"Sept. 11th Families" whining again about the memorial...

[Jaguar]

If we shadows have offended
Think but this and all is mended
Some footnotes would be very nice
But Imran, endnotes would suffice.

[The Emperor Fabulous]

Thanks Puck

[MrFun]

I think the families of 9/11 victims are very much entitled to their own opinion -- no matter if one agrees or disagrees with them.

You certainly don't have denigrate their loss by calling them "whining fanatics" or what have you. I think the families of the victims have every right to voice how they wish the public to remember the tragic losses that day.

[mrmitchell]

It's too soon for anyone to build a good memorial

Just rebuild something and surround it with a park that can be used for memorial space a ways down the road when people have cooled down.

[SlowwHand]

Some of these families never even got remains. Though SOME may think that all the missing victims ran off somewhere and collected insurance, that's not the case.
Your mother, brother, father, sister would have a proper headstone in short order. Of your choosing.

[Dinner]

Having it below street level is actually a good idea. First of all you would be at the only remaining part of the towers and second of all it would cut down on the noise of the city and allow people a quiet place to reflect.

[DRoseDARs]

But in such a vibrant, bustling city like New York, having a silent place for a memorial would symbolically insult the memory of those that died there because their voices are silent too since they can't voice their fervent opposition to any rebuilding on the site whatsoever and that makes us sad and we can't have that no no no because we the "Sept. 11th Families"(tm) are the only ones who have any right to say anything about any aspect of this horrific tragedy that only affected us the "Sept. 11th Families"(tm) oh and by the way this was an entirely Amurican tragedy so none of those greasy furriners have any say either becuase only the opinion of the "Sept. 11th Families"(tm) has any merit here.

Go suck an egg. Hell, down the whole smurfing hen house while you're at it. (Not you, Oerdin. The whole lot of the "Sept. 11th Families"(tm).)

Yes, they have every right to voice their opinion. They do not, however, have ANY right to dictate to the rest of us exactly how this will be done. They may have lossed loved ones, but this was truly an "American" tragedy in the mind-blowing sense of citizens the world over declared, "On this day, we are ALL Americans..." That phrase still gets me emotionally charged, hell the tears are already streaming down my face. The pain, the anger, the pride, and the appreciation for the world's support on "our" darkest day. Yet, do I get any say in how the memorial gets done? Not if the "Sept. 11th Families"(tm) can do anything about that because, as we ALL know, only their opinions matter since they're the only ones who lost anything that day.

[The Emperor Fabulous]

Originally posted by DRoseDARs
Yes, they have every right to voice their opinion. They do not, however, have ANY right to dictate to the rest of us exactly how this will be done. They may have lossed loved ones, but this was truly an "American" tragedy in the mind-blowing sense of citizens the world over declared, "On this day, we are ALL Americans..." That phrase still gets me emotionally charged, hell the tears are already streaming down my face. The pain, the anger, the pride, and the appreciation for the world's support on "our" darkest day. Yet, do I get any say in how the memorial gets done? Not if the "Sept. 11th Families"(tm) can do anything about that because, as we ALL know, only their opinions matter since they're the only ones who lost anything that day.

Last I checked, this was decided by a bunch of artists. I happen to be a professional artist, and I have to say I don't approve of the memorial, especially if those who lost others have an issue with it.

I'm sure if this was 20 years down the line, the memorial wouldn't take on quite as much flak. But the fact remains: it is going to be made soon, far sooner after 9/11 than most of the memorials in Washington.

[DRoseDARs]

And that's the crux of the problem: The "Sept. 11th Families"(tm) seem to think that they have exclusive rights in dictating how this rush-job unfolds. I'd like to see legislation dictating any federal or state memorial be delayed at least 10 years before official design work begun. Give the wounds time to heal, facts to be gathered, villians be punished, and better designs drafted.

[Sikander]

I tend to agree with Drose, but nonetheless I prefer this noise about the memorial to the families domination of the 911 commision and its consequent attempt to redesign our entire defense establishment as an oversized anti-terrorist organization. States are still by far the biggest threat we face and it would be nice to retain some capability there as well.

