September 11, September 11, for me it’s all about friend and family. Above all the others, the friend is — was — Barbara Olson, who was murdered by al-Qaeda on the airplane that crashed into the Pentagon. A really great woman, the life force in flesh and blood, how I miss her.
The family was totally transformed by September 11. Not that the terror attack opened anybody’s eyes; those eyes were already wide open. We had had plenty of death threats, and had taken them seriously. But September 11 convinced our children, all three, that their generation would be judged on how it reacted, and they all resolved to go to war. They could not look in the mirror unless they saw a warrior. And so Simone, without ever asking what we thought, signed up for (civilian) service in Iraq for the Department of Defense, and Gabe informed us that he would try to become a Marine officer, and hoped we approved. A few years later, Daniel also became a Marine officer. And so, just like that, we had become a military family.
We had not really considered that possibility when they were born, or while they were growing up. We thought we were preparing them for very different challenges – call them intellectual or professional if you wish. When people ask us what we did to get such amazing children, we don’t have the sort of answer they’re looking for, because we did what parents are supposed to do. We gave them all our love and total support in their endeavors. We set standards. And there was no television during the week (but I personally took them out of school to see important movies like Star Wars and Indiana Jones and Lord of the Rings). And of course we talked to them like serious people all along, respected their opinions, and provided religious education.
They have performed exceptionally well on the battlefield, which I believe tells us less about our parenting skills than it does about America and Americans. America is the one truly revolutionary country on earth, because Americans are willing to fight for our freedoms. Like al-Qaeda, our enemies do not get this, because they cannot imagine the incredible power of free people uniting to defend themselves. Osama bin Laden believed that 9/11 would bring us down, but instead it took us to a war that defeated him and his Syrian and Iranian allies in Iraq, and has reversed the gains of the Taliban in Afghanistan.
It’s not smart to challenge Americans. We love that. Yeah, we’re very slow to get on with it, and yeah, we get tired and forget our mission every so often, and yeah, we make mistakes choosing our leaders. But when we do get on with it, it’s awesome.
Just ask our kids.
As I was reading your column I felt as if I was writing about my own kids, who are probably within the same age group as yours. Without going into detail, a fact that someone with your background will surely appreciate, they are all professionals involved one way or another in industries and research organization that help assure the preparedness and/or safety of your children. They, being the progeny of immigrants from beautiful Iran currently occupied by demon seeds, take extreme pleasure in their chosen professions hoping that their output will slowly but surely chip away at the roots of evil. I wish your children, and mine, a long and happy life. May the good Lord bless them all.
amen, radish. thanks.
Mr. Ledeen,
I have been following your writings and interviews ( e.g. Prager shows) since 9/11. Your analyses and overall vision of the enemies that we face have been a moral compass ( or G.P.S. if you will) as we travel through the various terrains of this “Long War” against Radical Islam.
Continue with your efforts in defending freedom and fighting tyranny. May the Lord bless and protect you and the rest of your family with long and prosperous lives. And have a sweet and happy new year
many thanks arbajk and happy new year to you and yours.
To assume that Americans are all on the same page assumes far too much. This article applies to a subset of the American population.
A long time ago, Admiral Yamamoto came to the same conclusion.
I knew you at Wisconsin where I envied your playing tennis with my major professor who never had time for me. I cannot believe how conservative I have become. Could you have imagined yourself the father of Marines?
Life is full of surprises. And lessons, too: it’s easier to get to spend time with people on the tennis court or the bridge table, than in their offices, heh. I was very fortunate, i had a major professor who forced us to think about things we would not have thought about,left to our own devices. He knew how important military history is, and I did not have the antipathy to the military that was so common in Madison. I was drafted, reported for my pre-induction physical, flunked it, and went back to grad school. I was opposed to the Vietnam War on strategic grounds (mistake to be in a land war in Asia), but would have fought in it…
Thanks for writing. I think the biggest surprise is that Wisconsin now routinely wins bowl games. incredible.
