It was mid December 2006, days before the biggest Holiday in America, the celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ; only weeks after Americans angrily removed Republicans from control of congress in the mid-term election and replaced them with Democrats who promised to end the unpopular Bush war on terror.
Americans were busy working, shopping, decorating, cooking, traveling and preparing for guests. The memory of September 11th 2001, the American financial center, the military command in ruins and 3,000 innocent American civilians dead with countless others injured, had faded into distant recesses of the subconscious.
Democrats had been warning for five years that Bush’s policy of preemption had not made America safer, but instead, less safe. They had traveled to the Middle East on several occasions in an effort to undercut Bush’s imperialist invasion of sovereign and peaceful Iraq, but to no avail.
The red blooded rush to attack those who had attacked us had long passed and now, Americans refocused their attention on bigger issues. The nation was weary of war and in the mood for peace again. Gay marriage, abortion rights, nationalizing medicine and energy, reparations for blacks and better confiscation and redistribution of private wealth was atop the list of priorities once more….
And that’s when they struck, again…
While America slept, the second 9/11 came. This time, there were no planes, no nineteen hijackers, no box cutters, and no missed targets. Washington DC, which had escaped earlier efforts by a plane downed in a Pennsylvania field, was not the forth target but the first, followed by New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago and Atlanta. All five targets were hit at peak rush hour, all within a ten minute span of time on the same day.
This time, there were only five Middle Eastern men, each with a suitcase. They had slipped through security because they looked westernized and overzealous security measures of the past that often seemed like ethnic racial profiling in the years following 9/11/01 had been reigned in. Absent just cause, there was no reason, no right, to offend innocent Middle Easterners legally in the states.
The U.S. intelligence community had been stripped of its right to do the duty it was established to do; to track and capture terror cells, find just cause before they could strike again. Americans had become more fearful of their security agencies than of the terrorists known to seek their destruction.
Following a Middle East visit by Senator Jay Rockefeller in January 2002, in which he privately warned Syria, Jordan and Saudi Arabia that Bush was set on invading Iraq and removing Saddam Hussein from his rightful palace, Saddam’s WMDs were trucked to the Syrian Desert. Bush would not actually turn his sights on Iraq for another six months.
By early 2008, Israel had “accidentally” hit a hidden Syrian nuclear weapons facility from the air at the same location Saddam’s trucks had delivered them six years earlier. But not all was lost… and some of those materials eventually found their way into the new delivery system.
The five attackers had been sent back to Pakistan after their visas expired. But the Mexican military helped them back across the U.S. southern border, melded into hundreds of Mexican citizens seeking freedom and prosperity in the land of milk and honey north of the border.
By the time Christmas arrived, the White House was gone, congress – gone, the Washington monument – gone, Wall Street – gone, most of metro Chicago, Los Angeles and Atlanta – gone! It will take months to get an accurate body count on the dead, and who knows how long to count the injured. Both Bush and Cheney were killed in the first of five detonations, as were most members of congress in session on Capitol Hill.
The dollar collapsed with the end of the U.S. government and financial markets. Americans have only left their homes to search for food and clean water since and people are killing and dying, just to eat. For the first time in U.S. history, the unemployed outnumbered the employed and the future is uncertain for every American.
America was not safer… it was less safe!
Or, so say the Democrats…. In their desperate quest for more power.
If they were right, this story would be a reality. Instead of worrying about trivial special interest disputes between the haves and have-nots, all of whom enjoy the highest standard of living and greatest degree of freedom anywhere on earth, the 2008 election cycle would be about how Bush failed to secure America after 9/11 - and now there is no America… only memories of life before.
On the 2008 campaign trail would be presidential hopefuls promising to rebuild America, telling how Bush failed in the most fundamental responsibility of every president, to secure his nation and his people, against all enemies, foreign and domestic, by any means necessary. Every candidate would be a war hawk, albeit too late.
