Slumber and Change

Eight years ago the slumbering giant that is the people of the United States was rudely awakened to the reality of Fascio-Islamic terrorism. Sure... there had been a number of indications that there was an organized group of nut cases out there who wanted nothing more than to destroy everything that this country stands for, but we chose to believe we were safe - that we weren't at war for the simple reason that we did not want to be at war.

September 11th, 2001 changed all that. Even the most ardent denier was forced to admit that war had been brought to our shores taking the lives of over 4,000 innocent civilians.

Thus began the finger pointing. A new Republican administration was immediately blamed for not "connecting the dots" by an outgoing Democratic administration that was working hard to protect their legacy. There are a number of indications that the Clinton administration failed to fully understand the magnitude of the threat posed by Islamic terrorists. However, no one before 9/11 believed that Mohammed Atta and his merry band of terrorists would turn airliners into missiles and fly them into buildings killing thousands of Americans.

Of course, we hadn't been living in the Middle East where terrorists regularly straped on explosives - walked into pizza parlors and discos only to kill as many innocents as possible before going off to meet Allah. We were stunned... much of the rest of the world merely waited for our reaction.

Our reaction came swiftly. President Bush declared that if a nation harbored terrorists within its borders, then that nation was itself a terrorist nation. The idea was to fight them over there so that Americans didn't have to die over here. Whether you agree with the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq or not, you have to admit that the strategy worked and at the cost of very few American lives from a historical perspective.

Unfortunately, our successes may be leading to failure. Despite our best efforts, Islamic terrorism has not been defeated. They're still out there waiting for us to return to our misguided slumber. And the politicization of the Iraq War and the resulting changes in Congress and the White House have all but erased the hard earned knowledge earned at the cost of over 4,000 American lives on September 11th, 2001.

Prosecuting CIA operatives who were acting on orders and in good faith that their methods were both necessary and legal, diminishes their willingness to work in the field. More importantly, prosecution diminishes our ability to "connect the dots."

Turning a war in to a police action by mirandizing terrorists captured on the field of battle and expecting soldiers to act like law enforcement, exposes them to danger and us to terrorists. Guantanamo Bay - the much demonized detention facility located safely and securely on the southwest tip of Cuba - is to be closed. The terrorists it holds moved to be held amongst us.

President Obama has shown us his true colors. He is an American apologist who either doesn't know or doesn't understand the nature of our enemies. He believes that he can talk his way out of anything and the public and his enemies into anything.

Make no mistake - we are at greater risk today than we were just eight short months ago.

We're not saying that President Bush got it all right. The Patriot Act went too far, he hung too much on WMDs in Iraq and probably was overly optimistic about our ability to a remove a government and replace it with a democracy - lessons we should have remembered from Japan and Germany. But, President Bush understood the nature of his enemy. Anyone who is willing to die for a cause will ultimately take an unacceptable number of innocent lives while trying to achieve their objective.

Last November, Americans voted for "hope" and "change." Let's hope that change hasn't lead to the same type of slumber that resulted in the deaths of over 4,000 Americans. We owe them and the soldiers that have died in two wars far more than that. At the very least, we owe them and our countrymen the vigilance that is but one of the prices of our freedom. If we forget 9/11 we will be doomed to repeat it.