Michael, please tell us or rather me, what you did meant “He knew how important military history is, and I did not have the antipathy to the military that was so common in Madison.?!”
In those years there were many anti-military demonstrations at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, where I was studying.
Thank you, Michael…no doubt that demonstrations more likely were led by Liberalists who never want to understand that the willingness of the US to project power always helped prevent wars, while the reluctance of the US to project power in some areas has often caused wars. For example, the WWII was in the large part of result of the reluctance of the US to project power, as well as the Korean War as well. Weren’t it?
I think the proof of this article is that Osama must have thought he was home free when Obama became president.
good point. and his followers were convinced that the Almighty had favored their cause. what do they think now?
They love martyrs, and logical contradictions are no problem for them, so, the fact that Osama had his fate SEALed
is no evidence to them of the disapproval of Allah.
Americans can and will defeat any enemy that threatens this land of ours. Americans have proven that over and over again throughout history. However, victory can only be obtained with solid goals in mind and firm objectives in place. Yesterday it was announced that Obama wants to reduce the American presence in Iraq to only 3,000 troops. After all the blood and treasure we have spent in that country, how could any rational person come up with a number like that? Roughly 3,000 troops would probably be enough to defend the American embassy and the American civilian citizens working in Iraq, but it would be foolish to think that they could help defend an entire nation. Are we now going to squander all of the progress we made in Iraq just because Obama wants to appease his political base? That would not only be sad, but it would also be a waste of everything we have fought for in that terrible country.
And what of Afghanistan? When was the last time you heard the president give a major speech before a joint session of Congress about what our plans and objectives are in Afghanistan? Sorry folks, jobs are important, but NOT as important as the lives of the men and women who are fighting in Afghanistan on a daily basis. If you lose your job you don’t die. If you lose a firefight in Afghanistan, you certainly could die or be killed. So when Obama gives his “big” speech tonight on jobs before a special joint session of Congress, think about all the people who’s job it is to simply stay alive in that vile abortion of a “country” called Afghanistan. I would really reather hear him talk about an actual WAR that we are fighting, rather than how many union jobs he can try and save for the AFL-CIO.
Our government MUST have priorities, and winning two wars in the Middle East should be at the top of the list. We should NOT be obsessed with how many people can go back to work just to buy more things they don’t need. Jobs are important, but that information can be given at a news conference or at one of the many public events Obama drones on at. But war, the ugly, horrible, face of war that is being endured by so many Americans right now, is a hell of a lot more important, and certainly is a topic worthy of a special session of Congress. Yet we don’t ever seem to get it.
Well said, Libertyship! Yes the withdrawal from the Middle East will be the biggest crime in the right of America, it will be the biggest inexcusable sin that commits by both Republicans and Democrats and Independents as well. Above all it will causes an unexpected chaos there. Ditto, it will give the opportunistic neutrals “Chinese and Russians” the biggest carte blanche to extend their evil influence in throughout the world, through domination over global oil fields, especially in the Middle east….I think the priorities above all should be the American interest, NO compromise with American’s interest at all. American interest MUST BE OVER all self-interests. NO self-interest over American interests, NO partisan impulses over American interest and over the United States Security and NO partisan impulses over high-risk international issues!!!
God bless…
I am so sorry for your loss of your dear friend. But what a joy to watch your children become adults of such sterling character. May God grant you length of days, and may His protection be upon your children always.
(I enjoy all your work at this site, your writing itself is always a treat. But this piece is a stand-out. It shines so brightly with love of country! May it be an example to others!)
“…Not that the terror attack opened anybody’s eyes.”
I for one admit that my eyes were not wide open back then regarding Al Q, Islamism, etc. In fact, even after 9-11, I thought that the Islamic world would recognize the monster within it and deal with it decisively. But that didn’t happen. Instead, the apologists mobilized. After some months of that I started to read more (including columns by you). Now I think my eyes are more opened. On the other hand, I worry a lot more now. Sometimes, after yet another clueless Obama speech or after another clueless newspaper article, I get depressed.
no time for depression, must keep fighting.
