The Dog That Has Not Barked

http://www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=010406D ^ | James K. Glassman

[mal]

As I write, 1,576 days have passed since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and still there has been no subsequent terrorist assault on American soil.

Every day, 130 domestic and 118 foreign airlines serve the United States. Air traffic controllers handle 20 million flights a year -- without a terrorist incident. In fact, the past three years have been the safest in aviation history.

The United States remains the most open nation in the world. Since 9/11, scores of millions of sealed trailer-size containers have entered U.S. ports, and 6 million legal international immigrants have joined the American population. But no terrorist attacks.

Is this just good luck, or is it the result of good policy?

In other words, has George W. Bush succeeded -- at least, so far -- at the number-one task that Americans have assigned him, which is to keep them safe? Or should we make him change his strategy and tactics?

These questions are especially relevant today. Congress has passed a bill that restricts the ways terrorists can be interrogated; there’s outrage in the press at revelations that the National Security Agency has intercepted, without warrants, international phone calls and e-mails that originate or end in the U.S.; and, a popular new movie by America’s most esteemed director takes a skeptical view of aggressive retaliation against terrorists.

[Tolik]

James K. Glassman:

...The danger is that the farther 9/11 recedes in memory, the less we appreciate that it hasn’t happened again. When it comes to the war on terror, many Americans have become short-sighted, ungrateful and decadent.

Consider “Munich,” the new Steven Spielberg film. The movie, which last month was the subject of a cover story in Time magazine, follows the response to the brutal murder of 11 Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics. According to Spielberg’s version of events, Israel commissioned a small team to travel throughout Europe to assassinate the terrorists behind the killings. Rather than an inspiring story of justice and deterrence, Spielberg’s movie is a depressing tale of retaliation as counterproductive and morally corrupting. In an interview, the director said, “A response to a response doesn’t solve anything.” Instead, you need to sit down and talk things out “until you’re blue in the gills.”

There’s little doubt that Spielberg is referring, not just to Munich 1972 but to America post-9/11. The last shot in the film catches the twin towers of the World Trade Center in the background.

Several times in “Munich,” characters point out that, if the Israelis kill a terrorist, many more will rise to replace him, and these successors will be even worse. That may have been true with Nazis during World War II, but what is the alternative? To let the World Court handle the matter? To try to reason till you’re blue in the gills with Black September and al-Qaeda? Spielberg calls his movie a “prayer for peace,” but it is highly likely that calling a halt to the hunt for bin Laden and his henchmen will lead to more bloodshed, not less.

...Here in the United States since 9/11, the terrorists have done nothing -- that is, no violence on our homeland. That is the incident worth paying attention to. But is it curious? No. The terrorists’ lack of success is the result of a response that has been aggressive and single-minded -- at home, in Iraq and in places we know little about. The policy is working. It has kept us safe. We tamper with it at our own extreme peril.

Nailed It!

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[logos]

When politics comes before everything else - as it does with today's crop of euphemistically called "loyal opposition" - everything else suffers. Including, one hopes, the "loyal opposition".

[Alberta's Child]

As I write, 1,576 days have passed since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and still there has been no subsequent terrorist assault on American soil. Every day, 130 domestic and 118 foreign airlines serve the United States. Air traffic controllers handle 20 million flights a year -- without a terrorist incident.

. . .

The terrorists’ lack of success is the result of a response that has been aggressive and single-minded -- at home, in Iraq and in places we know little about. The policy is working. It has kept us safe. We tamper with it at our own extreme peril.

There is one big problem with making suppositions like this . . . If you had looked around at 9:00 AM on the morning of 9/11/01 you would have seen similar compelling evidence of "success" in U.S. anti-terrorist efforts.

[Thermalseeker]

If you had looked around at 9:00 AM on the morning of 9/11/01 you would have seen similar compelling evidence of "success" in U.S. anti-terrorist efforts.

Yep. I see smoke and mirrors. Our southern and northern borders are still wide open, ditto our ports, inland waterways, etc. We are, IMO, whistling past the graveyard.

