claimed he and his warriors were still furious about events that happened a millennium ago. Conveyed to us, this thought seems at once preposterous and terrifying, yet it's become an inescapable part of the Islamist narrative.
> 
> That's typical of much that we now need to know but neglected until 2001. This knowledge can be a burden, as well as an invitation to feel nostalgic for the days of comparative innocence, when we remained unaware that there were vast numbers of humans who wished us ill and were delighted to plot against us.
> 
> In New York, during the first few weeks of its recovery period, I heard several times a surprising phrase. Leaving a restaurant or bar, you might be sent on your way with a minted-for-the-season wish, "Stay safe," rather than "Have a nice night." It was a way of acknowledging the new aura of dread that surrounded us.
> 
> The American sense of comedy attempted to deal with it. The Onion, a great satirical paper, carried a headline on its Sept. 26, 2001, issue: Hijackers Surprised To Find Selves In Hell. A reporter in Hades had found them confused over their destination. "I was promised I would spend eternity in Paradise, being fed honeyed cakes by 67 virgins in a tree-lined garden, if only I would fly the airplane into one of the Twin Towers," said Mohammed Atta, between attempts to vomit up the wasps, hornets and live coals infesting his stomach. "Is this to be my reward for destroying the enemies of my faith?" Another dead terrorist decided, "This must be some sort of terrible mistake."
> 
> Later the shoe bomber and the underwear bomber, men who came to this continent to make themselves agents of violent death, instead turned into jokes - but there remains always a nervous undertone beneath our laughter.
> 
> Television drama offered its own kind of solace in 24, the Kiefer Sutherland series that lasted eight seasons. Every year, Sutherland's character, Jack Bauer, a rebellious government agent, faced an impending attack on America that was at least as bad (and sometimes much worse) than 9/11. And each season America was saved by its brilliant single-combat warrior, who proved more than the equal of the enemy. This was the height of terrorist drama and no one could fail to notice that Jack showed no interest in obeying the rules. Some of us found 24 both irresistibly watchable and nevertheless discomforting.
> 
> In 2005, near the middle of a nervous decade, Ian McEwan delivered Saturday, which may well be the best novel about 9/11 and its consequences, even though it says little about 9/11.
> 
> McEwan's central character, Henry Perowne, a London neurosurgeon, awakens before dawn and sees from his bedroom a plane coming down over the Post Office Tower, apparently trailing a fireball from its wing.
> 
> What does the plane mean? He reflects that "everyone agrees, airliners look different in the skies"; now they appear to be either predatory or doomed.
> 
> Perowne is a rationalist, a man of science, a believer in evidence who resists the appeal of imagination. But he sees the limits of his knowledge. He knows certain crucial issues of his time remain beyond his intellectual range. He fleetingly wishes that he could live a more private life and not spend so much of his time worrying about the world he will never be able to control.
> 
> While buying fish he remembers research demonstrating that fish feel pain. He resents "the expanding circle of moral sympathy." Distant people are now brothers and sisters; and one must feel compassion for foxes and laboratory mice. "Now the fish."
> 
> All that is a distraction from what really afflicts Perowne. He suffers from a low-level but persistent thrumming of anxiety about his own civilization's future, the 21st-century's peculiar form of dread, the most powerful effect of terrorism.
> 
> *PATHS NOT TAKEN*
> 
> The challenge of the jihadists was a threat to the future of the West. It should have called forth a titanic effort in response. And certainly the emotion to fuel such a response was there. Because the first city in the West to be hit was American, this new conflict especially challenged the Americans.
> 
> But it has not evoked the kind of effort that would be familiar to the parents and grandparents of current political leaders. It was not at all like the effort put forward during the Second World War, a conflict that was several years shorter than the 10-year (so far) involvement with the jihadists.
> 
> The missing word is "sacrifice." In the 1940s, Americans and Canadians, from schoolchildren to capitalists, were all expected to make a sacrifice. Boys collected junk containing strategic material to be re-used in weapons. Girls knitted socks.
> 
> Major companies donated their executives, sending them to Ottawa to organize the war effort, usually through the departments of munitions and trade. The executives received a dollar a year from the government while their employers back home paid their salaries, which can't have been easy in all cases. Profit, it was widely agreed, was not the point, not for "the duration." American executives worked on a similar system.