Dear Sir! Yes, indeed the awful events of on Sep 11, 2001 changed many things in our lives and even have changed our world forever. In person it has opened my eyes on many satanic ideas in Islam and the real threat on our lives by Islamists and their doctrine. It’s the beginning of new century and new age of the mass terrorism directed toward civilians. Islamic terrorism has become a very real threat for countless of millions around the globe.
“Sometimes, after yet another clueless Obama speech or after another clueless newspaper article, I get depressed.”
Dear Sir! Me too, when I see Mr Obama and the rest sort of wimps in Washington, and their followers of sanctimonious authors and writers whom are a great masters at selling lies and slanders, those fools who attempt to humiliate the US JUST for their self-interest, then I feel depressed. But dear Sir, as Dr. Ledeen said “no time for depression, must keep fighting”..yes, on this wonderful website with Dr Ledeen you will be very so hopeful and more optimist. Yes, we must fight them everywhere and by all possible means!!! G-d bless…
I wish this for my children.
Shalom, Michael, to you and yours and all our children. And if not shalom, victory.
thank you. peace comes after victory, it’s not either-or…
http://defense.aol.com/2011/09/08/obama-counterterror-strategy-take-u-s-in-wrong-direction/
Note the term “honor” as our NATO ally inflames the situation. I suppose you favor the X-band in Turkey?
I felt a sense of pride, strength and optimism reading your true story. A wonderful story of a family supporting one another with unconditional love and respect through thick and thin. A family who is not afraid to follow dangerous paths that lead to human honor, dignity and consciousness.
That is what gives our sometimes weak souls the fuel for strong performance both physically and spiritually.
Bravo to you Michael and your beloved wife for raising such amazing children and proud soldiers. Shalom to you and your family. Happy New Year to you all.
God bless your children and your entire family, and God bless America and a Free Iran.
tks shiraz, we’ll get there.
Michael, you have a rare quality – your words reflect your deeds, your deeds reflect your words.I can’t say it about myself and zillions of others.I admire your family,I have to admit here publicly – I love your wife Barbara. God bless you all.
thanks arkady. most everyone who knows her loves Barbara, and they are right!
Michael,
Please give Simone, Gabe and Daniel an extra hug for me, and accept a flying hug from me particularly for saying:
“America is the one truly revolutionary country on earth, ….”
” … our enemies …… cannot imagine the incredible power of free people UNITING to defend themselves.”
Wishing the whole Ledeen family a SHANAH TOVA U’M'TUKAH,
Abu Safiyyah
dittos to you and yours
Dr. Ledeen – I know you are a sincere man and that you’ve been a tireless warrior fighting the good fight as you see it. But I think you’re misguided in many ways, and perhaps too naive.
To begin, 9/11 was the action paid for by Saudi and other Arab billionaires and we’ve not laid unhand on them. Consistently you mis-identify Iran as the main global sponsor of terrorism, and that may be true when it comes to official state sponsorship – but far mor murder and mayhem is funded by our Arab enemies, and most of the scourge and cancer of Islam spreading in the west, most mosques, most Imam salaries, are almost entirely paid for by our Arab enemies.
Further, 9/11 was en example of the most lopsided and brilliant applications of assymetric warfare ever conceived. With a budget of perhaps $3-5 million, and the covert conspiracy of at most a couple hundred Arab scum, Sunni Islam leveraged America into squandering over a trillion dollars and the tragic deaths of more than five thousand of America’s finest. In the process, we have bankrupted ourselves to build schools, hospitals, roadways, and functioning Jihad-raising economies for our most heinous enemies. Our boondoggles in Iraq and Afghanistan are doomed to fail – all we have done is abet our enemies completely at our own expense.
