Posted on 04/26/2003 12:34:16 PM PDT by Jean S
Scripps Howard News Service
(April 25, 2003 12:09 p.m. EDT) - It could still be there someday, a large, blackened hole where New York City once teemed with life, but owing to the administration of George W. Bush and the way it has reacted to the attacks of Sept. 11, the prospect has shrunk. With some other president - Al Gore, for instance - the prospect of catastrophic terrorism in New York or elsewhere may not have shrunk, but may in fact have grown.
I don't make this judgment about Gore gratuitously, but because I saw him some months back on TV saying that Saddam Hussein was not the terrorist problem, and that instead of focusing on him, the administration should expend its energies on finding Osama bin Laden. He went so far as to suggest President Bush's preoccupation with Iraq was a feint, meant to distract public attention from the failed bin Laden search.
Gore, in other words, was suffering from an intellectual disconnect.
He did not get it, in the first place, that bin Laden and his operation had suffered a terrible setback, even if bin Laden's miserable life lingered on in some cave or cellar. It would be good to have bin Laden in hand, of course, but another leader could easily take his place. The bigger issue is that he and his followers no longer have a country, Afghanistan, where they can do their organizing, plotting, training and communicating with impunity. Those al Qaeda members who survived the Afghan war had to scatter and hide. Their effectiveness has been whittled to something fragile.
In the second place, Gore did not get it that ending the Saddam regime, instead of being discontinuous with the war on terrorism, was crucial to its success. From almost his very first words on the subject, Bush has demonstrated an understanding that terrorism can thrive only with state sponsorship. And he saw that Iraq posed a special threat.
After all, its dictator supported terrorists, had started wars, had shown his recklessness in various other ways, hated the United States, had developed and even used weapons of mass murder and had committed acts of genocide. In short, Saddam was someone who had the will, traits of character and motive - and could someday have had the capacity - to put an untraceable suitcase nuke in the hands of a terrorist who might then manage to eradicate a city such as New York.
Bush grasped what Gore did not, but his achievement far exceeds a recognition that the most frightening terrorist threats will not go away as long as there are terrorist-supporting states. In what he has done in Afghanistan and Iraq, Bush has had to shake free of all sorts of attitudes and concepts that may have made sense in other eras, but not in the wake of Sept. 11. He had to have the courage and determination to stay the course despite endless second-guessing at home and sniping by self-interested allies.
It is when you listen to his critics that you most keenly see what he has been up against. I recently heard a talk, for instance, by Hodding Carter, a spokesman for the State Department during the Carter administration, and winced as he made his way through many of the common slams at Bush's antiterrorist policies.
For instance, he said we should only have attacked Iraq if it were an immediate threat, which is about like saying you shouldn't throw the rattlesnake out of the baby's crib until it starts to strike. And he said we couldn't go after all the evil regimes in the world, which is true, but misses the point that, in addition to being evil, this regime was a grave danger to us, and a danger we could do something about.
He also said our country is in greater peril from terrorists than before the war because of all the hatreds the U.S. action stirred up. Those hatreds have been there for a long time. There are two things different now: The means of expressing those hatreds in acts of catastrophic terrorism are reduced, and the militant faction of Islam now knows we will hit back with mighty force.
A considerably different point of view is that of the columnist Charles Krauthammer. He said this past week at the American Enterprise Institute that Bush's achievement in the months since Sept. 11 is comparable to Truman's achievement in a 15-week period at the outset of the Cold War. That's when the Marshall Plan and the policy of containment were adopted. The ultimate consequence of those policies and what flowed from them was the collapse of the Soviet Union.
The collapse of terrorism could be many years away. We are on the right path, however, thanks to George W. Bush, whose imaginative reach is precisely what this hour has demanded.
"What did Iraq ever do to us?"
In what he has done in Afghanistan and Iraq, Bush has had to shake free of all sorts of attitudes and concepts that may have made sense in other eras, but not in the wake of Sept. 11. He had to have the courage and determination to stay the course despite endless second-guessing at home and sniping by self-interested allies.
The irony is that it's Job #! for the President to protect the security of United States and Americans, yet so few politicians, bureaucrats and media personalities acknowledge the fact. When politicians and bureaucrats fail at their prime responsibility it gives way to all manner of terrorism.
Thus, regardless of their past “public accomplishments”, those officials became unworthy to hold public office. For, they failed to meet their prime responsibility. New public officials focused on meeting their citizen-protection responsibility must replace those who failed. Only after protecting its citizens can Boulder City escape its continuing decay and prosper into the future.
Fortunately, today, President Bush is courageously and successfully focusing the federal government on its prime moral responsibility -- securing the safety of its citizens by nullifying international terrorism to bring America and the world into a safe, prosperous 21st century. Still, feckless political ostriches can defeat Boulder City, America, and the world. Thus, to bring America’s towns and cities into a happy 21st century, local governments must focus pro-actively on protecting its citizens by nullifying micro-terrorism in their towns and cities.
Freedom-from-Terrorism Manifestos
Yep! Has been, still is, and very likely to remain the right man!
Title should be: "Bush Is the right man for our times."
I would add, "Bush WILL BE the right man for our times", until he is no longer eligible according to the Constitution.
Obviously, I expect his overwhelming reelection.
I prefer a President who means what he says.
I was just saying that looking back, there is no real telling what Gore would have done, since 9/11 was so unexpected. Now that Gore has take the partisan opposition to Bush's policies, he is trapped going forward into implementing them if he were elected in 2004.
That's a good reason not to vote for him in 2004 -- I'm just saying he could have turned out to be a different person if it were he who had to react to 9/11.
Sort of a nit-picky point, I know. :-)
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