> 
> Since 9/11, nothing remotely like that has even been suggested. The cost of the current struggle has been unevenly distributed. Terrible sacrifices have been made by members of the armed services and their families but for most civilians it's been business as usual. The idea of shared sacrifice for a common goal has never appeared on anyone's agenda.
> 
> And whatever happens in this conflict, we have not allowed it to interfere with our prejudices. It seemed possible that Canadians, out of sympathy for the U.S., would moderate our chronic anti-Americanism. With a few exceptions, that didn't happen; we are still eager to blame the Americans for almost anything and assert our superior moral standards wherever possible. Americans, for their part, managed to generate or renew a prejudice against the French for failing to fall into line with American policy. As a joke (but not entirely a joke), french fries in some restaurants were renamed Freedom Fries.
> 
> On a CBC panel shortly after 9/11, an academic raised a much larger question: Would the attack educate North Americans and Europeans about the terrorism that Israel had been enduring for years?
> 
> She suggested it might make the world more sympathetic to Israel's burdens.
> 
> In fact, the opposite happened. Anti-Israel feeling grew in many countries, often buttressed by the dubious idea that we wouldn't be having all this trouble with radical Islam if only Israel would liberalize its relations with the Palestinians. Of course bin Laden didn't even mention the Palestinians at the start and only added them to his list of causes because (as a democratic politician would put it) they polled so well.
> 
> If Israel ceased to exist, one of Osama's heirs could list a dozen other reasons for maintaining the jihad; and, if those issues were somehow removed, another dozen would quickly be found.
> 
> *THE WEST'S FUTURE IN QUESTION*
> 
> They are ill-matched opponents, the West and the radical Islamists. They live on different planes of existence.
> 
> The West's identity rests, first of all, on many millions of individuals rooted in their homelands. The radical Islamists, on the other hand, exist as an idea, and a highly portable one. Scare it out of Afghanistan, it turns up in Pakistan and Yemen. Kill its current leaders and their replacements appear. In a dozen different places, from Africa to the Philippines, they can find a new (if temporary) headquarters.
> 
> The two sides will never exchange opinions, since they share no common language and no hope of developing one. The Islamic jihad speaks, or pretends to speak, with one voice and with one message, its own version of Islam.
> 
> The West prides itself on speaking in an infinite (and expanding) multitude of voices. That is the essence of the West, politically its burden, philosophically its glory.
> 
> When the radical Islamists had declared war on the West it seemed obvious they did not understand it. But perhaps the West did not sufficiently understand itself, and still does not.
> 
> The enemies of the West seem to see it as 900-millionor-so humans who are lucky enough to be occupying the richest landscape on the planet.
> 
> If that were the whole truth, the West would be worth defending only as property. But the West as a civilization embodies, on its best days, the principles articulated in the 18th century by the Enlightenment, principles that in theory can in some distant era be used by the whole world but at this moment are indispensable to our own lives - free speech, competitive politics, private property and independent judges.
> 
> During the four decades of struggle against Russia, the Cold War was the frame in which the West saw itself. Our shared consciousness had a purpose - although not one that we would have chosen.
> 
> With the crumbling of communism after 1989, the West lost that frame and lost a sense of its own meaning. In his perverse way, bin Laden had something right: He saw the signs of decadence and corruption.
> 
> Today, as it continues to fight a resourceful enemy, the West finds itself in an uncommonly weak position. It took success for granted too long and borrowed too much against it. Most of the democracies now suffer from disastrously wrong-headed national budgeting, a persistent economic slump and politicians driven to distraction by partisanship.
> 
> For the first time since 1945, the way of life invented by the Enlightenment shows serious signs of cracking. Incredibly, its future as the intellectual engine of mankind is in doubt. With the help of the external threat from radical Islam, we may have reached one of those places where a civilization finds a way to revive itself or quietly accepts that it has permanently lost its way.
> 
> robert.fulford@utoronto.com



