It’s rare, really rare when a major media entity bucks the trend and does what it believes. Recently, ABC, under Disney’s guidance, aired the $40 million production, “The Path to 9/11.” This was a five-hour, two-night depiction of the events leading up to 9/11. Having reviewed the history of terrorism over the last 25 years, I think this description was as accurate as possible. The writers were not politically motivated in any way. They could have hit the Clinton Administration much harder than you saw; Bush was not given a free hand either.
Bill Clinton was no different than the presidents before him. Every president from Jimmy Carter on, whether Republican or Democrat, was soft on terrorism. The presidents chose to use the notion that terrorism is an illegal act and should be treated as such in the courtroom. This meant countless indictments by grand juries of terrorists abroad who would never be brought to trial in the United States. It was a WONDERFUL political choice of not having to deal with an issue.
The “Road to 9/11” might have humbled Clinton in this regard. They took it easy with the man. He did not criticize Clinton for his actions. He was simply he was extending the policies of his predecessors to the present. The problem was that terrorism came home in a big way under the Clinton administration. The entire plot to get those planes into those buildings was hatched and prepared while Clinton was president.
The FBI was asleep at the switch and the CIA wasn’t talking to the FBI. Ask the FBI how they spent $150 million on a broken computer system. Ask them if they are computerized right now, or if they still use paper tokens in most of their offices. Ask them if more than half of their agents have laptops today, five years after 9/11. I know the answers to those questions, and you’d be surprised.
The FBI and the CIA have a long history of mutual dislike. If you want proof, go back to World War II when J. Edger Hoover ran the FBI and Will Bill Donovan ran the Office of Strategic Services, the predecessor to today’s CIA. The two men hated each other and their respective organizations continued to rage. Within days of World War II ending, Hoover forced new President Harry Truman to disband the OSS as unnecessary. At the same time, the Russians were consolidating their gains in Eastern Europe.
The CIA was formed only a few years after the war ended, it was created over Hoover’s strenuous objections. The notion of prosecuting terrorists continued until our current president, George Bush. This president turned the tables after 9/11. Would you believe that the FBI was still fighting to prosecute terrorists after 9/11 while the CIA was fighting to “deal with it”? The president sided with the CIA and the military against protests from the FBI and the Justice Department.
Just a few months earlier, Bush probably would have made the same call as Clinton. Our current president is the first president in my life to deal with terrorism because of who he is. It is an ACT of WAR against this country. For those who want to treat it like something else, let me remind you of the stakes. We lost 2,749 people in the World Trade Centers, and many, many more in the Pentagon and a small field in Pennsylvania. A small nuke that can fit in a briefcase would make New York City uninhabitable for decades at a minimum, probably killing 250,000 people in seconds, with another 300,000 to 500,000 victims in hospitals that couldn’t help them.
If you don’t think Osama bin Laden isn’t trying to acquire that weapon on a daily basis, then you need to change what you’re smoking. If these people could snap their fingers and wipe 300 million Americans off the planet, they would snap those fingers. Usually, people who hate us don’t have the ability to follow through on their hate. If you live in a town in the middle of a mountain pass and you hate Americans, what can you really do while sleeping in a bug-infested shack, eating scraps from the boss’s table?
Osama, on the other hand, has cash estimated at $500 million. Also, he collects A LOT of MONEY annually from Arabs who also hate us, and from governments that seek to buy him protection. Does he think it’s sheer luck that Saudi Arabia’s oil pipelines weren’t touched in a terrorist act? Those pipelines are wide open and waiting to be tapped. Such an act would put us all on gas lines in the United States, and likely rationing. Aren’t you surprised that Kuwait hasn’t been attacked, nor have any other giant oil producers?
Oil comes from every bad neighborhood in the world and is the lifeblood of American productivity. We must do whatever it takes to protect that lifeline. If you are worried about the war with extreme Islamic fundamentalists, let me remind you that we once fought an enemy as militant as it was extremist.
There was once 50 million Nazis who hated our souls, and given the chance they would have killed us all. We fought a war for five years against them. How many Nazis do you see today in the world? They are such a small group that they can be counted on the fingers of a mutilated left hand. If we can successfully remove the Nazis, we can also successfully remove the Islamic terrorists from our world.
The answer is not to take them to court and put them on trial. The answer is to keep them abroad. We must do whatever it takes to keep this wonderful bastion of democracy free from those who would destroy our entire society. We have been God’s gift to the world for 200 years. Yes, we have made mistakes over the decades, but can any other country in two centuries have acted as wisely and decently as we have ALL THINGS ALL INSIDE? I do not think so.
