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At war

16 comments on At war

At war
: Glenn Reynolds points us to Christopher Hitchens’ typically iconoclastic view of the September 11 anniversary: “The time to commemorate the fallen is, or always has been, after the war is over. This war has barely begun.”

Yes, that’s a stronger version of what I have been saying: that I resent the hushed tones that treat us as victims when we are still combatants.

newsweek0903.jpgAnd so I was shocked to see the Newsweek cover that says “433 have died in the war on terror.”

It stopped me cold: 433? That’s about 3,000 short, isn’t it? Newsweek adds those numbers inside but why not on the cover?

The people who died on September 11th died in the war on terror. And, for that matter, so did scores before on the Cole and in the Beirut barracks. And that’s just the attacks aimed at America. Add the victims and soldiers of this war on terror in the rest of the world and that’s a helluva lot more than 433. This war didn’t start yesterday. This war is not over yet. This war is bigger than we are admitting. This, let’s remind oureselves, is World War III.

16 responses to “At war”

  1. Joe Maller Avatar
    Joe Maller

    I’m curious about your take on calling this World War IV instead of World War III? Silly sloganeering or true assessment of the current state of things?
    First mention I heard was the WSJ op/ed:World War IV from Nov. 20, 2001, but I’ve since seen the term used in many other places.

  2. Joe Maller Avatar
    Joe Maller

    … I was also stunned and pissed off when I saw Newsweek’s cover.

  3. Michael Ubaldi Avatar
    Michael Ubaldi

    Interestingly enough: For all his eccentricities and mistaken conclusions, Thomas Friedman understood the scope of this conflict in Roman numerals from the start.

  4. W. Avatar
    W.

    We also hear far to little about islamist terror victims around the world. From Algeria to the Philippines, how many died this year? Did anybody count?
    (Maybe that is why there are such unreasonable expectations about Iraq. How could it possibly be much more peaceful than any of these countries, at this time?)

  5. Ross Avatar
    Ross

    Wow…some people still get their news in week-sized chunks?

  6. x Avatar
    x

    To hell with that, what a lousy article. So, to Mr. Hitchens the 3000 victims are only “symbols making the point that, etc.”. And commemorating them is “kitsch”? I’m off to buy Newsweek, then. They may be corporate hacks but to me they are 100 times more human than CH will ever be.

  7. Yehudit Avatar
    Yehudit

    LGF is keeping a running count of victims of jihadi terror, but I think it’s off by a few hundred, if they’re counting the WTC attacks).

  8. Big Dog Avatar
    Big Dog

    To answer the question posed above, many people (myself included) consider the Cold War to be World War III.

  9. ruprecht Avatar
    ruprecht

    Joe Maller, the term World War IV comes from the idea that the Cold War was World War III.

  10. David Ross Avatar
    David Ross

    W: It’s not that no-one counted the bodies, it’s that those bodies don’t count. People don’t really die unless Bush can be blamed for it somehow.

  11. jeanne a e devoto Avatar
    jeanne a e devoto

    Something like that, yes.
    How many people (just as one example) marched “against the possible outbreak of war” in 1991, just before Desert Storm started? The Kuwaitis (and the Iraqi army, for that matter) might have had a different perspective on whether war had already started. But for some people, it somehow doesn’t count as war unless the United States is actively fighting in it.

  12. Jerry Avatar
    Jerry

    Big media is dead set on pounding the Vietnam analogy home so that the U.S. becomes more like the model they prefer: a socialist, pacifist Western Europe, one really good at making chocolate. But if they bring it off, who’s going to stand up to the genuine uglies of the world? The UN?

  13. balbulican Avatar
    balbulican

    “433? That’s about 3,000 short, isn’t it?”
    You could add the civilians killed by the US in Afghanistan and Iraq and come up with a net gain, I think.
    Bravo, guys…you’ve killed more civilians than they did. You must be winning. Well done.

  14. John Irving Avatar
    John Irving

    After reading so much today about 9/11, and remembering my family’s own close encounters with the attacks, I’m angry and out of patience with idiotarians, asshats, and especially those who live with national borders and security ensured free-of-charge by the USA.
    balbulican, take your moral-equivalency leftist garbage, go straight to hell, and burn there.

  15. balbulican Avatar
    balbulican

    Hi, John. Nice to see you maintaining your usual level of civility. Hope you had a nice day. Cheers, now…

  16. Sean Avatar
    Sean

    Oh that’s rich. Spray leftist venom on the anniversery of a declaration of war against the United States of America — and then you accuse others of being uncivil?
    As far as the “go to hell” goes, I don’t know what other word accurately described life in Afganistan under the Taliban, or Iraq under Saddam. It seems only fair you at least visit the place you sought (in the name of peace?!) to send others.