“Nothing can ever break us”? “Nothing can change who we are as Americans”? Like virtually everything about Barack Obama, those statements are hubristic and fantasy-based. There is no guarantee, either from the divinity or the inexorable workings of history, that the United States of America, or the American character, which Barack Obama has done so much to besmirch, are eternal and unassailable. He himself has done an extraordinary job of weakening us to the point of breaking and changing who we are as Americans.
But more to the point of this particular address: how about an enemy we dare not name and are determined to appease when we’re not downplaying or denying outright the threat he represents? Can that denial break us? Can that willful ignorance change who we are as Americans? If that enemy is implacable and determined to destroy us, while we are just as implacably determined to pretend that he doesn’t mean what he says and that he faces intense opposition within his own community when in fact he does mean what he says and faces only token opposition within his own community, amid clouds and fogs of deception — can that break us? Can that change who we are as Americans?
We’re going to find out.
Note also that Barack Obama says nothing at all about who exactly carried out the attack on 9/11, and why, and what the status of that war is today, and what he proposes to do about this threat in the future.
“Transcript of Obama’s remarks at 9/11 Museum dedication,” The News-Gazette, May 15, 2014:
Transcript, provided by the White House, of remarks by President Barack Obama at the dedication of the National September 11 Memorial Museum in New York on May 15, 2014.
THE PRESIDENT: Mayor Bloomberg, Governor Cuomo, honored guests, families of the fallen.
In those awful moments after the South Tower was hit, some of the injured huddled in the wreckage of the 78th floor. The fires were spreading. The air was filled with smoke. It was dark, and they could barely see. It seemed as if there was no way out.
And then there came a voice — clear, calm, saying he had found the stairs. A young man in his 20s, strong, emerged from the smoke, and over his nose and his mouth he wore a red handkerchief.
He called for fire extinguishers to fight back the flames. He tended to the wounded. He led those survivors down the stairs to safety, and carried a woman on his shoulders down 17 flights. Then he went back. Back up all those flights. Then back down again, bringing more wounded to safety. Until that moment when the tower fell.
They didn’t know his name. They didn’t know where he came from. But they knew their lives had been saved by the man in the red bandana.
Again, Mayor Bloomberg; distinguished guests; Mayor de Blasio; Governors Christie and Cuomo; to the families and survivors of that day; to all those who responded with such courage — on behalf of Michelle and myself and the American people, it is an honor for us to join in your memories. To remember and to reflect. But above all, to reaffirm the true spirit of 9/11 — love, compassion, sacrifice — and to enshrine it forever in the heart of our nation.
Michelle and I just had the opportunity to join with others on a visit with some of the survivors and families — men and women who inspire us all. And we had a chance to visit some of the exhibits. And I think all who come here will find it to be a profound and moving experience.
I want to express our deep gratitude to everybody who was involved in this great undertaking — for bringing us to this day, for giving us this sacred place of healing and of hope.
Here, at this memorial, this museum, we come together. We stand in the footprints of two mighty towers, graced by the rush of eternal waters. We look into the faces of nearly 3,000 innocent souls — men and women and children of every race, every creed, and every corner of the world. We can touch their names and hear their voices and glimpse the small items that speak to the beauty of their lives. A wedding ring. A dusty helmet. A shining badge.
Here we tell their story, so that generations yet unborn will never forget. Of coworkers who led others to safety. Passengers who stormed a cockpit. Our men and women in uniform who rushed into an inferno. Our first responders who charged up those stairs. A generation of servicemembers — our 9/11 Generation — who have served with honor in more than a decade of war. A nation that stands tall and united and unafraid — because no act of terror can match the strength or the character of our country. Like the great wall and bedrock that embrace us today, nothing can ever break us; nothing can change who we are as Americans.
On that September morning, Alison Crowther lost her son Welles. Months later, she was reading the newspaper — an article about those final minutes in the towers. Survivors recounted how a young man wearing a red handkerchief had led them to safety. And in that moment, Alison knew. Ever since he was a boy, her son had always carried a red handkerchief. Her son Welles was the man in the red bandana.