---------- End of Part 2 ----------​


----------



## Edward Campbell

Part 3 of 3

And, finally, from Diane Francis in the _Financial Post_:

http://www.financialpost.com/opinion/columnists/wasn+that/5380494/story.html


> It wasn't 9/11 that did in U.S
> 
> Diane Francis, Financial Post
> 
> Sept. 10, 2011
> 
> We all remember where we were at roughly 8.30 a.m. ET when the first of two attacks, which changed the world, occurred. A minute's silence is in order for the nearly 3,000 who died that day.
> 
> And another minute's silence is in order for the massacre of the U.S. economy that day.
> 
> Osama bin Laden's death in May has brought some closure and the 10th anniversary of 9/11 seems to be mostly about placing the tragic events into historical context, even though it's too early to do so.
> 
> But the usual suspects are taking the usual sides. There are those who blame all of America's financial woes on former president George W. Bush's preoccupation with his Iraq and Afghan occupations and bin Laden. "To keep the economy going during the turbulence of these years, the U.S. and its European counterparts unleashed what was to become perhaps the biggest credit bubble of all time," wrote Jeremy Warner in The Telegraph.
> 
> But any connection is tangential if, in fact, real at all.
> 
> At the other extreme is the triumphalism of Bush apologists such as Charles Krauthammer, who wrote Thursday that the busy decade of invasions and occupations and torture and security guards was cheap, effective and heroic.
> 
> "It kept us safe," he wrote, "the warrantless wiretaps, the Patriot Act, extraordinary rendition, preventive detention and, yes, Guantanamo."
> 
> Then he added, the total cost of "the two wars" was US$1.3-trillion or "less than 1/11th of the national debt."
> 
> Both couldn't be more off-base.
> 
> Surely Krauthammer knows the independent Congressional Budget Office in 2007 estimated the Afghan and Iraqi invasions and occupations would end up costing taxpayers US$2.4-trillion by 2017 if interest payments on borrowings to pay for combat were included. Or that Brown University, in 2010, calculated that the added price of operations in Pakistan, of the benefits due to veterans and of the interest due on debt put the total cost closer to US$4-trillion.
> 
> Or that such staggering amounts do not include the total for Homeland Security spending, which is mostly allocated outside the defence budget. Since Sept. 11, 2001, the tab has risen to US$635.9-billion.
> 
> But the allocation is worth it, say the Bush supporters, because the expected second attack didn't happen. But who expected a second attack? It looks like that was their best shot and it was a bull's eye. The only other airborne attempts involved a shoe that didn't work and some guy with exploding underwear over Detroit.
> 
> To be fair, the opposite extreme is also questionable. Jeremy Warner's theory that the war caused the financial collapse is tenuous. He said the credit bubble created by the United States and Europe was to "keep the economy going during the turbulence of these years."
> 
> The Europeans were on the military sidelines this decade. They overspent because the European Central Bank did a lousy job of managing, never even requiring independent audits of the Greek financials or anyone else's. This was as negligent as were Canadian banks in the 1980s which never asked the Reichmann family to provide income statements before lending billions until they went bust.
> 
> As for the U.S., its President made earning a Harvard MBA a dubious achievement when he over-reacted after 9/11 and launched two invasions without doing due diligence, then stayed there for years, and billions, then had no strategic plan or exit. He then changed course and spilled more "treasure and blood" to try to turn them into democracies in defiance of both logic and history. Poor old George had never read their prospectuses.
> 
> These military misadventures did not cause the economic mess either. Nor did Social Security. That was due to spending more than taxes brought in, plus allowing the monkeys to guard the bananas on Wall Street. Bush buddies, like Henry Paulson, let the suits turn U.S. banks into casinos and themselves into swindlers.
> 
> This has not been a pretty decade and thank heavens it's mostly over, except for the fiscal cleanup.
> 
> My takeaway from all this, however, is quite chilling and hard to admit. The only leader in the past 10 years with clear objectives and prescient vision was the late Osama bin Laden. He said before the attack that the real price of oil was US$100 to US$150 a barrel. Then, in 2002, he forecasted his efforts would duplicate what he did to the Soviet Union and drive the United States to "economic bankruptcy."
> 
> Tragically, the guy was right. Twice.
> 
> dfrancis@nationalpost.com




I don't agree 100% with either Fulford or Francis, but I do agree with _most_ of what they say.

But, just as one example: I have never been a fan of _multiculturalism_, but I am _tolerant_ of others ... because my definition of _tolerate_ involves "allowing" something (or someone) to be done (or to exist) despite the fact that I know that the act or belief or 'value' is less than optimal; I put up with something because it's not worth stamping out that something. Toleration does not mean support or approve; it means "hold one's noes and get on with more important things."

On the other side: I think a good part of the blame for the financial crisis needs to lie at the feet of those who proposed to allow people who were not credit worthy to move up the socio-economic ladder by owning homes. There is little doubt that home ownership is responsible for much economic success but it does not follow that everyone can or should own a home. Someone or other talked about the poor always being with us ~ (s)he was right.


----------



## The Bread Guy

Meanwhile, the Taliban suggest we don't REALLY know what happened on 9-11 (links to Army.ca thread):





> Each year, the 9/11 reminds the Afghans of an event in which they had no role whatsoever, but, using this as a pretext and a clout, the American colonialism shed blood of tens of thousands of miserable and innocent Afghans ....  The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, from the outset, has been calling for an impartial investigation into the event but, contrarily, the Americans and their coalition partners, far from positively responding to this rationale demand of the Islamic Emirate, are sending cruise missiles, poisonous and depleted uranium embedded weapons instead.  It will remain a permanent stigma on the face of the Western democracy that America and her Allies martyred tens of thousands of Muslims under the pretext of this ambiguous and murky event ....



Ambiguous?  Murky?





Seems pretty unambiguous and clear to me.


----------



## FlyingDutchman

II woke up, showered, got ready for school.  Mom had the tv on, I saw a recap of the first plane hitting.  I was thinking what a horrible accident, thats when I saw the second plane hit.  Thats when my teenage happy go lucky brain stopped and said 'Oh crap, that was no accident.' For the rest of the day, the entire school was glued to the tv. French teacher wheeled in a tv ito our class, lunch the library was crowded for the tv, and art in the afternoon was not very arty.  My homework was not done that night.  Nothing gripping happened to me, that was just my sequence of events.


