AFP reports: US keeps it quiet and dignified for second September 11 anniversary.
As an illustration of how some mindsets have changed in the past year, the New York Daily News on Thursday published an e-mail written by the vice president of the Tishman construction firm, Robert McNally.Responding to a request from New York City officials for a 24-hour moratorium on work around Ground Zero on September 11, McNally replied: "9/11 happened two years ago, it is time to move on."
"Move on"? If he meant we should move forward, as in rebuilding bigger and better at the WTC site rather than turning it into a cemetery pit, then I would agree. But I don't think he meant that. He seems to mean get over 9/11, accept it, don't dwell on it, don't acknowledge the anniversary, don't place any importance on it.
It is exactly in that sense that we should never "move on" from 9/11.
"Moving on" has been part of the problem for decades. We moved on when Hezbollah killed 241 U.S. Marines in Beirut. We moved on when the World Trade Center was bombed the first time, murdering six. We moved on when the Khobar Towers were blown up in Saudi Arabia: 19 dead. We moved on from the U.S. Embassy bombings in Africa, and the USS Cole bombing in Yemen, and the incessant bombings by Palestinian terrorists in Israel.
Had we faced head-on the Islamist threat from the beginning, we wouldn't today be talking about "moving on" from 9/11.
Unfortunately, some seemed to have moved on all too easily.
Posted by Forkum at September 8, 2003 06:46 AM
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