THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume XII, Issue # 191, September 12, 2010
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
THE NINTH SEPTEMBER 11
By Dr. Daniel Pipes
HAVE THE LESSONS OF SEPTEMBER 11, 2001, BEEN LEARNED, OR ARE THEY FADING AS THE 9/11 ISLAMIST TERROR ATTACKS
ON THE U.S.A. BECOME A MEMORY? WHAT DO EVENTS & DEVELOPMENTS OF THE PAST NINE YEARS INDICATE?
ARE WE PROGRESSING OR REGRESSING IN DEFENDING OURSELVES IN THE GLOBAL JIHAD THAT MILITANT ISLAM IS
WAGING AGAINST THE U.S.A. & WESTERN CIVILIZATION? WILL THE FULL IMPLICATIONS OF THE CONFLICT BE
DRAWN QUICKLY ENOUGH TO ENABLE US TO ACHIEVE VICTORY IN THE FOURTH WORLD WAR?
FULL STORY:
As September 11 comes around each year, those of us who focus on radical Islam inevitably ask whether the lessons
of 9/11 have sunk in – or whether they are fading as the event itself becomes a memory. Are we, in other words,
progressing or regressing in what once was called the War on Terror?
In contrast to a conventional war, in which objective markers such as control of territory or the output of steel indicate
trends, in this new kind of war, one must look to subjective factors like understanding the enemy or pride in one's own
civilization. How, on this slippery basis, does the United States of America stand on the ninth 9/11?
On the plus side, about half of the population – basically the Conservative half – has made substantial progress. It has
done everything from read the Koran to volunteer for combat in Afghanistan. A speech by Newt Gingrich in
July, 2010, with an informed discussion of "a struggle with radical Islamists in both their militant and their stealth form,"
symbolizes this increase in awareness.
On the minus side, the Liberal half and the establishment it inevitably controls, from government to media to the
academy to the arts, has become ever more determined to ignore the religious aspect of the war and instead reduce it to
counterterrorism and economics. Eric Holder's buffoonish congressional testimony in May, 2010, when he time and
again refused to acknowledge any role for radical Islam, symbolizes this obduracy. Worse, Liberals hamstring defense
attempts by labeling these "Islamophobism" and "racism."
Combining this contrary evidence, I conclude that the lessons of 9/11 seemed obvious, but, in fact, were deep and
subtle; therefore, drawing fully those implications will take decades. Fortunately, that process is underway.
Unfortunately, it may be going too slowly to achieve victory.
© Daniel Pipes 2010
Originally Published in National Review Online, September 11, 2010
Republished with the Permission of Daniel Pipes
Reprinted from the Daniel Pipes Mailing List, September 12, 2010
URL: http://www.danielpipes.org/blog/2010/09/the-ninth-9-11
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
Islamism & Jihadism -- The Threat of Radical Islam
Page Three
Page Two
Page One
Middle East -- Arabs, Arab States,
& Their Middle Eastern Neighbors
American Foreign Policy -- The Middle East
International Politics & World Disorder:
War, Peace, & Geopolitics in the Real World:
Foreign Affairs & U.S. National Security
Page Two
Page One
Islamist Terrorist Attacks on the U.S.A.
Osama bin Laden & the Islamist Declaration of War
Against the U.S.A. & Western Civilization
Islamist International Terrorism &
U.S. Intelligence Agencies
Counterterrorism & U.S. National Security
U.S. National Security Strategy
Dr. Daniel Pipes, a Ph.D. in Islamic History (Harvard University, 1978), is Founder and Director of the Middle East Forum,
Publisher of Middle East Quarterly,
Founder of Campus Watch, Taube Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University, a
signatory of the Project for the New American Century, a former board member of the U.S. Institute of Peace, a former
adjunct scholar at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a Golden Circle supporter of the U.S. Committee for a Free
Lebanon, a former member of the U.S. Department of Defense Special Task Force on Terrorism and Technology, and a
former lecturer at the U.S. Naval War College, Harvard University, the University of Chicago, and the University of
Pennsylvania. Dr. Pipes was the Director of the Foreign Policy Research Institute from 1986 to 1993.
Author or co-author of eighteen books, Dr. Pipes is a regular columnist for National Review Online, Front Page
Magazine, the New York Sun, and the Jerusalem Post. His analyses of world trends and of forces and
developments in the Middle East have appeared in numerous North American newspapers, including the Washington
Post, the New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal. He frequently appears on American network
television, as well as at universities and think tanks, to discuss the Middle East, Islam, and the Islamist threat to the
U.S.A. and the West. He also has appeared on BBC and Al Jazeera, and has lectured in approximately
twenty-five countries.
Dr. Pipes is a Polish-American Jew whose parents fled Poland in 1939, immigrated to the U.S.A., and assimilated well into
American society and culture. His father is Richard Pipes, an American historian specializing in Russian and Soviet history
and serving as Professor of History at Harvard University from 1950 until his retirement in 1996. During the Cold War, the
worldview of Richard Pipes was strongly anti-Soviet and anti-Communist.
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