----------



## The Bread Guy

> U.S. President Barack Obama has written Prime Minister Stephen Harper to thank Canada for its help during the terror attacks a decade ago and for its continuing help in fighting terrorism.
> 
> The letter was delivered as Harper formally designated Sept. 11 a national day of service to commemorate the attacks.
> 
> Obama said Canada came through when it counted after the World Trade Center was taken down by hijacked airliners.
> 
> "In one of the darkest moments of our history, Canada stood by our side and showed itself to be a true friend," he wrote.
> 
> He paid a special tribute to Gander, N.L, which took in 6,700 airline passengers whose flights were diverted when North American air space was closed.
> 
> "We remember with gratitude and affection how the people of Canada offered us the comfort of friendship and extraordinary assistance that day and in the following days by opening their airports, homes and hearts to us."
> 
> The president also thanked Canada for its solidarity in fight terrorism today.
> 
> "On this anniversary, we recognize all the gestures of friendship and solidarity shown to us by Canada and its people and give thanks for our continuing special relationship."
> 
> In his own letter in reply, the prime minister said he and Canada extend "our sincere expression of solace and remembrance."
> 
> "Ten years later, we pay tribute to the victims of the September 11 terrorist attacks and honour the survivors and families whose lives were forever altered that day" ....


The Canadian Press, 10 Sept 11


----------



## BadEnoughDudeRescueRonny

I remember 9-11 as if it was yesterday.

It started off at around 0830 and I was in French class when one of my classmates came in late and said that a plane hit the World Trade Center. We all said "There's no way that could happen", gradually we heard more and more chatter about a plane hitting WTC, so we all initially figured it was a small Cessna or something like that. We still didn't clue in until they started bringing in TVs into the class and we saw the first tower burning and we all saw that it was no small Cessna that caused this damage. We kept watching and once we saw the second plane hit, everything went dead silent. I remember having this distinct feeling of dread. Things started to get chaotic after a P.A. announcement from the principle telling the students to stay calm. Later on, once we saw the towers collapse, things really hit home. The entire school was dead silent, nobody made a noise. Soon after, people were weeping, there was a feeling of rage towards whoever did this. I recall one quote quite vividly, I remember after the towers fell, a friend said "This just doesn't happen in real life, this only happens in the movies. This just doesn't happen". I felt so shocked that I felt empty. 
I remember seeing the emergency services personnel rushing to the towers to save lives in news clips. I saw the bravery and sacrifice that those brave firefighters, EMTs and police officers put forth on that day and it all breaks my heart. 

The entire event just upsets me. I was 15 at the time, and once I turned 16, I got my parents' approval to enlist in the reserves. I was turned down due to medical reasons, which really bummed me out, because at that time, there was just such a feeling that the world needed to band together and bring the <expletive deleted> that did this to justice. United We Stand meant so much in that first year after 9/11 and I wish it carried the same strength now. The shame in Canada is that the average civilian has since ignored most implications of 9/11 outside of longer waits at airport security. Just my 2 cents. 

May we all pray for those who lost their lives in 9/11 and those who fight to bring justice to those responsible. 

*Matthew 11:28-30 “Come to me, all you who labor and are heavily burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart; and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”*

*John 1:5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. *


----------



## Delaney1986

I had just started grade 10 and we were on break. My best friends mom came running, panicked, into our school lobby, saw us and started crying. She ran over to us and said she just needed to see us, to make sure we were ok. She then told us what happened, about the towers being hit. Everyone was so scared, at first I was just numb. There were rumours about whether or not there was a plane heading towards Pt. Lepreau (Nuclear Facility outside Saint John, NB - I was in Quispamsis). I had this overwhelming sense of dread. I knew instantly that this was life changing, that this was going to change things. I honestly go blank until I remember getting home dropping my bag, running downstairs, putting a tape in my VCR, turning on the TV, hitting record and crying for hours as I watched what was happening.

Reflecting today and watching the presentations on TV brings everything back like a whirlwind. I still cry when I see the impact and the towers collapsing. There are no words, no anger, just immense sadness from me. All those who risked their lives with just the hope of saving someone's life. all those who stepped up to help strangers united in tragedy, all those whose lives were taken away from them that day and their families, and all the soldiers who have fought and continue to fight to protect us will be remembered. 

Tragedy brings out the darkness in people, the ignorance, the intolerance, the hate. It also brings out the compassion, conviction, pride and selflessness. It forces us to unite as human beings and overcome seemingly insurmountable obstacles, to look into ourselves and come out of the ashes for future generations, to make them understand the significance of what happened that day and ensure it never happens again.

My heart goes out to all those lost and all those who have lost someone.