Welles was just 24 years old, with a broad smile and a bright future. He worked in the South Tower, on the 104th floor. He had a big laugh, a joy of life, and dreams of seeing the world. He worked in finance, but he had also been a volunteer firefighter. And after the planes hit, he put on that bandana and spent his final moments saving others.
Three years ago this month, after our SEALs made sure that justice was done, I came to Ground Zero. And among the families here that day was Alison Crowther. And she told me about Welles and his fearless spirit, and she showed me a handkerchief like the one he wore that morning.
And today, as we saw on our tour, one of his red handkerchiefs is on display in this museum. And from this day forward, all those who come here will have a chance to know the sacrifice of a young man who — like so many — gave his life so others might live.
Those we lost live on in us. In the families who love them still. In the friends who remember them always. And in a nation that will honor them, now and forever.
And today it is my honor to introduce two women forever bound by that day, united in their determination to keep alive the true spirit of 9/11 — Welles Crowther’s mother Alison, and one of those he saved, Ling Young. (Applause.)
Jayke says
Because fundamentally “transforming” America has nothing to do with “changing” it now does it?
Softly Bob says
This goon is all hogwash and fork-tongued fantasy. He does not know what an American is and I doubt very much if he is American. I don’t believe that he is a Muslim, but he has a nostalgic fondness for Islam. He’s a Marxist and a narcissist and very possibly a pathological compulsive liar.
The closest political description I could give, even though it is not accurate, is that he is a Baathist.
Obama is also a deceiver and possibly a sociopath. His universe centers around Barack Obama. He worships no god but himself.
rev g says
It matters not whether he is muslim, Marxist, or some hybrid of the two. What is evident is that he has found that he can use the ploy of defending islam as a means toward controlling the proper thoughts and actions of America.
This federally forced islamic apologetics serves both of those interests.
As they say about gun control, it isn’t about the guns, it is about control.
Why is it I don’t see his statements like “nothing can break us” as more of a dare than an assertion of our strength?
Clare says
Only a person like you describe could be given a script like this and read it out; month after month, year after year. A poseur.
Wellington says
Worse than Obama are all those Americans who continue to take this man seriously.
Rick Spencer says
“Worse than Obama are all those Americans who continue to take this man seriously.”
I say, worse than these are the Americans that cannot see that 9/11 was an inside job! Yes, an INSIDE JOB! (Hey, the official “9/11 Report” didn’t even mention WTC 7. Surely, we must ask “why?”. Do your own research, people!)
Clearsighted says
Surely, we don’t.
Tradewinds says
Hey Rick – how’s loonwatch going? Loony as ever? That’s obvious.
Wellington says
Lot’s of luck, Rick, with everything, including reality. Oh, btw, see the Popular Mechanics article on 9/11, including what happened to WTC 7, though somehow I already kinda’ get the feeling it won’t do any good even if you do.
Again, Rick, great good luck with staying in touch with reality. I hope you do but, no offense, I wouldn’t be bettin’ on it in your case.
John Haller says
I heard they faked the whole Apollo 11 Moon landing on the roof of WTC7, that’s why it had to be destroyed…or something.
Jay Boo says
@Rick Spencer
Islam is built upon willful ignorance
“You unlock this door with the key of imagination. Beyond it is another dimension – a dimension of sound, a dimension of sight, a dimension of mind. You’re moving into a land of both shadow and substance, of things and ideas. You’ve just crossed over into the Twilight Zone!”
John C. Barile says
I just heard the plaintive cry of the loon.
John C. Barile says
While I was somnambulating somewhere between facts and fantasy
Kepha says
@RIck Spencer: I’m sure it was the JOOOOOOOOZ (sarc).
Uri says
You took George Bush seriously. He was a bufoon.
Uri says
Wellington
The clown George Bush was your hero. I mean seriously…
Jay Boo says
This is about Obama
What do you wish to say about Obama?
Wellington says
My hero, Uri? When did I ever say that Bush 43 was my hero?
Though I will say this much about him: He’s a good man (and definitely smarter, more knowledgeable and possessed of more common sense than Obama) who, when President, had to intervene in Iraq to take out a megalomaniac whom every major intelligence agency on the planet thought was still hiding WMDs and who was slaugthering his own people in a critical geopolitical region of the world and at levels that went beyond what the most powerful country on earth can allow without losing face. Bush also had to go into Afghanistan. One knows all this or should know it. Seems you don’t.
