The two essays below are not meant to diminish in any way the importance of 9/11. But we thought this an appropriate time to mention that there may have been plenty of warning signs prior to 9/11. The controversey over tonight’s ABC TV 9/11 special revolves around that belief.
Strikes Show Defense Matters
By John E. Carey
Published in The San Francisco Chronicle
Friday, August 21, 1998
Yesterday, the President ordered air strikes against terrorist sites in Sudan and Afghanistan. Defense Secretary Cohen said the target in Sudan was a chemical weapon facility able to supply terrorists groups hostile to the United States. Post-Cold War foreign policy has taken a new turn.
We are living in a new strategic environment that we do not yet fully understand. Many potential adversaries pose threats to us in new and different ways. Bombings at embassies, barracks, and office buildings show how vulnerable we are to less sophisticated yet determined adversaries. The bombings to date would pale in comparison to the use of chemical, biological or nuclear weapons, the “weapons of mass destruction.”
Some of our adversaries are undeniably at work developing ballistic missiles and weapons of mass destruction. This ushers in an entirely new age of threat, terrorism, intelligence and defense.
Our newest threat comes from terrorists like Osama bin Laden, a Saudi by birth that hates the U.S. and is intent upon exporting terrorism.
Republican candidate Matt Fong, running for the U.S. Senate in California, believes we need to abolish the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. He says we need to prepare defenses against ballistic missiles and weapons of mass destruction. His concerns deserve a closer examination.
Since April of this year:
*Pakistan tested its new medium-range ballistic missile, Ghauri. Ghauri threatens all of India.
*India responded with not one but two rounds of nuclear tests. India already has proven ballistic missiles, Agni and Prithvi, that can hit all of Pakistan.
*Pakistan, despite pleas from the United States, conducted its own tests.
*North Korea’s Nodong medium-range ballistic missile, which can hit targets in South Korea and Japan, became operational.
*A bi-partisan commission headed by former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld unanimously concluded that several countries are developing longer range ballistic missiles and that the proliferation of ballistic missiles is accelerating at an alarming rate.
*The commission said that North Korea is developing an even longer range ballistic missile, which will have the capability to reach targets in Alaska and Hawaii. The commission also said it believes that the Iranian Shahab-3, a medium-range ballistic missile, “may be flight-tested at any time.” A week later, Iran tested the Shahab-3 missile.
*Intelligence estimates and a State Department official confirmed that Iran is pursuing Shahab-4, a longer range ballistic missile, and is probably embarked on a nuclear weapon program. Shahab-4 could threaten people as far away from Iran as Central Europe.
*A new CIA report to Congress confirmed that China, Russia and North Korea have been major suppliers of weapons of mass destruction and delivery systems to “countries of concern.” Countries such as Iran.
*Last Monday, the New York Times reported that as many as 15,000 people in North Korea could be engaged in nuclear developments.
The Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty was made in 1972 with the Soviet Union, a nation that no longer exists. The world has changed. Nations like North Korea and Iran are unencumbered by this treaty. They find ways around our counter-proliferation efforts.
The Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty is no defense against ballistic missiles and weapons of mass destruction in the hands of rogue nations or terrorist groups.
We need a long-term view of our future security, defense and intelligence needs. No single easy answer is apparent but one thing is certain: intelligence and defense still matter. Some treaties made during the last half century may need to be reviewed. Ballistic missile defense may become a necessity. Increased intelligence resources may be needed.
John E. Carey is a retired Naval Officer and a missile proliferation analyst in Arlington, Virginia.
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Ann Coulter made one of the better lists of the troubles that should have alerted us prior to 9/11:
Global Terror War Didn’t Start on 9/11
By Ann Coulter
July 26, 2006
On Sunday, John Kerry said of Israel’s war against Hezbollah, “If I was president, this wouldn’t have happened,” adding, “we have to destroy Hezbollah.”
But wait a minute — Hezbollah didn’t attack us on 9/11!
Wouldn’t fighting Hezbollah distract us from the urgent task of finding Osama bin Laden?
Democrats can’t come out and admit that they refuse to fight any war in defense of America, so they utter the “Where’s Osama?” incantation to pretend that they’d be doing something. To wit: dedicating the entire resources of the U.S. military to locating Osama bin Laden. Thus, in the third presidential debate, Kerry complained about the cost of the war in Iraq, saying the war was “the result of this president taking his eye off of Osama bin Laden.”