----------



## jollyjacktar

Today I am at sea.  On the TV in the main cave is coverage of the memorial services at New York.  I was on the second day of my Tech course 10 years ago.  I remember the shock and horror at what we were seeing live during our stand easy.  This is the event of our generation that we all can think of where we were and what we were doing then as the world changed dramatically.  It upset me then and it still does 10 years later.  We have guests aboard, some are quietly contemplating the scenes displayed today on CNN.  Most will be at the Sunday services I am sure.  I hope that in 10 years from now, the world will be a safer place from this type of terrorism.   :yellow:


----------



## BadEnoughDudeRescueRonny

jollyjacktar said:
			
		

> I hope that in 10 years from now, the world will be a safer place from this type of terrorism.   :yellow:



I pray for the very same thing. We live in such chaotic times that hopefully things will calm down someday.  :yellow:


----------



## Brad Sallows

I seem to be one of the few who do not particularly remember the day; I had to check a calendar to identify which day of the week it was.  I watched it on TV news that morning (Pacific time), delaying my departure for work long enough to see the towers come down.  There was (of course) talk at work; my assessment was simply that the US was at war and it would not end quickly.

What I try to remember is the lesson: sometimes, your fate is yours to influence.  If you can overcome the emotional turmoil of realizing that your own life is likely to end imminently, you might be able to influence events to limit the scope of tragedy.  The more quickly you react after events are set in motion and the balance is not decided, the better your chances.  To be trite: fortune favours the bold; fortune favours the prepared; fortune favours the emotionally prepared mind.  All easier said and written than done.

I do not accept mindless deference to authority and passivity in the face of crisis; I believe all the authority of  our agencies and agents of security is innately held by each of us and is delegated, not surrendered.  Those yearning for a return to less authoritarian times must make the commensurate concessions to individual liberty and latitude of action.


----------



## The Bread Guy

Statements from the PM....


> Ten years ago today, nearly 3,000 innocent lives – including 24 Canadians – were taken in horrific acts of terrorism that took place on American soil.
> 
> These senseless and cowardly attacks shattered not only the lives of those who perished, but also of the family and friends of the victims who have had to live with the terrible losses inflicted that day.
> 
> While Canadians share in the grief of all those mourning loved ones lost, we also honour the incredible acts of courage, sacrifice and kindness by those who served in the rescue efforts.
> 
> While we honour and remember those who fell, this day will serve as a constant reminder that we are not immune from terrorism. We will continue to stand firm with our allies to help ensure such a tragedy never happens again.
> 
> Terrorism will not undermine our way of life. We will continue supporting the brave Canadian Armed Forces members and intelligence and police officers who put their lives on the line every day in the fight against the many faces of terrorism. We will steadfastly defend, protect and promote our democratic values and principles; the very foundation of our free and prosperous society.
> 
> It is what the victims would expect and what the families deserve.”



.... and the Defence Minister:


> Ten years ago today, a calm and clear September morning was shattered by senseless acts that took the lives of thousands of innocent men, women and children.  These unprecedented and coordinated terrorist attacks led by extremists that hold no regard for human life targeted buildings that represent liberty and strength, freedom and prosperity.  We remember the calamity and confusion on that day as well as the images of towers falling and ashen-faced citizens running for help.  On that September morning, we bore witness to a loss of innocence. We will forever remember those who lost their lives in New York, Virginia and Pennsylvania, including 24 Canadians who were killed, and we continue to stand with, and offer our deepest and sincere condolences to, the families, friends and loved ones of those who perished.
> 
> The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 have shaped the security environment of the past decade and have necessitated that Canada and the Canadian Forces act to confront this threat, in concert with our allies.
> 
> In the ten years since that fateful day, Canada has taken decisive action to address the evolving threat of terrorism.  The Canadian Forces committed 38,000 military members to a UN-mandated, NATO-led mission to Afghanistan, the country used as the launching pad for the terrorists who perpetuated the attacks of September 11, 2001.  Canada worked with our closest ally, the United States, to secure our continent by expanding the scope of NORAD to include maritime surveillance.  This government set forth the Canada First Defence Strategy to ensure the Canadian Forces are a modern, combat-capable, flexible force, able to defend Canada and Canadian interests at home and abroad.  As a result, we are better equipped and better prepared to deal with the security challenges of the 21st century.
> 
> Today, as we remember those who lost their lives exactly ten years ago, we must also remember those who sacrificed in the years since.
> 
> Canada’s soldiers, sailors, airmen and airwomen faced the threats that challenged the security of our nation, accepted the fears of their compatriots, marched to the front lines of one of the most dangerous places on earth and fought to defend the ideals and values that shaped Canada and made this country great.  Through their efforts, our nation is more secure and our world is more stable.  Canada owes our fighting forces, and all who support them, our gratitude.  On behalf of all Canadians, I thank the members of the Canadian Forces for their service, sacrifice and selflessness.
> 
> Working with our allies, Canada remains vigilant against the threat of terrorism and continues to take action to ensure the security of Canada and the safety of all Canadians.


