Posted on 01/04/2004 5:57:18 PM PST by AndyObermann
Safe for Another Holiday Season
By: Andy Obermann
With all the chatter in recent days, one would have thought for sure that a new terror attack was inevitable. You couldn't watch more than five minutes of cable without some reference to an impending American catastrophe. Weeks of coverage and hype by pundits amounted to nothing more than a handful of flight cancellations, however. Now the liberals at the New York Times and leaders, both foreign and domestic, are calling this too great of an inconvenience for our safety.
In a Jan. 3 piece, the Times criticized President Bush and Secretary of Homeland Security, Tom Ridge, for acting on "questionable" intelligence information--basing decisions concerning the cancellation of seven international flights on "gut level emotion". The President, at one point, demonstrated this emotion-based litmus test when he asked Sec. Ridge, "Would you let your son or daughter fly on that plane?" Following Ridge's response, a Christmas Eve Air France flight headed for Los Angeles was grounded.
Now I don't know about you, but this is exactly the kind of decision-making I want happening when it concerns our safety. If high-level government officials wouldn't want their families on a flight because of terror concerns, neither would I. Should this cause some inconvenience for travelers--tough. America's safety takes precedence over your getting to LA on time. Harsh, maybe, but it is the reality of the situation. To me, the truly disgusting part of this entire episode is that some politicians are using these actions to criticize our leadership.
As always, let's start here at home. Howard Dean, the ever more laughable presidential hopeful, jumped on a new soapbox claiming his assertion that we are no safer after the capture of Saddam Hussein was justified, based on the happenings of the past ten days. He claimed, "F-16's are escorting foreign passenger jets into our air space…it's not Saddam who's threatening to bomb planes, it's al-Qaida."
Well, thanks for letting us in on that Dr. Dean. I'm pretty sure it isn't Saddam making these plans either, considering the fact that he is locked away in a jail somewhere in Baghdad. Saddam's capture and al-Qaida terror attacks are separate issues. No one ever claimed that the former would effect the latter. Saddam's capture made American soldiers safer in Iraq and sent a message to other terror-supporting states, but al-Qaida is not a terror supporting state. They constitute a terror organization!! Of course they are going to continue to plan attacks--that's the whole point of being a terrorist!
Rest assured though, had Bush not used his influence to ground these flights and a massive attack were launched, Dean and the hacks at the NYT's would be on a rant about the President's failure to protect the country and how unsafe Americans are. I guess it was a win-win for Dean and the Times.
Others taking advantage of the lack of catastrophe were leaders from both Mexico, and you guessed it, France. One Mexican official went so far as to demand reparations for Aeromexico's flight 490 on New Years Eve, also headed for Los Angeles (scary how these destinations matched up). The Times reported that Victor Islas, a legislator from Mexico, stated, "…surely someone should compensate the Mexican airlines as well as the passengers who have lost reservations, hotels, business or even jobs over these decisions."
Yes, yes, we should compensate for their inconvenience. Sure. What? What is this man talking about? I guess if the plane would have blown up on the runway, our concerns would have been justified. Or better yet, if we would have allowed the flight to go ahead as scheduled and crash into LAX we'd get a free pass. In that case, however, Mexican authorities would owe us. A big "Oops".
The French are being, well, French about the whole situation. Apparently, after finagling the French into canceling the flight, they couldn't find the people we thought would be on the plane. The reason for this probably has something to do with the fact that the French announced the flight's cancellation for terror concerns well before any of the passengers arrived to get on board. Now, if I were a terrorist and a flight I planned on hijacking was cancelled for terror concerns, I'm guessing I wouldn't show up either.
Now French officials say they will have to "…evaluate future requests from the United States for flight cancellations." Nice. I guess they'll owe us a big "Oops" sometime in the future, too.
These people just won't be satisfied unless the flight we have concerns about crashes into the ocean. It's not like President Bush and Sec. Ridge are sitting around picking random flights out of the air for cancellation, just to mess with foreigners. If our intelligence community has concerns about a flight, chances are there is reason to be concerned about that flight.
I for one applaud the President and Sec. Ridge for their excellent job in protecting us through yet another holiday season. Without their steadfast determination to keep us safe, I'm not sure who would.
| Rank | Location | Receipts | Donors/Avg | Freepers/Avg | Monthlies | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 31 | Louisiana | 120.00 |
2 |
60.00 |
178 |
0.67 |
38.00 |
5 |
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You are right - the dems are going to attack President Bush's every step and every word, so I'm hoping he continues to ignore them and put our national security first.
I think both are part of the same overall issue. We are at war against Muslim jihadists and have been so for over twenty years. Overthrowing Saddam is just another step in this war. Every time we destroy another one of these enemies, we are one step closer to winning. In the short term, I agree that capturing Saddam is not closely linked to stopping the terrorist attacks. However, the only real security that we could ever have will come when we hurt the Muslim jihadists to the point that they either surrender or are completely destroyed.
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