Notes from around the Human Experience…
Editor’s Note: Due to the subject of today’s column, only the On This Date segment is featured
ON THIS DATE! ON THIS DATE!: Al-Qaeda terrorists hijack four airplanes and conduct suicide terrorist attacks on the United States on this date in 2001. Two airplanes flew into and brought down the twin towers of the World Trade Center, another flew into the Pentagon building and the fourth crashed in Pennsylvania, brought down by its passengers. Almost 3,000 people were killed and thousands more were injured. It remains, and hopefully will always remain, the worst terror attack on American soil.
Get Your Official Daily Dose Policy Right Here: Some people believe 9/11 makes the strongest case for war. After all, our nation was attacked and those responsible must pay. This is completely in step with human nature and we are not completely insensitive here at The Daily Dose. We understand and respect this view.
But we disagree with it. We think 9/11 makes the strongest case for peace, both in the context of circumstances before the attacks and because of what has happened since.
The reasons for the 9/11 attacks are many, but have their roots in American aggression and interference in the Middle East and Africa. To deny that is folly. America has been at war every day since 1989 and 9/11 is the price we paid for that. Had the United States been at peace every day since 1989 9/11 would not have occurred. We believe any substantive consideration of this bears this out.
Gaylon For Congress…Vote Early, Vote Often: We said this every hour on the hour while running for the United States Senate and House of Representatives:
We are not going to have a peaceful world without a peaceful America.
War does not produce peace, it only produces more war. Despite the fact America has been shown this time and time again – is shown it every day, actually – we refuse to heed this lesson.
The Long And Winding Road: It’s been 16 years since we declared war on terror and we are still fighting terrorists. You know what? We always will be, too. This war will never end. Or, rather, it will end when America collapses. No nation can survive perpetual war and anyone who tells you America will be the exception to that is either deluding themselves, trying to delude you or, as likely as not, both.
“There Were Failures To Get Information To The Right Place At The Right Time…”: Our meddling in other countries notwithstanding, it didn’t help that America wasn’t up to the challenge of stopping the attacks, either. We should have been, because, as a reading of the official 9/11 report shows, the clues were there and assorted senior US officials suspected there was something brewing, though some thought the attack would be in the Middle East.
However, America wasn’t able to, as the saying goes, know what it knew. For example, an Arab taking flight lessons in Arizona and not bothering to show up for the landing portion of the course never made up the chain of command.
The Bottom Line/Stop Us If You’ve Heard This Before: We are not going to have a peaceful world without a peaceful America and we are not going to have a peaceful America until we decide to heed the lessons 9/11 taught us: American aggression abroad caused 9/11, it is responsible for a great deal of the world’s violence today and will be the foundation for future attacks, both here and abroad. All an America at war produces is despair and destruction, both for others and for us.
A Warm, Personal Remembrance: Thought it was a Monday morning, a time one could reasonably be expected to be up, we slept through the 9/11 attacks and our first inkling something was up came when we checked in at a message board we frequented. We then scurried to the gym at the apartment complex we lived at in Las Vegas at the time and caught up on the TV’s in there.
More On This Date Action: Pete Rose of the Cincinnati Reds becomes major league baseball’s all-time hit leader on this date in 1985, hitting a single in the first inning at home in a game against the San Diego Padres. Rose’s 4,192nd career hit breaks Ty Cobb’s record.
Today’s On This Date Is Being Done In Reverse Chronological Order: Alexander Hamilton is appointed the first Secretary of the Treasury by President George Washington on this date in 1789. Hamilton being Hamilton, he tended to think of his role more as that as a prime minister responsible for running the government under Washington’s guidance, a view only Hamilton seemed to hold.
FunFact: Hamilton would die in a duel with Vice President Aaron Burr in 1804.
Quotebook: Mere longevity is a good thing for those who watch life from the sidelines. For those who play the game, an hour may be a year, a single day’s work an achievement for an eternity. – Gabriel Heatter
Answer To The Last Trivia Question: America has executed 1,459 people since 1977.
Today’s Stumper: Whose all-time hit record did Ty Cobb break? – Answer next time!