Where Bush went wrong was in his quite inadequate understanding of Islam. This led him to think erroneous things like Moms and Pops in Iraq and Afghanistan really want the same future for their children that Moms and Pops in Iowa and Texas do. Huge mistake since Islam is malevolent and distorts the mind of its believers. What Bush should have done was take out Saddam Hussein, forget about the democracy stuff and place an authoritarian type in the Mubarak mold in charge of Iraq and in Afghanistan just decimate al-Qaeda and the Taliban with Special Forces as much as possible and forget about the damn nation-builiding crap. That he didn’t do these things is quite arguably the greatest error of his presidency.
Your turn. If you’re able that is. Go ahead, give it a shot.
rev g says
Strangely, Hillary and the Obama admin are defending not calling Boko Haram a terrorist group last year by referring to “available intelligence” and even the input from Nigeria’s government. Seems like a poor defense. I mean, when “W.” used the same style defense for the WMD’s in Iraq statement, he was vilified. Never mind the actual existence of NBC weapons or supplies in Iraq, and the movement of such materials to Syria by the Iraqi’s. You know, the same chemical weapons that the press calls WMD’s these days. I guess back then, they didn’t count. Of course, today pressure cookers are considered WMD’s. so there ya have it.
Bush was not an iconic president. However, in comparison to the current pretender, he is head and shoulders better.
Let’s not even start on the Benghazi debacle.
Bush, like the rest of the west it seems, keeps trying to make nice with islam and looks at it similar to Judeo-Christian religious ideals, just a little different. This is a critical mistake.
Our only real choices for islam seem to be containment or eradication, which ironically are exactly what they see as their choices for us.
Kepha says
@Wellington and rev. G.:
I go by the Psalmist’s “Put no confidence in princes” (Ps. 146:3), but I believe what you two put out stand among the best comparisons of Bush II and the O that I have read. Count me in your cheering corner.
It is utterly disgusting to see the causal assumption on the part of Uri and people like him that “everyone knows that Bush is stupid and evil; but Obama (and Hillary) should always get a pass”. Somewhere else SAKOVT wrote about how we’re losing our moral compass. I see the same thing in the media, which too many people uncritically accept as Gospel (or, if you’re Thai, Sutta Pali).
livingengine says
“But above all, to reaffirm the true spirit of 9/11 — love, compassion, sacrifice — and to enshrine it forever in the heart of our nation.”
Man, that’s corny!
Jay Boo says
That is not so bad by Obama standards.
I would have suspected that he would have searched high and low for any token Muslim to put on display while telling us how tragic it is that Islamophobia is the real ememy.
jewdog says
I sure do miss President Reagan’s direct approach, in contrast to Obama’s puffy platitudes. I wonder if he even understands much about Islam. I doubt it, because if he did he would have the confidence to talk about it. That’s too bad, because victory often has more to do with ideas than force – the pen is mightier than the sword.
steve says
No, the “pen” is NOT mightier than the sword – look no further than the United Nations – for the past 60 years! They have issued more resolutions, condemnations, rules and blow-hard statements over the past 6 decades than all of the nations combined – and what has that accomplished? Hmmm? Stop believing that hogwash and start believing in the power of Hellfire Missiles, Tomahawk Cruise missiles, a well trained American Soldier or Marine with a rifle to deal with the Savages that call themselves Islamists. My big beef with George W. Bush and his “team” was that he invaded the wrong country (Iraq) and in both operations (Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom-Afghanistan) is that we did not commit to all out war – STOP with this nation building crap and make both places a howling wilderness – and do the same to ANY nation that harbors these animals. After the next attack on US Soil, and trust me, there will be another attack -start the internment camps, go after the Saudis the Quataris, Iranians, Iraqis, Pakis etc..now, how can we do all that – simple – NUKES. Tactical, small scale – destroy the head of the snakes..use ALL of our military power. I comment as a 20 + year veteran of US Army Special Forces who has seen far too many of my fellow soldiers and brothers in Arms dying in those crapholes for what? Their “freedom”? They can have no freedom under the yoke of tyranny called Islam.