----------



## blacktriangle

Well I just spent the weekend watching all the 9/11 tribute programs. It made me think back to that day 10 years ago.  

I was in class when another teacher came in literally with tears in her eyes and started telling us what was going on.  When I got home, my mother (an American) had taken the rest of the day off from her government position. My whole family sat there drinking Tim Hortons (hot chocolate for me), and watching CNN coverage. This was repeated for about a week after the attacks. I remember on that day how my father told me that we would begin to take national security more seriously, even here in Canada.  Weeks later, I watched the missiles and bombs start finding targets in Afghanistan.

10 years later, I am in the CF and it's my job to contribute to the security of this nation. The hot chocolate I once drank has been replaced by coffee. There have been days where I question some decisions made in this "war on terror" but today is not one of them. I still find myself just as angry now as I was back then. I think it might actually be more infuriating. 

Basically all I want to say is that we (the Western world) need to collectively keep it together socially and economically, lest the goals of the 9/11 terrorists eventually be realized. 

RIP to the fallen of 9/11 and the years since, BZ to the heroes of that day and those that have followed, and may all terrorists look down the muzzle of a door kicker's weapon tonight as they dream...

 :2c:


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## OldSolduer

Spectrum said:
			
		

> Well I just spent the weekend watching all the 9/11 tribute programs. It made me think back to that day 10 years ago.
> 
> I was in class when another teacher came in literally with tears in her eyes and started telling us what was going on.  When I got home, my mother (an American) had taken the rest of the day off from her government position. My whole family sat there drinking Tim Hortons (hot chocolate for me), and watching CNN coverage. This was repeated for about a week after the attacks. I remember on that day how my father told me that we would begin to take national security more seriously, even here in Canada.  Weeks later, I watched the missiles and bombs start finding targets in Afghanistan.
> 
> 10 years later, I am in the CF and it's my job to contribute to the security of this nation. The hot chocolate I once drank has been replaced by coffee. There have been days where I question some decisions made in this "war on terror" but today is not one of them. I still find myself just as angry now as I was back then. I think it might actually be more infuriating.
> 
> Basically all I want to say is that we (the Western world) need to collectively keep it together socially and economically, lest the goals of the 9/11 terrorists eventually be realized.
> 
> RIP to the fallen of 9/11 and the years since, BZ to the heroes of that day and those that have followed, and may all terrorists look down the muzzle of a door kicker's weapon tonight as they dream...
> 
> :2c:



Very well said. Thank you.


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## dimsum

I was a Soph (live-in frosh week staff) at my 2nd year in university.  I had just finished NAVRES BOTC a few weeks before and was about to go to class when some of my frosh told me about it at in the hallway and asked if I'd be deploying; as a brand-new Naval Cadet, I had no idea.  It didn't even really click in that it happened until the NAVRES unit called and confirmed that I'd be available "just in case."

The ironic/funny thing was that in my degree program, most (if not all) of us were training to become airline pilots.  The night before, we had our first class of Airline Economics with an industry person as our prof, and his last words at 10pm were "you guys chose the best time to join the aviation industry.  The boomers are retiring, startup companies are popping up everywhere, and no one will have issues finding jobs."  Just under 24 hours later, he emails us something to the effect of:  "Sorry about what I said last night.  This changed everything."


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## cupper

My first thought when it became obvious that this was no accident was that Bush got it all wrong during the election - specifically his campaign platform to ramp up funding for ballistic missile defense systems.

As the day went on, listening to more and more news coming in, you had to wonder what kind of evil is responsible for this.

I had to drive past the airport in Halifax on my way home from work, and the number of planes on the tarmac and runways, and the heavy security presence at the exit to the airport made it even more surreal.

Little did I know that 3 months later I would be moving to the DC area. That was a whole other experience. Police and national guard on every corner in the downtown area. Security checkpoints, bag checks and metal detectors when entering any government building, including the museums and monuments.


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## Scoobs

I was at work at a Tac Hel unit on 9/11.  I just happened to be walking into the canteen to grab some coffee and saw the coverage on the TV.  The first plane had already flown into the first tower and was on fire.  There were other people in the canteen and no one was sure at that point if it was an accident or attack.  Then I watched in utter amazement and bewilderment when the second plane flew into the second tower.  The crowd started to get bigger and we all watched in silence as the second and then first tower fell down.  At that point we knew of the order for all aircraft to get to ground, with the exception of military aircraft.

That day didn't necessarily directly affect me then, but it certainly did later in my career when I found myself somewhere hot and dusty.  I will never forget 9/11 and I feel for all the people that lost their lives that day, yet, let us remember them as the brave firemen, police, and citizens (those that fought the terrorists and crashed into the field) that they were.  

Of course, the various ceremonies commemorating 9/11 brought my thoughts back to those that we lost in Afghanistan, especially those on my tour.  Never will I forget their names and faces.


