NEVER FORGET - The 9/11/01 New Math!!!

[ryoder]

Shoto - I agree with you. It is painful to remember but we cannot forget that day.
Teachers aren't even teaching it anymore. Most kids don't know who Bin Laden is. The day he died, the top search on the internet and top tweet on Twitter was "Who is osama bin laden". This is the fault of our overly PC society where we do not want to admit that so many in the world hate us here in the US.

Do you guys know that Bin Laden is beloved in the Arab world? He actually has higher poll numbers in Pakistan that Obama has here. His poll numbers were very high in Pakistan right after 9/11.

Bin Laden's approval rating in Pakistan in 2007 was 46% while the US backed president Musharaff's rating was only 38%.

[mrs.b]

Shoto - I agree with you. It is painful to remember but we cannot forget that day.
Teachers aren't even teaching it anymore. Most kids don't know who Bin Laden is. The day he died, the top search on the internet and top tweet on Twitter was "Who is osama bin laden". This is the fault of our overly PC society where we do not want to admit that so many in the world hate us here in the US.

I'm not sure about other schools, but I was shocked to see the daily reading story come home in my son's homework folder Monday. It goes back to class the next morning. I wish I'd saved a copy. He's in second grade, so it was very basic, and concluded with a brief mention of the true damage, something like, "many people died." My husband and I were initially bothered they would expose young children to something so tragic (our son is autistic, though very high functioning and mainstreamed, but it took much explaining on our parts to minimize his terror that a plane would come through his bedroom window). After some discussion, we decided it's a good thing in the end. If children can watch superhero shows with villains that attack buildings and make violent plans to take over cities, they can know real life villains exist, and that it's not funny when a building like that comes down because people are often inside. We have to handle our particular case carefully, but sheltering children just because it's tragic just results in a society like pre-9/11 that gets complacent and thinks "it can't happen here."

[skyfall123]

Most kids don't know who Bin Laden is.

A lot of adults don't really know who he is/was and what really motivated him either. This topic is covered in detail here CNN.com - Transcripts

[OE800_85]

perhaps the whole "who is bin laden" search was meant to get MORE information about him, like a biography. Even here in China I haven't met a single person who doesn't know the name and generally what he did, but they don't know many details. As I'd say most people on this board (well informed and educated people, mind you) probably know very little of his life. It doesn't hurt to know your enemy...I mean, we spend quite a while studying Hitler in school too.

Personally I always saw Osama Bin Laden as a kind of Frankenstein. I mean, America more or less created, trained, armed, and angered, him and his men. I think that's an important lesson for kids to learn. The mistake wasn't being complacent about safety in the us. The real mistake was being complacent about dangers caused by the us around the world.

Seriously, I implore you to not delete my post this time. I think i'm being very reasonable and allowing for open debate, expressing myself freely. Isn't that what soldiers fight for every day?

[mrs.b]

Personally I always saw Osama Bin Laden as a kind of Frankenstein. I mean, America more or less created, trained, armed, and angered, him and his men. I think that's an important lesson for kids to learn. The mistake wasn't being complacent about safety in the us. The real mistake was being complacent about dangers caused by the us around the world

Every political, religious, or philosophical cause has opposition. If it didn't, it wouldn't need to be a cause because it would be widely accepted. Most causes feel the opposition is oppressive. While some political, religious, or philosophical disagreements turn violent - and few would consider that anything but heartbreaking - what should those now-dead civilians have known and done to prevent their murder? It's the main reason targeting civilians is considered a war crime; few nations' military Powers-That-Be consult their civilian population on the "dangers caused by (insert subject nation here) around the world." Individuals who intentionally target, go to great lengths to plan for, and murder as many civilians as possible lose any credibility they might have otherwise gained toward reaching an understanding for their cause. What it does, instead, is turn those complacent civilians that might have potentially seen some common ground with the cause if it were handled in any other way to become outraged and supportive of full-scale assaults against said cause. Case in point, see September 12, 2001 to current.

While I'll pass on the discussion of the existence, benefits, and ramifications of the referenced dangers (that's like saying, "let's sit down and decide upon a true, right religion") I don't know that any amount of open debate regarding bin Laden and his actions will help me see that his motives or anger somehow justified his and his movement's actions.

[skyfall123]

Personally I always saw Osama Bin Laden as a kind of Frankenstein. I mean, America more or less created, trained, armed, and angered, him and his men. I think that's an important lesson for kids to learn. The mistake wasn't being complacent about safety in the us. The real mistake was being complacent about dangers caused by the us around the world.

You are certainly welcome to express your opinion. I think that it is way too much of a stretch to say that America created Bin Laden. It was the Soviets that invaded Afghanistan in the 1980's. It was the Saudis that rejected Bin Laden's offer to try and drive Hussein out of Kuwait, which angered Bin Laden. It was the Saudis who invited the US to set up bases in their country in order to drive Hussein out of Kuwait (obviously fearing they were the next country that Hussein would invade) which angered Bin Laden. It was the extreme fringe clerics issuing the Fatwah who told Bin Laden that it was OK to go after civilians.

Countries act in their own self-interest. They always have and they always will. America is no different from any other country in that sense. America has and will continue to make foreign policy decisions that remain unpopular (ex. support of Israel) with others around the world.

We did arm and train opponents of the Soviets back in the 1980's, that is true. In my opinion, a desire to create a fundamentalist Islamic state and extreme clerics issuing extreme fatwah's stating it is OK to kill civilians is what created the 1990's - 2011 version of Bin Laden.

[ShotoJuku]

The Thead Topic is: ... I will never forget the 2977 heroes that died that day and I wonder......how many of you, our IC-Forum Classmates, knew some of those heroes too?...NOT POLITICS!