Last year I went to Port Charleston, SC, to pick up a glider (sailplane) I imported from Germany. I headed for the Customs office to clear the paperwork that would allow me to pick up the airplane. Arriving at 11:58 AM I had the door to the Customs office shut in my face because, even though it would only take a few minutes to process the paperwork, the union thug Customs official said it was "lunchtime" and I'd have to come back in a hour. This gave me time to wander around the port area. I saw absolutely no signs of any increased security (and I come from a CCTV security background, so it suffices to say that I know what to look for). There were no signs of increased police presence, no harbor patrol, no Coast Guard, nothing. Only one, brain dead rent-a-cop at a guard shack at the entrance to the port facility and a dilapidated chain link fence stopping me (or anybody else) from doing anything I wanted around the area where the containers were being unloaded. They were unloading BMW's that day and I could have easily made off with one if I'd wanted to.

Eight days after my Charleston visit President Bush gave a speech across the street from the Customs house, exactly where I had been wandering around a week earlier. I happened to catch some of the speech on TV. There were dozens of police, security cameras, and harbor patrol boats and Coast Guard ships in the background there that simply weren't there a week earlier. His speech was about port security. Clearly there was an effort to make things look more secure, but I'm sure those efforts stopped shortly after the President left. So much for port security, huh?

I acknowledge that some efforts have been made to enhance security, but nowhere near enough to consider us "safe" from another AQ attack. We seem to forget that AQ lay in wait for YEARS before 9/11. We know they are here now, just as they were pre-9/11. Sure, they probably won't be able to bring down an airliner with a box cutter anymore, but what is stopping them from sneaking a nuke over the northern or southern border and floating it via barge into an inland city? Why is it that people think that we are safer? Smoke and mirrors just like I saw in Charleston, SC, during the President's speech, that's why.

I am utterly amazed we haven't seen a wave of suicide bombers here or worse. Tick tock, tick tock.....it will happen. It's not a matter of whether, but when and where.

[Arthur Wildfire! March]

Yep. Bush's success hurts his poll ratings. If there were more news about other successful terror acts, it might hurt the economy, but it would make Bush's semi-hard line more appealing. That's one thing FDR had in WWII-- a lot of severe setback and fear. If we had lost 100,000 troops invading Iraq, people would be wanting to amend the Constitution right now to give Bush a third term.

[kellynla]

considering the borders & ports are WIDE OPEN and any clown working for an airline could blow up a plane at any time; I'd say it was a friggin' miracle that we haven't had MANY terrorists attacks since 9/11!

and let us not forget, it was EIGHT YEARS between the first WTC bombing and 9/11...

no sir, if it were up to me, I'd deport every Muslim swingin' Hussein in America and seal this country tighter than a Mason jar.

Our ancestors didn't risk life and limb coming to this country to make a better life for themselves and their families just so a bunch of camel jockeys could come here and terrorize our women and children and make hamburger out of our families.

[johnny7]

When they hit... they will hit us with a haymaker. It will make 9/11 seem like a walk in the park.

Al Qaeda knows that when they strike, they will leave a plentiful trail of evidence which will put the kybosh on whatever infrastructure they have built up here.

They basically have one shot... and they 'gotta make it count.

[gridlock]

As I write, 1,576 days have passed since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and still there has been no subsequent terrorist assault on American soil.

I hate to quibble, but he seems to be forgetting these guys...

[Thermalseeker]

They basically have one shot... and they 'gotta make it count.

I concur....

[Cyber Ninja]

bttt

[Stentor]

and still there has been no subsequent terrorist assault on American soil.

Unless you consider LAX and the Mooseketeers.

[beebuster2000]

good post !!

[the gillman@blacklagoon.com]

They come from a culture that remembers for a thousand years and will wait for a hundred for the right moment.

We don't remember what we ate for breakfast and won't wait five minutes for a bad hamburger.

They will wait for another two years, or more if they have to.

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

...there’s outrage in the press at revelations that the National Security Agency has intercepted, without warrants, international phone calls and e-mails that originate or end in the U.S

Exactly right. The outrage is within The Press. Nowhere else.
At least, nowhere else where sane, normal, educated Americans live.

The following quote literally sums up The Press's attitude towards the whole thing;
This morning on Imus in The Morning, Don Imus initiated the following exchange with Senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania:

Imus: "So, Senator...what do you think about Bush breaking the law and wiretapping everybody's phone?"
Santorum: "I'm sorry...excuse me? I didn't hear you. Did you say 'breaking the law'? I'm certain that the President broke no laws in securing permission to monitor several internaional phone calls from Al Quaeda operatives."
Imus: "Well...I certainly can't help it if you're crazy."

The Press just can't seem to get this story to get any traction...no matter how much kitty litter the throw under the wheels.

[SuziQ]

The policy is working. It has kept us safe. We tamper with it at our own extreme peril.

Absolutely!