Free Republic

How the Left Undermined America’s Security Before 9/11 By David Horowitz September 10, 2010 [The following article by David Horowitz first appeared in our March 24, 2004 issue. We are reprinting it to mark the nine year anniversary of 9/11. -- The Editors.]While the nation was having a good laugh at the expense of Florida’s hanging chads and butterfly ballots, Mohammed Atta and Marwan al Shehhi were there, in Florida, learning to drive commercial jetliners [and ram them into the World Trade Center towers]. It will take a novelist to paint that broad canvas properly. It will take some deep...

Note: The following text is a quote: Ali Al-Marri Pleads Guilty to Conspiracy to Provide Material Support to Al-Qaeda Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri, 43, a dual national of Saudi Arabia and Qatar, has pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to provide material support to al-Qaeda. Al-Marri entered his guilty plea at a hearing this afternoon before Judge Michael M. Mihm in U.S. District Court for the Central District of Illinois. In so doing, al-Marri admitted that he agreed with others to provide material support or resources to al-Qaeda in the form of personnel, including himself, to work under al-Qaeda’s...

One of the greatest threats to the security of the United States is not from a military, but from a psychology of denial. It is the Sept. 10 mentality that minimizes the threat posed by jihadist terrorism and rejects the idea we are even at war at all. According to this thinking, suicide bombers, their leaders and financiers are nothing more than street-corner criminals; a problem for our criminal justice system, not our armed forces. A quick look at terrorism in the 1990s exposes the inadequacy of the Sept. 10 mindset. In 1993, the World Trade Center was bombed. In...

According to Sen. Barack Obama, there is a relatively painless solution to the terrorism problem America faces today: going back to the anti-terrorism tactics of the Clinton years. "It is my firm belief that we can track terrorists, we can crack down on threats against the United States, but we can do so within the constraints of our Constitution," the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee told ABC News last week. "And you know, let's take the example of Guantanamo [Bay]. What we know is that, in previous terrorist attacks, for example, the first attack against the World Trade Center, we were...

Security: Newly released books and films show a growing pop-culture bias against U.S. counterterror efforts. It's another sign the pendulum is swinging back to a 9/10 state of mind. Six years ago we were united as a nation against a common enemy — 300 million Americans resolved to defeat Islamic extremists. Even Hollywood was on board. But as the nightmare that befell our nation dims, we have turned our anger inward. Now the enemy is portrayed in pop culture as the government, the military and law enforcement — the very forces aligned to protect us from the Islamist enemy. The...