When Christopher Hitchens is on, he’s untouchable. In this dispatch, he explains why we don’t need to commemorate 9/11, that wallowing in grief and emotionalism is at best useless and at worse distracting. He writes:

What is required is a steady, unostentatious stoicism, made up out of absolute, cold hatred and contempt for the aggressors, and complete determination that their defeat will be utter and shameful. This doesn’t require drum rolls or bagpipes or banners. The French had a saying during the period when the provinces of Alsace and Lorraine were lost to them: “Always think of it. Never speak of it.”