Carol Schlismann says
The analogy of Pres. Obama’s interpretation of 9/11 ignores the context. How about the evil of wanting to murder many thousands of people to demonstrate the power of their disgusting “religion”, the unnecessary deaths of people who merely went to work one morning, the hopes of the perpetrators that their dastardly act would result in attracting people to their hideous, uncivilized creed? That speech certainly accentuates the positive! Yes, people can and do rise to the occasion in an emergency – but a totally gratuitous mass murder should be seen as such, and Muslims should be pointed out as the threat they are.
Bezelel says
POS O is a disgrace to the US, everything that comes out of his mouth is an insult,either blatant or benign.
judith roth says
Empty rhetoric from the muslim-in-chief.
Jack Diamond says
An “act of terror” and now justice has been done. It begins and ends with Osama bin Laden. That’s the revisionist 9/11. Oblivious to global jihad and the Muslim governments (and banks, charities, da’wa propaganda networks) for which they are their proxies– including on 9/11, and of the many thousands of jihad terror attacks since–oblivious to the ideology behind it, oblivious of anything but the imperative to protect Islam at all costs from being linked to the violence routinely done in its name and the hatred inculcated in its followers.
Daniel Greenfield wrote some memorable words about 9/11, that it is:
“a day for remembering that we are at war and why we are at war. It is a time to recall that there are enemies around us who wish to kill us…a wake up call that the tidal flood of violence and hate of the Jihad that demands the blood of the Infidel, knows no boundaries. That it will come here as surely as it has come to Israel and Europe and Asia. That it is already here. That is the lesson of 9/11.
“The instinctive lesson of growing up in a world with evil, is to either fight against that evil or submit and join with it–from the soldiers moving across Afghan provinces to antiwar activists in keffiyahs chanting on the streets of Berkely, choices are being made. And while only a minority are making them, the day is coming when no one will avoid being able to stand on one side or another. 9/11 is the day we are all reminded of the illusion of the bystander… apathy will not banish that lurking evil, our choice, as for so many victims of Islam over more than a millennium, is to submit or to resist. There is no window between us and it. On 9/11 the war came home.
“The enemy we have fought for 8 years is only the most brutal, radical and impatient part of the horde that is breaking across England, Sweden, France, Israel, Thailand, the Philippines, Kenya and Somalia. The thousands dead on 9/11 and the thousands more dead since then, are only a small down payment on the horrors to come…Al Qaeda..a small group that is only a finger of a vast dark hand sweeping across the globe… the horde is building its own nations in the cities of Europe and in the old manufacturing centers of America, in Gaza and in the south of Thailand…it is not only a war fought with falling towers. It is also a war fought with billboards and acid to the face, with bribes carefully dispensed and with smuggling operations moving cigarettes, slaves, and heroin across borders. It is a war fought with Fatwas and the severed heads of schoolgirls. It is fought with polygamy and pregnancies. With IEDs and soft spoken words about the Religion of Peace.
“Terrorists are not small isolated groups with grievances, they are well-funded and armed proxies of enemy countries. These countries use them to make war, without putting their own soldiers in harms way. We are not fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan. We are fighting Iran in Afghanistan. We are fighting Iranian money and Iranian bombs…in the same way, Israel is fighting Iran and Saudi Arabia. And Europe is fighting Saudi Arabia at home. And America is fighting Pakistan and Saudi Arabia at home too…its about terrorist groups being used to sow chaos, fear and doubt. Its about using those groups to destroy their enemies economically and politically, bankrupting them, breaking their morale and isolating them internationally. That is what is being done to Israel. It is what is being done to America…well-funded campaigns are being waged against America and Israel from all directions..it is easy to see only a few men in masks firing machine guns or throwing grenades but they are only the tip of a spear that is being held hundreds and thousands of miles away.
“On 9/11 Al Qaeda acted in the name of Islam. Al Qaeda was not some random fringe group. Al Qaeda drew its ideological support from the Muslim Brotherhood, the largest Muslim political group in the world. It and its allies drew on financial support from the governments of some of the world’s largest and most influential Muslim countries in the world, including Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the UAE. These are countries which comprise some 200 million Muslims. Meanwhile the vast majority of Muslims in poll after poll agree with Al Qaeda’s goals, they only disagree with its methods. Al Qaeda’s goals involve the forcible application of Islamic law in Muslim countries that reduces non-Muslims and women to second class status. The vast majority of Muslims agree with Al Qaeda that America is the enemy and that the US should be forced out of Muslim countries..(with) a worldview that supports bigotry and tyranny, caning women and beheading men for offenses against Islamic law. And this is what most Muslims want to see enforced.
