Rush Limbaugh: Another Terror Strike Won't Help Democrats

On Friday, ABC News reported, "U.S. intelligence has received information about a credible and imminent threat to New York City." There were no details, nor was the terror alert raised. This story put me in mind of the theory that Al-Qaeda could ramp it up close to the 2004 election, hoping to show Bush as a failure and thus propel Howard Dean into the White House. No question that the terrorists would prefer Dean, but there's another side to this that they can scarcely conceive.

The full breadth and scope of American power has barely been tapped in this war. I'm going to tell you right now, if these people, al-Qaeda or whoever try another 9/11-scale attack, the world is going to be a very different place. We are prosecuting this war in the traditional, civilized American way right now. We're doing it with conventional weapons and with as much cooperation and consultation as we can internationally. If it happens again, you are going to be amazed.

This mighty nation is going to unleash its full strength. Howard Dean and the rest of the Democrats can run around and say whatever they want if that awful time comes. I don't care. If this country is attacked and thus forced to unleash the full scope if its weaponry, the people that said they would never do anything about it and who played politics with the issue by delaying a vote on the Homeland Security Department's creation and such, are not going to stand a prayer at the polls. The president who's trying to stop this, who's the only president in 12 years to seriously engage this threat of radical Islamofascists, will be reelected in a landslide.

If these terrorists try something again, I don't care if it's October next year, you just wait and see what kind of response there will be. I don't think most Americans have any idea of the full scope of American power, as evidenced by their misconception that we "need" France and Germany when those people would literally take hours to put a single fighter in the air. (And even that would be obsolete.) We haven't even begun to project our strength. We are reining ourselves in and tempering what we do for a host of reasons.

I don't mean to be redundant, but I'll say it one more time: If a 9/11-scale atrocity happens again, Democrats may as well concede right then and there. They'll raise Cain about it and do whatever they can, but there will be nothing in the record that any Democrat can call on to say he would have acted differently to stop it. Most Democrats from Wesley Clark to John Kerry are ruing military force, folks. They want to subordinate America to the UN when everybody knows we can't depend on those weak-kneed thugs and appeasers.

Democrats will not be able to point to a track record of saying what they would have done better because they won't do anything. Howard Dean has said he thinks we can reach an understanding with these people and that we should just show them we don't mean them any harm. Some of you might think that Dean has opening with that. I don't think so at all.

I think that if the Democrats had a prayer with their policy of appeasement, that they'd already be leading in the polls and Bush wouldn't stand a chance. They've been out there talking about this for 2 1/2 years, ever since 9/11. It didn't take them long to break with Bush. They went out there and gave lip service to the war on terror, but if you listen to what they say when they're running for high office, they do it exactly different: "Bush doesn't know what he's doing! Bush is incompetent!"

Now, you might think, "Okay, so terrorists launch again and it proves what the Democrats are saying." Again: the American people are not going to want to sit around and do nothing if it happens a second time, and they aren't going to want to sit around and let the United Nations handle it or to okay our self-defense. The president, who's been dealing with it and who has a track record of success to show for it, is going to be standing very tall if something like this happens again - not Howard Dean. I guarantee you not Howard Dean. You can engage in wishful thinking or doom-and-gloom thinking all you want out there, but it just won't be the case.

Lunev Advised Bush on Drawing Up Nuclear Plans

Monday, March 11, 2002

The recent "leak" of a classified Pentagon report that the U.S. military recently has drawn up plans to use nuclear weapons against seven nations was no accident.

The Pentagon report identifies China, Russia, Iraq, North Korea, Iran, Libya and Syria as nuclear targets, and directs military planners to begin preparing nuclear strike plans in case of a nuclear, biological or chemical weapons attack on the U.S. or "in the event of surprising military developments."

U.S. officials were quick to confirm the report, which no doubt sent a serious signal to rogue states about what will happen if the U.S. is hit with a nuclear device.

Lunev, the highest-ranking military spy ever to defect from Russia, warned the White House that the terrorist threat would not abate: "These groups clearly have received sufficient funds, supplies, support and hospitality from rogue nations – all of whom have close ties to Russia's military and intelligence agencies."

Lunev continued ominously: "... we are in a full-blown war, the stakes are high for each side. No one can rule out that these terrorists may have biological, chemical and nuclear weapons. No one can rule out their use. International terrorism currently has enough power to challenge the West and, using weapons of mass destruction, perhaps hit us with a devastating blow."

Lunev then gave advice that has now been heeded by the Bush administration: "My suggestion is that the U.S. must warn rogue states, i.e., Iraq, Iran, Syria and Libya, that if these groups use a weapon of mass destruction on an American city, the U.S. military will not do any investigations, there will be no delay – the U.S. will use similar weapons on their population centers and military targets."