After making the capture of Osama bin Laden their sole objective in the war on terrorism, now Democrats expect us to believe they would have been fighting every other Muslim jihadist on the planet like mad — just not one of the main sponsors of Islamic terrorism, Saddam Hussein. But they’d be merciless with every other mass-murdering, Islamic terror-sponsoring lunatic. Israel’s recent tussle with Hezbollah reminds us how absurd the Democrats’ fixation on Osama is.
America has been under attack from Muslim extremists for nearly 30 years. Not just al-Qaida and certainly not just Osama bin Laden. Here’s the highlights reel for anyone still voting for the Democrats:
*November 1979: Muslim extremists (Iranian variety) seized the U.S. embassy in Iran and held 52 American hostages for 444 days, following Democrat Jimmy Carter’s masterful foreign policy granting Islamic fanaticism its first real foothold in the Middle East.
*1982: Muslim extremists (mostly Hezbollah) began a nearly decade-long habit of taking Americans and Europeans hostage in Lebanon, killing William Buckley and holding Terry Anderson for 6 1/2 years.
*April 1983: Muslim extremists (Islamic Jihad or possibly Hezbollah) bombed the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, killing 16 Americans.
*October 1983: Muslim extremists (Hezbollah) blew up the U.S. Marine barracks at the Beirut airport, killing 241 Marines.
*December 1983: Muslim extremists (al-Dawa) blew up the U.S. Embassy in Kuwait, killing five and injuring 80.
*September 1984: Muslim extremists (Hezbollah) exploded a truck bomb at the U.S. Embassy annex in Beirut, killing 24 people, including two U.S. servicemen.
*December 1984: Muslim extremists (probably Hezbollah) hijacked a Kuwait Airways airplane, landed in Iran and demanded the release of the 17 members of al-Dawa who had been arrested for the bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Kuwait, killing two Americans before the siege was over.
*June 14, 1985: Muslim extremists (Hezbollah) hijacked TWA Flight 847 out of Athens, diverting it to Beirut, taking the passengers hostage in return for the release of the Kuwait 17 as well as another 700 prisoners held by Israel. When their demands were not met, the Muslims shot U.S. Navy diver Robert Dean Stethem and dumped his body on the tarmac.
*October 1985: Muslim extremists (Palestine Liberation Front backed by Libya) seized an Italian cruise ship, the Achille Lauro, killing 69-year-old American Leon Klinghoffer by shooting him and then tossing his body overboard.
*December 1985: Muslim extremists (backed by Libya) bombed airports in Rome and Vienna, killing 20 people, including five Americans.
*April 1986: Muslim extremists (backed by Libya) bombed a discotheque frequented by U.S. servicemen in West Berlin, injuring hundreds and killing two, including a U.S. soldier.
*December 1988: Muslim extremists (backed by Libya) bombed Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing all 259 on board and 11 on the ground. (Then came an amazing, historic pause in Muslim extremists’ relentless war on America after Ronald Reagan won the Cold War by doing the opposite of everything recommended by Democrats, depriving Islamic terrorists of their Soviet sponsors. This confuses liberals because they don’t understand the concept of terror sponsors, whether it’s the Soviet Union or Iraq.)
*February 1993: Muslim extremists (al-Gama’a al-Islamiyya, possibly with involvement of friendly rival al-Qaida) set off a bomb in the basement of the World Trade Center, killing six and wounding more than 1,000.
*Spring 1993: Muslim extremists (al-Gama’a al-Islamiyya, the Sudanese Islamic Front and at least one member of Hamas) plot to blow up the Lincoln and Holland tunnels, the U.N. complex, and the FBI’s lower Manhattan headquarters.
*November 1995: Muslim extremists (possibly Iranian “Party of God”) explode a car bomb at U.S. military headquarters in Saudi Arabia, killing five U.S. military servicemen.
*June 1996: Muslim extremists (13 Saudis and a Lebanese member of Hezbollah, probably with involvement of al-Qaida) explode a truck bomb outside the Khobar Towers military complex, killing 19 American servicemen and injuring hundreds.
*August 1998: Muslim extremists (al-Qaida) explode truck bombs at U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, killing 224 and injuring thousands.
*October 2000: Muslim extremists (al-Qaida) blow up the U.S. Navy destroyer USS Cole, killing 17 U.S. sailors.
*Sept. 11, 2001: Muslim extremists (al-Qaida) hijack commercial aircraft and fly planes into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania, killing nearly 3,000 Americans.
America’s war with Islamic fanaticism didn’t start on 9/11, but it’s going to end with 9/11 — as long as Americans aren’t foolish enough ever to put a Democrat in the White House.
September 10, 2006 at 9:54 pm |
This country the USA has gotten way too lax , we need to kick all the illegals out and the ones on Visa’s need to be sent out, back to your country and have at all the jobs over there.