“A straight reading of the Koran shows that Mohammad and his followers acted in much the same way that Al Qaeda does. Mohammad made war upon non Muslims in order to enforce Islamic law. He engaged in mass murder and terrorism. His men beheaded, looted, raped and assassinated men and women as part of their campaign of terror. And the Koran contains plenty of verses depriving non Muslims of their rights and calling upon Muslims to murder them. Western politicians may insist that Al Qaeda has nothing to do with Islam but Al Qaeda derives from Islam. There is no Al Qaeda without Islam.”
That’s what could have been said at the dedication.
John Haller says
Well said.
Tradewinds says
No mention of the perpetrators – Islam and Muslims – of course. Hussein would never dare defame the “religion of peace.”
Jay Boo says
Sept 11, 2001
The day when extremists misinterpreted the1400 years filled with nothing but the peaceful benevolence of Islam and card carrying leftists issued a blanket of apologies for any possible slight that may have caused this sudden outburst of unexplainable violence.
duh_swami says
“The future must not belong to those who slander the Prophet of Islam’…That’s not humorous or fantasy, is it?
dumbledoresarmy says
It would have been better if there had been, instead, a public reading of this, with perhaps some added remarks.
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/the-lesson-of-algeria-islam-is-indivisible-1566770.html
CONOR CRUISE O’BRIEN
Friday 6 January 1995
The lesson of Algeria: Islam is indivisible
Opening paragraphs:
“”Fundamentalist Islam” is a misnomer which dulls our perceptions in a dangerous way. It does so by implying that there is some other kind of Islam, which is well disposed to those who reject the Koran.
” There isn’t.
“Islam is a universalist, triumphalist and political religion. It claims de jure dominion over all humanity; that is God’s [sic: allah’s] will.
“The actual state of affairs, with unbelievers of various sorts dominating most of the world, is a suspension of God’s [allah’s] will and a scandal to the faithful.
“The world is divided between the House of Islam and the House of War, meaning the rest of us.
“For more than two centuries now, the House of War has been in the ascendant, and the House of Islam has been abased.
” The remedy for this unnatural and intolerable state of affairs is jihad. Jihad is defined as “the religious duty imposed on all Muslims to wage war upon those who do not accept the doctrines of Islam”. ..”
“What is going on today in the Muslim world is not the advent of some aberrant thing called Islamic fundamentalism but a revival of Islam itself – the real thing – which Western ascendancy and Westernised post-Muslim elites no longer have the capacity to muffle and control. The jihad is back…”.
Or of this: Oriana Fallaci, “The Rage and the Pride”. Either the whole thing, or selected excerpts.
http://italian.about.com/library/fallaci/blfallaci01i.htm
(Click on the link, you’ll find a site where you can read the whole thing in both Italian and English).
dumbledoresarmy says
Nothing to stop a band of patriots getting together at the new memorial, anytime from now on, and recording themselves reading those texts, at that place; and then putting it up on youtube or suchlike.
GFWarhol says
“Nothing can ever break us.”
I would ask obummer just who he means by “us!” He may well not mean the American people.
Bronson says
Caught a bit of (Mu)barack Hussein Obama delivering his address and it lthere was no emotion, no acknowledgement of the reason why they were there. Just a dead face talking.
JH Laprime says
Mr. Obama just had to obliquely refer to his “killing of UBL ” one more time!
mark says
That is a lame speech by one who did not want to be there. There is no way he could avoid a scandal by not showing up. So he went, and the word to his seventy-plus speech writers must have been to be careful not to offend the terrorists. Probably he did not even write his own book.
Mirren10 says
The blatant hypocrisy, and self-serving bombast of this miserable excuse for a man, makes me feel physically ill.
As graven says, if one didn’t know what happened on 9/11, one would assume he was referring to a natural disaster of some kind, or a ‘tragedy’ created by ‘human error’. Faugh.