In Afghanistan, American bombs continue to rain down on al-Qaida positions and Taliban forces across Afghanistan. After the bombs began to fall, the mainstream media broadcast unedited statements from al-Qaida’s leader, Osama bin Laden and subsequent statements from his lieutenants. After the second or third broadcast, somebody at the White House said, “Say! This might be a ruse for bin Laden to communicate with his terror network!”
Good thinking. The White House met with the movers and shakers of the mainstream press and asked them not to provide bin Laden with a platform from which al-Qaida could launch additional waves of attacks against us. An immediate hue and cry went up from journalists’ groups and from various journalistic purists. “Censorship!” they screamed.
Maybe. But the two unedited broadcasts were followed by a series of anthrax laden biological letter bombs sent to various members of the media and, most recently, to the halls of government.
The government is not prepared to tell us yet that this phenomenon is a terror attack. The cover story that the Department of Justice is circulating is that these are really copycat attacks. This despite the fact the strains of anthrax being mailed are different, and all are postmarked from different sources. NBC got an anthrax-laden envelope from Trenton, N.J. American Media got its biological letter bomb from St. Petersburg, Florida. The Microsoft office in Nevada got a letter from Malaysia.
Following the government’s line of reasoning, three separate copycats from three different locations, all of whom just happened to have some anthrax laying around in a drawer somewhere, independently decided that this would be a good time to reach out and touch somebody.
Clearly, that is nonsense. What is far more likely is an orchestrated terror attack. It also is likely that this is state sponsored. And high on the list of usual suspects is Saddam Hussein’s Iraq.
The terrorists’ principal weapon against us isn’t anthrax, or airplanes or the U.S. Postal Service. It is our freedom. It is America’s sense of fair play, of compassion, our qualities of mercy – those are the most effective weapons in the terrorist arsenal. America’s motto is New Hampshire’s motto, “Live Free or Die.” It may also prove to be our epitaph.
Despite our efforts in Afghanistan, we are basically operating on the defense. They strike, we strike, they strike … and on it goes. They aim at innocent civilians. We do all we can to avoid civilian casualties. The result?
Terrorists hide among the civilians. And our civilians are on the receiving end of the military strikes launched against us. The only genuine offensive strategy by our government right now is aimed at us.
To combat terror, we hear, it is necessary to curtail our freedom. Doesn’t seem to make sense. In our efforts to play fair in the war on terror, we elevate Islam to that of a religion of peace, based on the interpretation of the Koran provided us by such luminaries of peace as Muzammil Siddiqi, head of the Islamic Society of North America.
Six months prior to being an emissary of Islamic peace, he expressed his support for Hamas and Hezbollah during an Islamic rally outside the White House. His comments were so inflammatory that even Hillary Clinton was forced to return campaign donations from the group.
Making anthrax is not all that difficult, but weaponizing it pretty much demands state sponsorship. The powderized form that is showing up here, according to the Wall Street Journal, could not have been manufactured in one of bin Laden’s caves.
The time is rapidly approaching when America is going to have to reach the obvious conclusion that this is as much a war against the radical Islamic ideology of the Middle East as it is against terror. Words are not as significant as deeds. Yasser Arafat was received this week by Tony Blair as a reward for not attacking Israel. The West continues to stifle Israel’s efforts to fight terror so that it doesn’t interfere with our own. But Israel’s anti-terror response works. Kill them first. And fast. And without warning.
Victory is defined differently from the perspective of the terrorists than it is from where we sit. To those who want to destroy our freedoms, victory is achieved when Americans are afraid to open their mail, to go to a theater or a ball game, or board a domestic aircraft.
It is that very freedom that provides terrorists with an effective delivery system. The time is fast approaching when America needs to sit down and decide what to do next. I pray that the course of action we take is aimed outwardly, at our enemy, rather than inwardly, at our individual freedom.
We are willing to risk the things we hold most precious, our lives, our honor, even our liberty, to combat terror. But as George Patton said during World War II, the object of war isn’t to die for your country. It is to make sure the other guy dies for his.