The root and branch of al Qaida is alive and well – even here in America the recent Pew poll indicates that perhaps at least 30% of American Muslims are still in favor on some level for al Qaida – nearly half of america muslms support suicide bombings. I believe the support for al Qaida probably is well above 1/3.
Anyway, we have not laid a glove on the enemy’s actual ideology – Islam – and have nearly bankrupted ourselves trying to convince this enemy that we are not his enemy. He is not convinced, he will never be convinced. Islam will only be satisfied when we destroy ourselves trying to appease Islam’s bottomless hatred for things UN-Islamic, or after succededing terror brings us to our knees.
Nukes are now proliferating within Islam – yes the Iranians are in the news on this, but the Saudis and other Arab regimes are working with Pakistan to obtain their own bombs – I don’t think anyone will be surprised to learn that Paki bomb are now or will soon be in the clutches of various al Qaida funders among the Sunni Arabs.
So a small, brilliant, satanic scheme by a small group of dedicated Arab Muslims caused such reverberating damage to our civilization, we are still witnessing the aftershocks and displacements in our economy, our security, and our very way of life. The enemy is still hidden, he is in the west in his millions, an unchallenged and arrogant 5th column – our conflict with this Muslim enemy is severely complicated and hampered by an army of misguided analysts such as yourself, and a larger army of outright apologists and allies in the West.
Sunni Islam has done far more to harm and change our life, our nation, and our economy than we have done to Sunni Islam. More trillions continue to flow into their coffers while more trillions continue to flow out of ours. While the latest turmoil may topple this or that regime, it is guaranteed that the void will be filled even worse filth than the regimes which now control those various Arab cesspools.
An honest appraisal would suggest that a few more covert, well planned, tremendously cheap, tremendously audacious operations such as 9/11 are capable of doing what the Soviets could not: the destruction of America.
9/11 showed us that Arab hatred and Islamic terror has no limits. Add nukes to the equation, and a few Saudi princes with a few million dollars, and willing Islamic armies growing through immigration and breeding within our own borders will do the unthinkable.
Do you think much will remain of our civilization when a nuke finally goes off in LA and NY??? We are far weaker economically and our might is hugely compromised since that bleak morning ten years ago. And Islam’s murky capacities to wage more, and possibly far worse attacks has been enhanced significantly. That looks to me like we are losing, and they are winning… It looks to me like al Qaida succeeded to do what they set out, and we are still asleep at the switch…
please try to limit your sermons to at most the length of the blog. this is too long. moreover, it’s erroneous in many places. for one thing the reference to “sunni islam” is false; we know the iranians were up to their necks in 9/11. save these rants for after-dinner fun, please.
After reading the piece by Morton Doodslag, the first thing that I thought of was an Arabic saying: KALIMAT-u HAQQ-in YURAAD-u BIH-aa al-BAATIL =
“(Saying) a word of truth [about the problematics of the Sunni Islam]with an evil intention [of championing the cause of the Khomeinist-Assadist Shia Islam”!
What a strange logic to make the fundamantlist animals ruling Iran less evil than their Arab counterparts through some odd form of mutual exclusion. They are equally murderous and despicable. This is not a war against Iranians or Arabs. It is a war on Islamic Fundamentalism in any form of its manifestation be it Sunni (Ikhwan) or Shiite (Hezbollah). By allowing yourself to separate the two you run the risk of losing on both fronts. As my golf coach has always advised me “keep your eyes on the ball”. And since I have never been able to live up to his advice, I always lose to my friends.
How transformed by 9/11? My son did serve in Iraq, as a civilian, flying drones. He was helping protect those who were protecting all of us. 10 years ago, I was among those who did not know anything about Islam. Now, I have learned the basics of islamic history and islamic doctrine, and came to realize how much of a burden it can be to many muslims, and particulalrly muslim women. I am also learning Hebrew, even as I am not Jewish, which would have never occured to me before 9/11. What can the next 10 years teach us?
