By Peter Gadiel
09/10/2005
[See also: VDARE.COM on 9/11]
From Peter Gadiel
[Previously by Peter Gadiel: Report From Occupied America: CT Congregational Minister Wants Witch Hunt For Immigration Patriots]
I have a book of quotations which attributes the following to Winston Churchill:
"Man will occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of the time he will pick himself up and continue on."
Treating "continue on" and "move on" as synonymous, let’s apply Churchill’s observation about man’s willful ignorance to America’s attitude toward 9/11 four years after the event.
In particular, an idea that is being discussed more and more frequently:
"9/11 was a long time ago. It’s time to move on."
For us families of those murdered on 9/11, moving on or not is determined by emotions that are beyond our control. Some have eagerly moved on with their lives, while many never will; at least not to the extent of regaining the happiness they had before the person they loved was taken from them by savages. Rational thought is not really a factor in this sort of moving on.
For the rest of the population, "moving on" will mean different things. If it’s the trauma induced by the event, their sense of fear, then by now it’s clear most Americans have recovered. They have moved on…as they should. If it’s a matter of remembering our 3000 dead, then I certainly hope they have not moved on.
But if we're talking about "moving on" in the sense that Churchill referred to — the failure to learn from experience, of acting more wisely in the future than in the past — then moving on, remaining as ignorant, negligent and stupid as we were before 9/11 is…well, it’s ignorant, negligent and stupid.
And it’s also dangerous. Because it leaves us open to more terrorist attacks.
But there’s no doubt that millions of Americans have "moved on" in Churchill’s sense of the phrase: they've stumbled over the truth and picked themselves up and moved on.
The 9/11 Commission and its staff stated a truth about 9/11 so clearly that a three year old child could understand it:
"…terrorists cannot plan and carry out attacks in the United States if they are unable to enter the country. Yet prior to September 11…no agency of the U.S. government thought of border security as a tool in the counterterrorism arsenal…It is elemental to border security to know who is coming into the country…The federal government should set standards for the issuance of birth certificates and sources of identification, such as drivers licenses. Fraud in identification documents is no longer just a problem of theft. At…vulnerable facilities, including gates for boarding aircraft, sources of identification are the last opportunity to ensure that people are who they say they are and to check whether they are terrorists." [9/11 AND TERRORIST TRAVEL Staff Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States]
That seems pretty clear. The 9/11 Commissioners and their staff said, to paraphrase:
"We can’t prevent more terrorism unless we know who’s entering the country and keep out the bad guys. We can’t continue allowing people whose true identities we haven’t verified to get US-issued drivers' licenses that purport to identify people whose real identities are unknown."
But it’s sure as shootin' that the Commissioners "moved on" (in Churchill’s sense) with lightning speed.
Immediately after their public funding ended and they became the "Public Discourse Project," they forgot the lessons in their own Report and opposed inclusion of border security and identity document security in the "9/11 Commission Implementation Act."
That’s sure moving on.
Only a cynic would assume that the fact that the ex-Commissioners relied for funding of their Discourse Project from foundations that have long supported radical open borders lobbying — the Ford Foundation, Carnegie Corporation, John S. and James L. Knight Foundation — had something to do with their "moving on."
And by gosh and by golly, former 9/11 Commission Co-Chair Lee Hamilton, President of the Woodrow Wilson Center, has "moved on" from the lessons of his report in real style. He’s now part of a Task Force created by the Migration Policy Institute, an open borders think tank, to "study" immigration issues.
His fellow task force members include some of the most notorious open borders sellouts in all of the USA: Frank Sharry of the National Immigration Forum; Jeanne A. Butterfield, Executive Director for the American Immigration Lawyers Association; Lee Culpepper, Senior Vice President of the National Restaurant Association; Ted Kennedy; Doris Meissner; Tamar Jacoby; John McCain; Steven Rauschenberger of the National Conference of State Legislatures (a wholly owned subsidiary of La Raza).
And who funds the Migration Policy Institute? Answer: Carnegie Corporation, Ford Foundation….
Some of the other financial supporters of the MPI are: the Government of Mexico’s Secretariat of Foreign Relations; Open Society Institute; International Organization for Migration; National Conference of State Legislatures; UN High Commissioner for Refugees; UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs….
Boy oh boy, that Lee Hamilton. Ain’t he a wonder. Now there’s a guy who can really show the rest of us how to "move on." [Congratulate Hamilton]
Seems like all it needs is a grant from the Ford Foundation.
Peter Gadiel is president of 9/11 Families for a Secure America. His son, 9/11 World Trade Center victim James Gadiel (North Tower, 103rd floor), was 23 at the time of his murder.
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