Posted on 09/13/2001 3:25:59 AM PDT by JohnHuang2
The wakeup call
© 2001 WorldNetDaily.com
America got its long-awaited, long-anticipated and long-dreaded wakeup call.
The terror war came home in a big way Tuesday, Sept. 11.
Everything has changed. Nothing will be the same, again.
Just look at the impact the slaughter and destruction had on George W. Bush and Colin Powell, for instance.
For months, as Israel has faced, on a daily basis, similar terror incidents carried out by people living within its very borders, Bush and Powell have told the Israelis over and over again: "Show restraint. Negotiate. Don't use excessive force. Don't retaliate. Break the cycle of violence."
Yet, within hours of the blitzkrieg attack on the World Trade Center and Pentagon and the dramatic hijacking of four airliners, the Bush-Powell tune had changed.
There was no talk of restraint. There was no talk of negotiation. There was no worry about excessive force. There was a promise of retaliation. And we, as a nation, were assured that we would not lay down in hopes the attackers would be satisfied with their blood toll.
Bush, in fact, asserted he would hold any nation harboring the terrorists accountable for their actions. Israel has been coaxed and bullied by the U.S. to do precisely the opposite.
Now the U.S. administration says it is outraged and is determined to "punish" those responsible for "the attack on freedom."
I'm glad to hear it. And, far be it for me to question the sudden good judgment being shown in Washington. But it's illustrative of what I have been saying for the last year. The U.S. has been asking Israel to maintain an untenable course of inaction. In fact, Washington has helped to ensure that terrorism would spread beyond the Middle East to the shores of the U.S. through its shaky, equivocal, timid, impotent, weak, half-way measures in the face of Israel's constant battle with terror.
Does Bush really get it? Will he follow through on his own promise? Will his demands on Israel change? Does he plan to follow his own advice?
Who knows? Time will tell. But Americans would do well to remember this moment – to reflect on the pain, to recall this mourning. This is what Israel has been enduring in its own less dramatic way – day after day, drip after drip, explosion after bloody explosion.
Let me go further. We hear many pundits and administration spokesmen naming names – Sudan, Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq. Yet, I haven't heard a one of them mention the home state of the chief suspect – Osama bin Laden.
He's not an Afghani, by the way. He's a Saudi – and that's where his support comes from. That's where his money comes from. That's his lifeline – oil-rich, "moderate" Saudi Arabia.
Is Washington prepared to issue ultimatums to Mecca? If not, why not?
The answer, of course, is oil – which is why as a matter of national strategic defense, America needs to do what is necessary to achieve energy independence as quickly as possible. Wars do tend to get messy, you know. And America has the natural resources to be independent of Mideast oil.
To do so, however, we've got to decide as a nation whether we are more scared of radical environmentalists or radical Muslims. That's the choice before us.
In a very real sense, we can look at the tens of thousands of casualties in Tuesday's horror as casualties of the radical environmentalists, who have persuaded Americans they would be better off dependent on foreign oil than on marring the landscape or causing undue stress in the elk.
It's time to get serious, folks. This is war. We don't fight wars with people who control our vital natural resources. But we may have to fight a war with the people supplying us with oil. What are we going to do about that?
Americans may be called to sacrifice. I think they're ready for such a call. They watched the devastation on TV Tuesday. They will rise to the occasion – if their leaders in Washington ask them to do so.
It's a time for sacrifices. That means even the elk in Alaska may need to lose a few acres of real estate for the greater good – saving the lives of Americans.
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The stench of death is everywhere -- the soot, the dust, the smoke still blankets the air.
On the ground, burnt, bombed-out vehicles litter the streets, a jarring testament to the blazing horror hours earlier.
Where once proudly stood the towering World Trade Center -- till yesterday, that bold symbol of American triumph and achievement, a powerful slice of Americana itself -- now only a smoldering heap of crumpled metal and devastation remains.
Where once tens of thousands lived and worked -- a pulsating, resonating, throbbing tribute to our indomitable spirit, the prowess and grit which makes us uniquely American -- now only charcoal bones and charred bodies remain.
What kind of animals would perpetrate such vile, cowardly, ghastly acts of unspeakable cruelty?
What kind of demented mind would even countenance such demonic doings -- such hideous, gruesome, repugnant and detestable deeds -- let alone carry them out?
The victims of yesterday's exploits were innocent Americans, going about their daily lives; they were not combantants -- they were mothers and fathers, sons and daughters, sisters and brothers, aunts and uncles and grandparents -- human beings snuffed out in one swift orgy of senseless carnage.
In one hell hour, thousands of Americans were incinerated -- hurled to their fiery graves for no reason nor purpose.
These were not the acts of religion, for no religion condones the wanton slaughter of thousands of innocents. The Koran utterly condemns the shedding of blood.
Nor were these the acts of soldiers, for there is no courage nor valor in massacring thousands of defenseless civilians.
No, these were the acts of despicable cowards, of lily-livered plotroons. These craven milksops flee their own shadows.
But the biggest coward of all is none other than the gang ringleader himself, Osama Bin Laden. Mounting evidence points to him as the chief culprit.
As the Bush administration confronts what will likely become the gravest crisis of his first term, the unity and support of Americans has never been stronger. A nation has coalesced behind its commander-in-chief with unshakable indivisibility.
This is not the feckless, timorous Clinton administration, after all.
Nor is it the Gore administration (perish the thought).
Chills run up and down my spine merely at the thought of how close Gore came to stealing the election. I can't even begin to fathom how, with Albert Jr. at the helm, our nation would even cope or come to grips of with any of this.
Thank God the adults are back in charge.
Despite yesterday's bloodbath, already one can hear the namby-pamby voices of appeasement.
Their watchword is "Proportionality".
"The retaliation must be proportional to the crime", they insist.
I say balderdash.
That would be a recipe -- an open invitation, in fact -- for more terrorism.
President Reagan summed it up best: Peace through strength.
The Osama Bin Ladens of the world are not diplomats with whom we could reason; they are fringe, homocidal cowards versed in only one language -- that language is brute force.
And brute force is what they shall get.
No nukes -- but swift, incisive, systematic and massive retaliation -- proportional, not to the crime, but proportional to America's conventional military strength.
That's the Bush doctrine -- one which that phony "religionist", Osama Bin Laden, is poised to become intimately familiar with.
But it will not suffice for Kabul -- out of fear of retaliation -- to turn over Osama to U.S. authorities now. For years, the United States government demanded his extradiction. The Taliban ignored such requests.
Now, thousands of Americans are dead -- as a result.
Their murders cry out for justice.
My two cents..
"JohnHuang2"
The US is not used to thinking in these terms. We want these countries to respond similar to Reagan's solution for Libya. Toss a few cruise missiles at them and that's that.
Throw out the rule books. Throw our political correctness. Turn off the television.
We must have a solution that guarantees the elimination of weapons of mass destruction. And we must act in haste.
They have always made clear their intention to apply maximum violence to any defiance of the police state. Israel is considered by these people as part of such a defying spirit. A spirit of freedom.
Americans may be called to sacrifice
After taxing and regulating the US into declining lifestyles, what with, do they expect more of? Absurd. They fought WWII on far less!
And if military action becomes necessary, I would think that crippling the Saudi oil industry is one of those things we can do with a relatively risk-free approach.
I think our ambassador needs to tactfully explain these things to the Saudis.
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