Never Forget
My faith teaches me that I'm supposed to forgive those who hurt me. This is something I'm having real problems with in this case.
posted by Bubblehead at 7:00 AM
Tuesday, September 11, 2012
My faith teaches me that I'm supposed to forgive those who hurt me. This is something I'm having real problems with in this case.
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- Name: Bubblehead
- Location: Meridian, Idaho, United States
I'm Joel Kennedy -- a married, 50-something year old retired submarine officer and esophageal cancer survivor with three kids who has finally made the transition to civilian life. Politically, I'm a Radical Moderate. (If you don't like something on this blog, please E-mail me. Don't call me at home.)
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23 Comments:
As I was departing the Navy Annex - 11 years ago.
9/11/2012 7:13 AM
Actually, Joel...your faith goes a good bit beyond simply "forgiving":
Matthew 5:43-48
43 “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’
44 But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,
45 that you may be children of your Heavenly Father, for he makes his sun to rise on the bad and the good, and causes rain to fall on the just and the unjust.
46 For if you love those who love you, what recompense will you have? Do not the tax collectors do the same?
47 And if you greet your brothers only, what is unusual about that? Do not the pagans do the same?
48 So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect.
9/11/2012 8:04 AM
On loving our enemies, there is no doubt this is being done. While thousands of our uniformed men and women have been maimed or eviscerated by IEDs detonated by enemies dressed as civilians, our ROEs bend over backwards to prevent collateral harm to civilian inhabitants.
For this benevolent concession it is our troops who are actually paying the price, not only with their blood, but with their sanity in some cases (suicides, PTSD-related abuses of their own families, and post-deployment homelessness and unemployment).
Next time we decide it is important to wage a war, let's decide to err a little bit better on the side of our own military!
9/11/2012 12:17 PM
I can't forgive them.
9/11/2012 12:44 PM
"I Come in Peace. I Didn't Bring Artillery. But I'm Pleading With You, With Tears in My Eyes: If You Fuck With Me, I'll Kill You All."
Marine General James Mattis
9/11/2012 2:06 PM
"In this age, I don’t care how tactically or operationally brilliant you are, if you cannot create harmony—even vicious harmony—on the battlefield based on trust across service lines, across coalition and national lines, and across civilian/military lines, you need to go home, because your leadership is obsolete.
"We have got to have officers who can create harmony across all those lines."
General James N. Mattis
Commander, US Central Command (USCENTCOM)
9/11/2012 3:42 PM
Now, who besides a liberal lawyer, a woman who never served our military, or an academic pansey could ever argue effectively with Gen. Mattis?!
9/11/2012 7:16 PM
For me it was much easier to pray for Bin Laden than to refrain from wanting to see his head bashed. His end reportedly fitting: He advocated mass murder and suicide bombing but in the end he hid like a coward. And, but for the Grace of God I'd see him in Hell. I guess for me forgiveness relies on the belief that there is a Hell.
9/11/2012 7:35 PM
http://steamshovel2002.blogspot.com/
A Plea To President Obama For A New Bridge
Sept 11, 2012:
"This is what I did for the anniversary of 9/11 on Sept 11, 2012. I was standing next to my 9/11 sign and I military saluted everyone who went past me today. It was a very solemn day. I didn't expect the magnitude of the response...almost everyone had a solemn face on. I got so many salutes backs and tons of nods. It is utterly amazing how deep the sorrows and sadness is over our 9/11 and the Iraq/Afghanistan wars. It was sad and very teary for me for a few hours to see how the local people have been so deeply touched by these events."
10,000 cars a day goes past point...I made the NH recount it last year. The bridge was built in 1920. I spent 3 months last year doing 40 to 60 hours a week with protesting and I expect I will do the same this year until everyone gives up and gives me what I want.
9/11/2012 7:49 PM
In a perfect world belief in your faith would be enough. We don’t live in a perfect world and we are all human. We all have faults that we will answer for when it is our time. I feel no remorse for killing and I will not forgive a group of extremists who murder for their cause. I will stand before my maker and answer for my actions but I will not be ashamed of what I have done or how I feel. I feel strong about my convictions and I do not ask to be absolved of my actions. Such is the way of life. I will never forget.
9/12/2012 7:16 AM
Personally, I believe all religions are false.
As for 9/11, Washington, DC is saying the attack on the Libyan embassy was a Al Quaeda attack and not over the youtube trailer.
I watched the trailer. If I was muslim, I'd a gone nuts too! How dare they portray all of Islam with such bad acting. Maybe if they had better actors, they wouldn't have been so mad!
Everything I need to know about Islam, I learned on 9/11/2001!
9/12/2012 1:20 PM
^^^Quoth the "Saving Private Ryan": 'Brilliant, bumpkin.'
9/12/2012 2:05 PM
"Never Forget"...How very true. I enjoy hearing where the other guys where when it happened that morning. In one way or another, we can always relate. I was still a teen when it happened and I wasn't in the Navy just yet. What kills me the most is that it was actually allowed to happen. Did you know that in Seattle, the Space needle from the 1962 World fair was also an intended target?
What the hell for? There's nothing there except a fairly decent restaurant at topside.
