On how to "remember" 9/11

Charles Krauthammer on Remembrance and Resolve:

But we would pay such homage had the World Trade Center and the Pentagon collapsed in an earthquake. They did not. And because they did not, more is required than mere homage and respect. Not just sorrow, but renewed anger. Not just consolation, but renewed determination. And not, God help us, "closure," that clarion call to passivity and resignation, but open-ended action against those who perpetrated Sept. 11 and those who would perpetrate the next Sept. 11.

The temptation on any anniversary is to just look back. But on Dec. 7, 1942, the country did not just look back on the sunken Arizona. It looked forward to the destruction of Japan.

He writes that we, as a nation, have a pacifist nature. Proof? It took three years for US to enter World War 1; a surprise attack drove us into WW2, which had already been raging in Europe close to two years. Consider that if Saddam hadn't invaded Kuwait, and if we had resisted bombing Kosovo, today we would be celebrating close to thirty years of peace (absent 9/11/01, that is).

A good read.