[Gatekeeper]

I was under the impression that it was Rumsfeld, et al., who were the driving forces behind turning our military into a lightweight terrorist-centered fighting force only, Sikander.

WRT the topic at hand, I empathize with the families. If any of us in this thread had lost a loved one on Sept. 11, 2001, I think we'd be able to identify more closely with where the families are coming from.

Gatekeeper

[Sikander]

Originally posted by Gatekeeper
I was under the impression that it was Rumsfeld, et al., who were the driving forces behind turning our military into a lightweight terrorist-centered fighting force only, Sikander.

WRT the topic at hand, I empathize with the families. If any of us in this thread had lost a loved one on Sept. 11, 2001, I think we'd be able to identify more closely with where the families are coming from.

Gatekeeper

Rumsfeld has toppled two states and killed relatively few terrorists. His idea was to substitute firepower and staying power on the ground for fast troops who can be deployed more easily and would be hard to pin down into linear combat. The vast improvement in the efficacy of air power since the development of the satelite guided bomb was meant to replace some of the lost ground based firepower. If he was interested in only fighting terrorists there would be no need at all for combat forces organized to fight as brigades.

The 911 commission had its biggest impact on the intelligence and law enforcement agencies in terms of organization and the defense in terms of general anti-terrorist strategy. I think in general their suggested policies are losers. The focus on terrorism alone has undoubtedly reduced the ability of the constituent agencies in Homeland Security to do their "real" jobs (except perhaps for the border patrol).

Defending against terrorism by hardening every possible target is another losing proposition. It's financially ruinous even to defend every important target from established means of terrorist attack. Even if we could afford it we would learn to our horror that terrorists by their very nature are much more agile than states and will find new ways to skin the cat. The advantages of the state are primarily size, which means that a state can withstand a long war of attrition much more easily than an extremist group and can take advantage of economies of scale in the battle of ideas. While some of this was acknowledged in the hearings no really useful ideas, models or commitments to information warfare were put forward by the commission.

Terrorists biggest weakness is their inability to defend themselves even from relatively weak military forces. They must be able to conceal themselves at all times in order to avoid being wiped out, and the more time they spend trying to remain concealed, the less they have to do everything else. Bush is a fvck up in so many ways, but this strategy of attack is really the only realistic military strategy to combat terrorism. It can't win the war in all likelihood, but combined with a good and sustained information warfare campaign it can succeed in the long run. Hopefully the next president maintains the offensive strategy militarily. S/he almost can't help but improve the opinion of people overseas toward the U.S., but a critical part of that is to retain the respect of the many people who only respect power or force.

The reorganization of the intelligence agencies is a work in progress, but imo there seems to be a focus on terrorism almost to the exclusion of anything else in regards to the changes. I find this particularly worrisome in the face of the abject failure of the intelligence agencies in Iraq prior to the war (and subsequently to a lessor extent). Given the potential for more or less immediate trouble from states like North Korea and Iran and the long term threat from a broad swath of states who have adopted reflexive anti-americanism as their primary foreign and domestic policy it seems that monitoring states more effectively has to be a priority in order to make up for the much larger number of states who could make real rather than rhetorical trouble for the U.S. should they decide to do so. Again better managing our image abroad is the key to minimizing the payoff for governments like Chavez's in Venezuela to play the U.S. card.

Sorry for the long and rambling post!

[Last Conformist]

*Yawn* Don't you yanks have a trade deficit or something to worry about?

[Dinner]

Originally posted by DRoseDARs
And that's the crux of the problem: The "Sept. 11th Families"(tm) seem to think that they have exclusive rights in dictating how this rush-job unfolds.

Hold on. Exactly how many people have actually been whining? Often times you get a dozen people together with a fancy name who then claim to speak for everyone else which doesn't make it so.

[DRoseDARs]

The ones that always get in the press and whine about some damn thing or another regarding the memorial process. Some of them are the same people who proclaimed ground zero to be sacred ground and should be left a barren hole in the center of some of the most valuable real estate on the face of the planet, Lower Manhattan. Once they realized they wren't going to get that way, they switched gears into obstructing as best they could. Some have decided not to be so arrogant and to just let the process work, but they aren't the ones that get the press time...