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## jeffb

9/11 was a big day in my early adult life. I remember being riveted by the coverage and the outrage I felt over the attack. 

9/11 + 10 was an even bigger day as I welcomed the birth of my daughter. Life goes on. Take that Al-Qaeda.  :nod:


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## cupper

jeffb said:
			
		

> 9/11 + 10 was an even bigger day as I welcomed the birth of my daughter. Life goes on. Take that Al-Queda.  :nod:



Congrats, and lets hope the world becomes a much better place when she reaches adulthood.


----------



## a_majoor

We don't talk about the "why" too much anymore, if we ever really did. Here is a piece from Instapundit today which brings the issues home. Also implicit in the piece is the role of civic organization and the maintainence of "high trust" neighbourhoods as a means of staying safe and combatting the Enemy:

http://pjmedia.com/instapundit/



> And here’s a passage from Lee Harris’s Civilization And Its Enemies.
> 
> Forgetfulness occurs when those who have been long inured to civilized order can no longer remember a time in which they had to wonder whether their crops would grow to maturity without being stolen or their children sold into slavery by a victorious foe.
> …
> They forget that in time of danger, in the face of the Enemy, they must trust and confide in each other, or perish.
> 
> They forget, in short, that there has ever been a category of human experience called the Enemy. And that, before 9/11, was what had happened to us. The very concept of the Enemy had been banished from our moral and political vocabulary. An enemy was just a friend we hadn’t done enough for — yet. Or perhaps there had been a misunderstanding, or an oversight on our part — something that we could correct. And this means that that our first task is that we must try to grasp what the concept of the Enemy really means.
> 
> The Enemy is someone who is willing to die in order to kill you. And while it is true that the Enemy always hates us for a reason — it is his reason, and not ours.


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## tomahawk6

For me anyway it was a day of mixed emotions.Anger.Profound sadness at the loss of life and the number of people missing.The collapse of the buildings was surreal.The immense effort to get commercial aircraft on the ground.NORAD did a super job that day.Thanks to our Canadian brothers for flying top cover over the NE.Its a day that I hope is never repeated - anywhere.


----------



## cupper

Found this tonight.

A time lapse video of the construction of the new World Trade Center.

http://youtu.be/Nn11DWH_LEA



> A new time-lapse video, made by EarthCam in commemoration of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, shows the nine-year construction of the 1,776-foot One World Trade Center in New York.
> 
> EarthCam's network of high-definition cameras captured the incredible footage over the course of October 2004 to September 2013. According to an EarthCam statement, the company hand-edited hundreds of thousands of images that together reveal the striking assembly of the 104-story skyscraper, formerly known as the Freedom Tower.
> 
> The special video shows the construction of the One World Trade Center building from the ground up, including the installation of the massive 408-foot, 758-ton silver spire that tops the tower and serves as a broadcast antenna.
> 
> In the beginning of the time-lapse clip, the area to the left of the One World Trade Center briefly seen under construction is The National September 11 Memorial and Museum, which now contains rows of swamp white oak trees and acre-sized reflecting pools in the former spaces of the original World Trade Center North and South Towers. Developers plan to complete One World Trade Center in early 2014, while the nearby museum opens in Spring 2014.


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## krustyrl

tomahawk6 said:
			
		

> For me anyway it was a day of mixed emotions.Anger.Profound sadness at the loss of life and the number of people missing.The collapse of the buildings was surreal.The immense effort to get commercial aircraft on the ground.NORAD did a super job that day.Thanks to our Canadian brothers for flying top cover over the NE.Its a day that I hope is never repeated - anywhere.




Not to forget the hundreds of families in that small Newfoundland town whom opened up their homes to the stranded travellers making them as comfortable as possible.


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## tomahawk6

Great point !!


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## krustyrl

I had seen a documentary on that and was moved on just how the town offered hospitality to those whom preferred to be home and  in their own beds. The way they all came together to help was phenominal to say the least. I'm sure it would have been the same way if the situation was reveresed.


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## mariomike

I hadn't yet seen it on TV, but I remember responding into the financial district from HQ with a spare Multi-Patient Unit and watching the people evacuate out of the skyscrapers, the court houses at Old City Hall,  Osgoode Hall, University Ave., the CN Tower, and the Eaton Centre.


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## cupper

Found this photo of either Gander Airport on Wikipedia's page for Operation Yellow Ribbon.


----------



## nn1988

krustyrl said:
			
		

> Not to forget the hundreds of families in that small Newfoundland town whom opened up their homes to the stranded travellers making them as comfortable as possible.



There's actually a movie based on such events - _Diverted_.


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## cupper

Here is a photo of the airport in Halifax.


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## dapaterson

The book "The Day The World Came To Town" is an excellent overview.


I remember being part of the guard on Parliament Hill on Friday the 14th.  One of those moments you wish had never had to happen, and that you'll never forget.