There would be no dispute over the definition of marriage, or the right of every child to be born and live in a nation which respects innocent human life above all else. It wouldn’t matter what color anyone’s skin was, which side of the track they grew up on, what political party they belonged to, how tall or short, fat or skinny, rich or poor anybody was…because finally we are all equal - Equally hungry, scared, confused, desperate, homeless, without country and broken.
If America were not safer than on 9/11/01 – we would have already experienced another 9/11 - maybe a few. But this is just a story, a scare tactic some will claim…as there has been no second 9/11 on American soil.
Washington DC is only a political mess. It otherwise stands right where it has for more than 230 years.
New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and Atlanta are still bustling with life and activity. Americans still drive and walk the streets in peace. In fact, without daily media body counts from afar, the average American would hardly notice that the nation is still at war. We seldom even remember to remember those still fighting and dying to make certain that this war is not fought on our streets.
Yet according to Democrats, America is not safer, but less safe. America is not great, but weak. America is not built and run by those brave enough to demand freedom, but rather by those self-centered enough to demand an endless stream of free stuff.
If Democrats were right about “containing” threats against America in the 90’s, there would have been no first 9/11. If they were right that Bush has made America less safe since, there would have been a second and a third 9/11….
But thank God, Democrats remain stuck on wrong. There has been no second 9/11, because Bush’s policy of taking the fight to the enemy before they can bring it to us again, while politically unpopular, especially among terrorists, has indeed made America safer. That is how it will be written in the history books, no matter how modern leftists paint it, attempt to re-write it or make excuses about it.
While Democrats go about the silly business of making promises they won’t keep to our nation’s takers, Bush, placing his trust in America’s greatest givers, continues down the lonely road of keeping the most solemn promise any President could ever make, to defend this nation, no matter the cost. As if completely unconcerned with personal popularity, he stays the course and prevents follow-up 9/11’s that could easily make September 2001 seem like a day at Disney.
While Democrats work to convince voters how terrible life in capitalist America is, and how Bush has made America less safe with his warmongering ways, Bush stays the course in his commitment to not allow another 9/11 on his watch.
While Democrats accuse American soldiers of being terrorists and work to undermine their missions and resources to carry out those missions, Bush will spend whatever it takes to provide the only kind of support that can keep America safe and bring American soldiers home in victory.
There is no second 9/11 on Bush’s watch… and though Democrats will continue to claim that America is made less safe by this reality, Bush will continue the policies that have prevented a second 9/11 until his watch is over.
Democrats were wrong to think they could “contain” the likes of Bin Laden or Hussein. They are wrong to think they can contain a nuclear Iran or North Korea too. They are wrong to think that they can reason with people willing to blow up their own children just to kill a few infidels.
And most Americans know it, when they are not distracted by daily media body counts and anti-American anti-war propaganda oozing from every American news room, every Hollywood movie and every Democrat political campaign.
Most Americans wish we could have preempted (aka prevented) the events of 9/11. Those who remember 9/11, understand Bush’s desire to preempt (aka prevent) any future threats. Those still mourning the loss of loved ones almost seven years ago, still figuring out how to go on with life in their absence, fully comprehend the vital difference between preventive and defensive action.
Every loved one left behind understands the reality that there is no need to defend against attacks that have been prevented from ever materializing.
Most understand that victory is the only acceptable option in this war and that the cost of victory is a secondary consideration.
Since Bush was right, the 2008 election cycle is based upon trivial social ills, the desire of some to gain access to the earnings of others, the debate over sexual perversions and whether or not a mother has the right to kill her young.
Had he been wrong, we would be having a very different debate today. Finding a way to rebuild America after a second 9/11 would be the only topic up for discussion.
I like to believe that the vast majority of Americans understand this.
Clearly, too many Democrats don’t! What will it take for them to learn? How many cities, how many civilians? What body count will it take for today’s Democrats to get it? Is political power really more important?
