When America went on the offensive

Austin Bay on 9/11 Five years on:

September 11 revealed a heroic America, with the pinnacle of heroism the self-sacrifice of Flight 93. The passengers on Flight 93 confronted the hijackers. Passengers learned their jetliner had become a terrorist ICBM, and they counterattacked. Flight 93 crashed, but it did not strike its ground target. Flight 93's counterattack is the moment al Qaeda's luck began to sour. That's the moment America went on the offensive, against al Qaeda and the dysfunctional political systems that helped create it.

And the offensive continues in Iraq:

American-led offensive action has also taken the war to its source: the politically dysfunctional Middle East. That's by design. A terrible yin-yang of tyranny and terror afflicts the Middle East. Defeatist hotheads who natter about "root causes of terror" must understand the taproot of terror is tyranny, not poverty. Iraq's free elections and its new democratic government -- by design -- offer an alternative to the tyrants' and the terrorists' violent dynamic. September 11 was an "asymmetric" terror attack on a "conventional" America. Iraq is "asymmetric" offensive political action led by America, an offensive designed to empower Middle Eastern societies that will police terror, not promote it.

Thanks Austin, for reminding us what we're fighting for.