66 years ago today and 9-11

From the Naval Historical Center:
The 7 December 1941 Japanese raid on Pearl Harbor was one of the great defining moments in history. A single carefully-planned and well-executed stroke removed the United States Navy’s battleship force as a possible threat to the Japanese Empire’s southward expansion. America, unprepared and now considerably weakened, was abruptly brought into the Second World War as a full combatant.
The September 11, 2001 attack on the New York City World Trade Center was one of the great defining moments of history, a unified carefully planned attack murdered thousands of people, non combatants, without warning, without mercy. America unaware and weakened by a failed intelligence community, a soft military and a body politic who's head in the sand didn't stop the attack on 9-11. This has brought a reluctant America into the war against western civilization as a full combatant.

The war against the Japanese was won after the Nuclear Bomb was dropped. We have peace and democracy in Japan and it stands as a beacon in the far east.

The war against the terrorists and the support network that keeps them afloat is not yet won. If those who died at Pearl Harbor had not been vindicated by Victory over Japan our country would be a 3rd rate power today and the world would be a much more dangerous place. In fact it could be said we would be facing a hostile nuclear Japan as an adversary who's imperialistic tendencies would have conquered China, the Philippines and Korea as well as Taiwan. That greater untamed Japan would be a threat today still.

Yes hundreds of Thousands died to bring this essential victory to pass. They still would be if we had not persevered.

I'm not as optimistic about the future in our war on Terror. Those without vision keep harping on the war as a failed policy. They ignore the successes we have had in Iraq. Some in Afghanistan. And we are seeing a world wake up to the magnitude of disaster that losing this onslaught against western civilization could and will bring.

Remember Pearl Harbor. We did.

Remember 9-11. Do we?

66 Years ago today.

PS: The day after 9-11 I was despondent about the advent of war about to begin. I received a note from someone who was a 20 something during Pearl Harbor. Her Husband went to war. He came back. She made the comment that this would pass.

I'm not convinced. May it never leave our mind how horrible the threat really is.