----------



## JorgSlice

Truly a shocking moment in my young life. Having just turned 13 I didn't really know what to think of it.


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## a_majoor

A long meditation on the power of imagry and memory, centered on a photograph of one of those who chose to jump rather than be suffocated or crushed by the burning building:

http://www.esquire.com/features/ESQ0903-SEP_FALLINGMAN


----------



## Canadian.Trucker

It's interesting that 12 years later I can still recall with vivid detail exactly where I was and what I was doing on that day when I heard the news, just like many of you can probably do the same.

I was 17 at the time and in my last year of high school, my application was already in to the military to join.  While 9/11 was not a catalyst for me to sign up, it did put things into perspective very quickly that you never know what tomorrow may bring and the world can change very rapidly.

I paused yesterday to reflect on the attacks on the World Trade Centre and to pray for families that are still finding difficulty coping.  As t6 said, lets hope no one ever has to experience such a horrible moment ever again.


----------



## The Bread Guy

Just cleaned things up a bit.

To head off future problems, memories, not commentary in this one, please - and thanks.

*Milnet.ca Staff*


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## cupper

Thucydides said:
			
		

> A long meditation on the power of imagry and memory, centered on a photograph of one of those who chose to jump rather than be suffocated or crushed by the burning building:
> 
> http://www.esquire.com/features/ESQ0903-SEP_FALLINGMAN



That calls to mind a documentary I watched about the period from the time the first plane hit to when the buildings collapsed. A film maker was doing a ride along with a unit of the NYFD if I recall correctly.

At one point in the film, they are filming the on scene coordination effort in the lobby of one of the towers. In the background you can hear periodic loud bangs and crashes. If you missed the intro prior to the film you would thing that it was falling debris and some other such noise. In fact it was the sound of people who had decided to jump and die on their own terms.

Knowing that while watching was a very haunting experience.


----------



## Dissident

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rick_Rescorla

http://www.badassoftheweek.com/rescorla.html


----------



## mariomike

There doesn't seem to be a 9/11 super-thread, so I will post this here, as the 15th anniversary is fast approaching,

August 28, 2016 

15 Years Later, Remains of More Than a Thousand 9/11 Victims Still Unidentified
http://www.ny1.com/nyc/all-boroughs/news/2016/08/28/15-years-later--remains-of-more-than-a-thousand-9-11-victims-still-unidentified.html
According to the Medical Examiner's office, of the 2,753 World Trade Center victims, 1,637 — 60 percent — were positively identified, but 1,113 are still a mystery to scientists.

Never Forget ...that the 9/11 Memorial at Ground Zero is a Pokestop. < sarcasm.


----------



## tomahawk6

There is a Fox news special about 9-11 and the help Canadians gave t0 stranded airline passengers. 







https://www.foxnews.com/us/9-11-iconic-images :yellow:


----------



## OldSolduer

Lest we forget. :'(


----------



## mariomike

The skylight at the 3.9 billion dollar WTC Oculus, did not open this AM for 9/11. The rubber seal of the skylight ripped during last year’s 9/11 anniversary & the PANYNJ spent roughly $30,000 trying to patch up the leak using Flex Tape ...yes, Flex Tape.


----------



## dapaterson

This year I'm remembering Rick Rescorla, the 62 year old Vietnam veteran and cancer survivor who annoyed everyone with his evacuation drills, told the people telling him to stay put to piss off, trusted his instincts, and helped over 2,600 get to safety.* And then went back up.*









						The Courageous Life and Death of Rick Rescorla, a 9/11 Hero
					

The Vietnam veteran helped save hundreds of lives on September 11th, before he was swallowed by the South Tower collapse. “For Rick Rescorla, this was a natural death,” his best friend said—a hero’s end.




					www.newyorker.com
				




h/t to  twitter.com/LethalityJane


----------



## dimsum

20 years.  Wow.


----------



## Weinie

dapaterson said:


> This year I'm remembering Rick Rescorla, the 62 year old Vietnam veteran and cancer survivor who annoyed everyone with his evacuation drills, told the people telling him to stay put to piss off, trusted his instincts, and helped over 2,600 get to safety.* And then went back up.*
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> The Courageous Life and Death of Rick Rescorla, a 9/11 Hero
> 
> 
> The Vietnam veteran helped save hundreds of lives on September 11th, before he was swallowed by the South Tower collapse. “For Rick Rescorla, this was a natural death,” his best friend said—a hero’s end.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.newyorker.com
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> h/t to  twitter.com/LethalityJane


The best part of this awesome story:

"People like Rick, they don’t die old men. They aren’t destined for that and it isn’t right for them to do so. It just isn’t right, by God, for them to become feeble, old, and helpless sons of bitches. There are certain men born in this world, and they’re supposed to die setting an example for the rest of the weak bastards we’re surrounded with.”

Amen.


----------

