Giuliani: Today's leaders even more in denial about Islamist threat than before 9/11

Since I hate 9/11 commemorations - not because I think we shouldn't remember but because I think we've had about enough of solemn poetry readings and moments of silence when there are jihadist asses to kick around the globe - let's focus instead today on the real tragedy of what America has become in the post-9/11 era, which is a nation that is no longer concerned and just wants to be left alone to watch reality television and eat its dinner.

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And let's also hear from Rudy Giuliani on the fact that this is not a change, but rather a reversion. We were in denial about the threat of radical Islamism before 9/11, and after a short jolt of reality, we went right back to denial. In fact, our current leaders are even more steeped in it than the ones we had in place before the Twin Towers came down. But the denial was real then too:

All of this should have suggested to America’s leadership that war was being waged against us. In case there was any uncertainty about the intentions of these people, Osama bin Laden clarified it by declaring war on us in the late 1990s. Instead of treating these incidents as part of a war, we treated them as discrete, individual crimes. All of these horrendous terrorist acts, and bin Laden’s declaration of war, shared one objective: destruction of the infidel. They were all undertaken in the name of an extremist interpretation of Muhammad’s call to jihad. But America was in denial. Now, once again, the terrorist attacks under the banner of jihad are increasing and diversifying. With so many such attacks and thwarted attacks over the past five or six years, we must recognize that “they”—those who want to destroy civilization—are continuing the war against us. Yet those running our government seem to be in an even greater state of denial than the nation was in during the period before Sept. 11. Now, instead of bin Laden, Iran’s supreme ayatollah has declared that he wants to destroy Israel, to continue to kill Americans and to establish an Islamic empire including Iraq, Syria and Yemen—and the terrorist groups Iran supports. At the same time, the group known as Islamic State, or ISIS, has declared a caliphate seeking the destruction of Christianity and other infidels, and now occupies key areas of Iraq and Syria. As we reflect on the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, we must remind ourselves that all the wickedness underlying those attacks still exists and has expanded. We may very well be in more jeopardy now than before 9/11. Attacks such as those at Fort Hood, the Boston Marathon and similar incidents in Europe and around the world reveal that many enemies, not just one, are united in purpose: the destruction of our way of life. Each of these attacks may be more limited than the coordinated terrorist assault on Sept. 11, but they are frequent and hard to anticipate, causing widespread fear, the ultimate goal of terrorism.

There is no reason this should surprise anyone. Barack Obama was elected in large part because the American people had grown weary of the Bush-Cheney war on terror, and wanted life to get back to normal. Obama was the guy who thought we overreacted, and argued that we did more harm than good by upsetting our allies. He was the guy who believed we created 30 new terrorists with every one we killed, because it was a recruitment tool or something. He was the guy who thought it was silly that we didn't sit down and negotiate with murderous thugs like Ayatollah Khamenei. So if the American people wake up today to see that our leaders don't take the threat of Islamic terrorism seriously, they should remember they put this guy in office in large part because they were sick of taking it seriously themselves. You can't take lightly the casualties suffered by American forces, and Bush and Cheney didn't take those things lightly either. But after 9/11, it was clear to most Americans that the risk had to be taken if we were ever going to prevent these things in the future, because it would mean we had finally taken the fight to them. Herman always says the American people will make the right decision if they have all the facts. I agree with that, but the biggest challenge is getting their attention so they have to confront the facts. The reason we got behind the fight against terrorism after 9/11 is that the issue had our attention and we couldn't delude ourselves into thinking it wasn't important. For a while even Democrats supported it because the political climate of the country made it untenable for them not to. But their hearts were never in it, and as soon as they and the media thought it was safe to start running the war on terror down as a way of attacking Bush, they did so, and the public's support for the effort began to erode. That set the stage for leaders who were willing to trash the whole thing to be elected, and in 2008, that's exactly what happened. Bill Clinton wanted to treat acts of terrorism as individual criminal acts. Barack Obama wants to do that only if he can't ignore them entirely. Clinton didn't want to take custody of Osama bin Laden because he thought he needed a legal justification and he didn't have it. But even Clinton wouldn't have traded five jihadists for one American deserter as Obama did. Clinton was unwilling to stop Iran from getting nukes. But even Clinton wouldn't have made a deal that helps them get nukes while ending sanctions against them. The only hope we ever had of stopping Islamic terrorism was the brief dynamic that saw America paying attention, understanding the threat and willing to back the difficult effort to stop it. As soon as that waned and the nation just got tired of it, the Islamists regained the upper hand. Now, every time someone suggests we need to take the fight seriously again, the response is, "Oh, and go back to the failed Bush policies?" And that scares every politician in America so they will never do it. We're losing again, but the only real reason we're losing is that we long ago stopped caring enough to really try to win.

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