I consider Thursday 11 September 2001 a day where we might have been caught sleeping on watch a day too often.
Did we make a similar mistake on Sunday 7 December 1945? Alot of our grandparents say that could have been the case. When I've paid visits to the memorials in DC it just kills me. Such mistakes have to stop and not be repeated. This means we have to stop screwing up when we fail to find and report what we've seen in a timely manner.
What else is there?
9/13/2012 1:07 AM
Thursday, September 11, 2001 never happened...
On the other hand, TUESDAY, September 11, 2001 was a very bad day in America....
9/13/2012 7:47 AM
Concur with Tuesday, 9/11/01
Also, December 7, 1941 is a more relevant date than the one referenced
9/13/2012 9:41 AM
He did say "I was just a teen"... he forgot to add "with a public school education"...
Never forget.
Convert or die, well I'm not converting - stay on your side of the world, and I will stay on mine - no one will have to die.
9/13/2012 1:55 PM
I'll happily forgive them...when they're dead.
9/14/2012 6:37 PM
PART I
Looking in the mirror and taking some responsibility for bad things that happens seems to be one of the hardest things for people to do, ESPECIALLY AMERICANS. It's someone else's fault we're overweight or obese, it's someone else's fault we're middle aged in a bad job and a bad marriage, it's someone else's fault our kids turned out to be bad apples, it's someone else's fault we got cancer, etc. etc. As horrifying and despicable as the 9/11 events were, somehow Americans have disavowed all responsibility towards these attacks. What are the common explanations you here -- "We're good, they're bad", or "they hate us because we're free", or "our God's bigger than they're God"... mindless drivel from unreflective and obtuse individuals.
If we take a moment to step back and reflect on what contribution Americans may have played in the 9/11 attacks and follow-on wars, we find the following:
- POST 9/11 COMMISSION: The post 9/11 report stated that one of the reasons the terrorists attacked us is because we are occupying their territory. Why do we occupy other countries? Two significant reasons are (a) a foreign policy aimed at playing 'policeman of the world', and (b) to secure access to natural resources we deem vital to national security. How are Americans responsible for these two criteria? First, the officials we elect -- are they doves or hawks? Do they believe in continuing the current military industrial complex with hundreds of bases and embassies all around the world that is driving our country bankrupt, or do they believe in a foreign policy based on respecting the rights of countries to self-governance. Are we electing officials that are non-interventionists or ones that want to spread democracy through force? Sadly, 1/2 of our voting age citizens don't vote in the presidential elections each year, and 2/3 don't vote in the congressional elections. Second, we contribute to our nation's dependence on oil by our daily lifestyles. The majority of citizens drive their kids to school, drive to work, drive to the movies, drive to church, drive to go on vacations, purchase houses miles from where they work, consume goods at alarming rates that are delivered through supply chains by boats/planes/trucks, etc. etc. etc. The typical American lifestyle consumes massive amounts of gas by choice, and leaves our foreign policy makers no choice but to build bases and embassies to try and secure unfettered access to this resource.
9/30/2012 10:27 AM
PART II:
- BLOWBACK: Cause and effect, reaping and sowing, choice and consequence, etc. are not concepts that apply only to individuals; they also apply to nations. The CIA likes to call this concept "blowback". U.S. foreign policy over the years has created tension with certain parts of the Arab world, whether it's the building of bases and embassies, or the arming of Osama Bin Laden and his Afghan rebels during the '80s Soviet-Afghan conflict, or the propping up of Arab leaders... decades of questionable decision making on U.S. foreign policy makers part had a significant role in producing "blowback" resulting in the 9/11 attacks.
- ELECTION OF BUSH: As previously stated, 1/2 of Americans don't vote in the presidential election, and 2/3 don't vote in congressional elections. Of those that do, a significant majority vote on ideological lines without understanding nuanced aspects of fiscal, social, or national security issues -- I'm black, I vote democrat; I'm wealthy, I vote republican; I'm gay, I vote democrat; I'm Christian, I vote republican. So what happens when uninformed voters elect a man with an entire life history of being a doofus? Partied and screwed his way through high school and college, drank and snorted coke for most of his adult life, fired from or quit every job he held, military service so questionable he wouldn't release his performance evaluations, elected Governor on name recognition alone. And we elect him President... hmmm. Now we find ourselves ten years later in wars that should have never been started, wars that were started by a few neo-cons who hijacked our foreign policy and created phony rationale for entering. Tens of thousands of lives lost unnecessarily on both sides, families damaged in ways that will have generational effects, trillions of dollars wasted, and why? Because American citizens didn't do their due diligence in electing a President in 2000.
As reprehensible as the extremist's murderous actions were on 9/11, we Americans have a lot of responsibility to bear with regards to the attacks. So when you find it difficult to forgive Bin Laden and his extremist brethren, take just a moment to consider what part Americans played in the horrific event. Even harder, look in the mirror and ask yourself if you bear any responsibility. This is one way we can all grow from this tragedy.
9/30/2012 10:28 AM
Just say Hello to all, and off course especially to the owner on this blog.
10/01/2012 6:49 AM
Forgive them? Pull all our armed forces out and home, then test every form of NBS warfare on evry muslim country
10/06/2012 6:13 PM
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