"Hard to forget that time. For a few weeks we stopped being Republicans and Democrats, or divided by the usual hyphenated descriptions that divided us. I'm still moved by the clips of congress singing God Bless America on the Capitol steps. I think the terrorists were taught a lesson after 9/11...and not just the one we dished out in Ashcanistan...that when they attack us, they unite us. "

=======

An excellent editorial by Leonard Pitts of the Miami Herald on Sept 12, 2001:

We'll go forward from this moment. (Original Title, but also referred to with the title "The Steel in Us")

We'll go forward from this moment. It's my job to have something to say.

They pay me to provide words that help make sense of
that which troubles the American soul. But in this moment of airless shock
when hot tears sting disbelieving eyes, the only thing I can find to say,
the only words that seem to fit, must be addressed to the unknown author
of this suffering.

You monster. You beast. You unspeakable bastard.
What lesson did you hope to teach us by your coward's
attack on our World Trade Center, our Pentagon, us?

What was it you hoped we would learn? Whatever it was, please know that
you failed.

Did you want us to respect your cause? You just
damned your cause. Did you want to make us fear? You just steeled our
resolve. Did you want to tear us apart? You just brought us together.

Let me tell you about my people. We are a vast and
quarrelsome family, a family rent by racial, social, political
and class division, but a family nonetheless. We're frivolous, yes,
capable of expending tremendous emotional energy on pop cultural
minutiae -- a singer's revealing dress, a ball team's misfortune, a
cartoon mouse. We're wealthy, too, spoiled by the ready availability of
trinkets
and material goods, and maybe because of that, we walk through life with a
certain sense of blithe entitlement. We are fundamentally decent, though --
peace-loving and compassionate. We struggle to know the right thing and to
do it. And we are, the overwhelming majority of us, people of faith,
believers in a just and loving God.

Some people -- you, perhaps -- think that any or all
of this makes us weak. You're mistaken. We are not weak. Indeed, we are
strong in ways that cannot be measured by arsenals.

IN PAIN. Yes, we're in pain now. We are in mourning and we are
in shock. We're still grappling with the unreality of the awful thing you
did, still working to make ourselves understand that this isn't a special
effect from some Hollywood blockbuster, isn't the plot development from a
Tom Clancy novel.

Both in terms of the awful scope of their ambition and the probable final
death toll, your attacks are likely to go down as the worst acts of
terrorism in the history of the United States and probably, the history of
the world. You've bloodied us as we have never been bloodied before.

But there's a gulf of difference between making us
bloody and making us fall. This is the lesson Japan was taught to its
bitter sorrow the last time anyone hit us this hard, the last time anyone
brought us such abrupt and monumental pain.

When roused, we are righteous in our outrage, terrible in our force. When
provoked by this level of barbarism, we will bear any suffering, pay any
cost, go to any length, in the pursuit of justice. I tell you this without
fear
of contradiction. I know my people, as you, I think, do not. What I know
reassures me. It also causes me to tremble with dread of the future.

In the days to come, there will be recrimination and
accusation, fingers pointing to determine whose failure allowed this to
happen and what can be done to prevent it from happening again. There will
be heightened security, misguided talk of revoking basic freedoms. We'll
go forward from this moment sobered, chastened, sad.

But determined, too. Unimaginably determined.

THE STEEL IN US. You see, the steel in us is not always readily apparent.
That aspect of our character is seldom understood by people who don't know
us well. On this day, the family's bickering is put on hold. As Americans
we will weep, as Americans we will mourn, and as Americans, we will rise
in defense of all that we cherish.

So I ask again: What was it you hoped to teach us? It occurs to me that
maybe you just wanted us to know the depths of your hatred.

If that's the case, consider the message received. And take this message
in exchange: You don't know my people. You don't know what we're capable
of. You don't know what you just started.

But you're about to learn.

http://www.webpagebydesign.com/passthison/the_steel_in_us.php

They'll raise Cain about it and do whatever they can, but there will be nothing in the record that any Democrat can call on to say he would have acted differently to stop it.

Rush, they will find a way. Just as you say there will always be liberals, you know there will always be clever-seeming liberals with big mouths. They will find one tiny thing to go on about and they will cling to it. However the attack occurs, there will be a chink in our armor, obviously, and liberals will play it up ad infinitum. Bush should have known. Or, Bush DID know. Either way. Oppositionality is what they do best.

But you are right; they would never have gone to root terrorists out from their source nor do they seriously think terrorist attacks should be met with punishment. Like the parent who won't ground the child because "he might fuss," they are fully incompetent to take charge.

And I said you were hot on another thread.

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