Talking points. Anyone standing in front of a group of people, representing an organization or focused message has ’em, just in case the person speaking decides to veer off topic and start discussing the lunch that gave him heartburn.
Yeah, most of us see the need for ’em.
But when our own government sends out a list of 9/11 talking points in order to curb and dilute the message of this terrible sacred day, it shows how far gone this administration really is when it comes to knowing the pulse and sentiments of its people.
According to a the New York Times report, the adminstration said its goal in issuing 9/11 talking points is to “present a positive, forward-looking narrative.”
“As we commemorate the citizens of over 90 countries who perished in the 9/11 attacks, we honor all victims of terrorism in every nation around the world. We honor and celebrate the resilience of individuals, families and communities on every continent, whether in New York or Nairobi, Bali or Belfast, Mumbai or Manila, or Lahore or London,” the guidelines state.
We all understand people of many different nationalities perished on 9/11. We also understand the global impact of 9/11 and how it changed the face of terrorism in the world. Suddenly, we were all acutely aware of the danger out there – the fact we, as Americans were being targeted and hated as a country for our beliefs in freedom, independence and liberty. So, to globalize the 10th anniversary into a memorial to victims of terrorism around the world seems to demean the significance and importance of this one, very real event in America’s history.
Granted, terrorism as a whole is evil and horrible and all the other disasters around the world are worthy of remembrance, but 9/11 is ours. It is a pain we hold in us and will forever.
As Americans, it is our day of mourning for something we saw play out on live television – something we watched go from bad to worse to catastrophic within a matter of minutes.
It is an American’s pain and is written in the fabric of all of us who breathed through it. Again, I say 9-11 is our pain. It is our day or remembrance. And while we appreciate the global communities’ outpouring of sympathies, our pain is sacred, patriotic and 100-percent American.
Further irritating the hell out of me, the administration’s talking point guidelines encompass two sets of instructions, according to an article in The Washington Times: one drawn up chiefly for domestic officials, the other geared primarily toward foreign audiences and disseminated to U.S. Embassy officials around the world. The guidelines urge officials to “minimize references to al Qaeda” and cited the killing of Usama bin Laden as evidence that the terror network behind the Sept. 11 attacks is “increasingly irrelevant.”
Is Al Qaeda’s plotting, training and carrying out of the most horrific terrorist attack in U.S. history ‘increasingly irrelevant’? Does the fact UBL is dead as a doornail mean we shouldn’t discuss his organization’s viability and threat? Furthermore, what gives President Obama and those surrounding him, giving him such absurd advice, the right to TELL PEOPLE not to talk about the perpetrator of this event?
How is this any different from some factions of Germans not admitting to the holocaust or the heinous acts of Adolph Hitler?
When you try to justify why some nut jobs literally refuse to believe in such despicable acts as The Holocaust, you find many different answers for the denial. One common thread is people have a hard time believing in mass murder or the capacity of such obscene cruelty – they have a blue sky view of life that’s always rosy and never cruel. This quote sums it up … taken from a BBC documentary: “Some even claim that Hitler was the best friend the Jews had in Germany, and that he actively worked to protect them (the Jews).”
Research also shows those doubting the Holocaust are racist. In short, their denial is a form of anti-Semitism.
So what is it when a country’s government actually tells its domestic and world representatives to downplay the role of the most evil and sinister group in current history? In my mind, it’s un-American. It’s denying our history and it’s also minimalizing the still-raw wounds of those who are healing from this tragedy.
9/11 affected a country first, even as it affected the world. And to dilute and/or downplay this is just rewriting history, isn’t it? It’s like saying the firemen who charged in to save lives before the twin towers collapsed were just collateral damage of the rescue effort – vs. actually being victims of the terrorism attack. It’s like saying nothing would’ve happened if the people on United Flight 93 would’ve just minded their own business and let the hijackers overtake the plane … that those brave passengers didn’t save lives of possibly hundreds of others by trying to overtake the villains.
Rewriting history or minimizing a group’s role in it leads to the dissolution of our identity as Americans – and we’ve seen it first hand with the relevance of the Constitution in this country right now.
If we allow our government to take one of our most sacred, precious memorial days and downplay the perpetrator’s actions, what message is that sending to other countries? Why aren’t we using this opportunity to not only honor those who were innocently killed, but also show it as a victory won after many painful years of sacrifice and burden by the American people and our brave soldiers who are STILL fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq?
We got the bad guy. GREAT! But the threat Usama Bin Laden represents is still out there, and glossing over that fact on THIS of all days shows cowardice in our administration– long suspected, but now fully demonstrated, out in the open. The truth is simply NOT the friend of the Obama administration. This tenth anniversary of 9/11 will be sad for many reasons, and toward the top of that list will be the proof, with every word uttered by an Obama spokesperson around the world, that this administration is simply not interested in truth or justice.