The islamists are like the nazis, who etched “Gott mit Uns” on the belt-buckles of their uniforms.
Mistake. The Emmanu-El is Infinite Love.
Thank you to your children for their service to defend America.
Your childrens service to our country brings Honor to your house Sir.
I do not agree with you Osama thought 9-11 would bring us down. It could be he got more than he hoped for with the buildings coming down. Or, he got what he hoped for with America putting boots on the ground in Afganistan. Both might be good things for those who wait decades to attack.
How long has America known where the dirt bag moon god worshiper lived? His #2 was Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt before helping in Afgansitan. Did Osama not go along with the plan for the Muslim Brotherhood to take over North Africa, and Syria? To change footing, and attack more secular governments with the help of NATO? To build an Ummah in return for no more terrorist attacks during the Hunda?
I don’t know, but the enemy is growing here with the help of Billery and company. Perhaps, we all need to keep our gear ready.
Yeah. Brings a tear to my eyes and a surge of pride and good fortune in the fact that by an accident of birth I was born an American. Washington D.C. does not reflect America, the American people do and despite the un-American antics of an overly emphasised few and the determined efforts by an hopefully temporary un-American political leadership America continues to hang together, tough though a little bloodied and frustrated but not defeated.
I hope and believe that we have an elite problem, not a national problem. Time will tell. Probably quite soon.
Dear Ledeen’s family, I am so sorry for your loss of your friend in the horrible events on 9/11. I know that how it’s very painful and sad sensation when some one losing his beloved or his dear. May her soul and the souls of all victims of 9/11 rest in peace.
You are really an extraordinary parents, you are highly affectionate people, with a pretty good hearts:-) No doubt you considered yourselves their close honest friends before being parents. I deeply believe that the Great America is very proud of these Cubs who are the most faithful and loyal to its Greatness. My Great hope some day the USA will be ruled by them.
Dear Michael Ledeen! May God bless you and may the Lord watch over your children as far as they watch over people and the Great America. May God makes your life always bright, filled with happiness, love and everlasting joy as far as you bringing Happiness, Joy and Love into the lives of oppressed people through the Sunrise of Freedom into their lives, because Freedom is the non-negotiable demand of human dignity, the birthright of every person in every civilization on the earth.
Michael, since you have served defend the real values and principles of Freedom nearly for three decades, and today you are serving this Great thing in the Largest Global Institution that defend Freedom and its values and principles (Foundation for Defense of Democracies), therefore, as it were, I would like to call you “the Godfather of Mideast Freedom or the American Revolutionary of Liberty!!!”
Mr. Ledeen, great column. I rely on you to keep me informed on the true happenings in the Middle East. I am a great admirer of your books, especially the one about Machiavelli. We could use him right now. You may be interested to know I wrote a semester thesis on Machiavelli many years ago (1968) at university, expressing much of your thoughts about him. I got a D on the paper, the professor wrote in my margins “You missed him totally. Machiavelli was an evil man.”
I too have three kids, all grown, all daughters, all patriots who have married three patriot son-in-laws (sons), who have done their duty and blessed us with seven grandchildren. One of our sons is military also, with two tours in Iraq.
Ask your Marine sons – Why did God make Airborne Rangers? So Marines could have heroes.
I have the greatest respect and love for my Semper Fi buddies, ever since my Vietnam War days. Warrior is the best way to describe them.
Good one.
Sir, may God hold you all in the palm of his hand. And tell the “kids” that someone felt it was a privledge to say, “Thank you for your service.”
http://pajamasmedia.com/michaeltotten/comment/40585/
There are several people who, even when I disagree with them, must be taken seriously: Henry Kissinger, Charles Murray and Michael Ledeen. Now that I now know about your heroic family, I just might, not only read you, but forgive you for any misjudgments. Good luck to your family.