Putting us first

He took to the Rose Garden to speak to the public for barely five minutes and with that, fulfilled a campaign promise.

What a concept! A politician who makes promises and keeps them!

The president announced that this country is withdrawing from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and not for any superficial reason: “Defending the American people is my highest priority as commander in chief, and I cannot and will not allow the United States to remain in a treaty that prevents us from developing effective defenses.”

Whew! An elected politician – the president at that – who puts the welfare of the people of the United States first.

There was no “one world” jargon. There was no “consensus” rhetoric. Simply stated, he said his job is to work to protect us and that is exactly what he is doing.

What I especially like about what he says is that he speaks in simple, plain English. There is no doubt as to his meaning.

What a concept that is in contemporary politics. There’s no need to have a dictionary handy to check out the more arcane word definitions of the language he uses. With this president, we know the definition of “is”!

By jettisoning the treaty because it’s outdated – made at a different time with different enemies and with a country that no longer exists – Bush enables us (U.S.) to test and deploy a missile defense system with no restrictions.

With those few words last Thursday, Bush the set this country on a course of sanity in a world seemingly gone even madder than before.

The announcement gave Russia the six-month notice as required under the treaty terms and the reaction from there was low-key. President Vladimir Putin called the decision “mistaken” but also commented it would not threaten his country’s security.

The White House says that Bush will visit Moscow this spring to sign an agreement detailing the planned cuts in offensive nuclear weapons.

Before the announcement, Bush talked with Chinese President Jiang Zemin and came out of that with an agreement to begin “high-level strategic talks.”

So the two most feared reactions were so low key as to be almost unnoticeable.

Not surprisingly, the usual crowd reacted with the usual rhetoric. Their main mantra is that nukes must go and that having a defense missile system is a symbol of American aggression.

A new line is that a missile defense system would not and could not have protected us against the attacks on Sept. 11.

And? Of course, it wouldn’t, but that’s beside the point.

What is the point is the mentality of the enemies of today. Terrorists. Single-minded people with no conscience or sense of civilization who believe they have God in their pocket.

They will use whatever means they have at hand to do their misdeeds, in the name of Allah of course.

The escalation from stones and truck bombs to jetliner missiles is a clear example of their motif. And their ruthlessness.

If you needed something to help you understand that, this was also the week we saw a videotape of the laughs and “atta-boys” of Osama bin Laden and his cohorts as they recounted their reaction to the bombings in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania.

If you ever needed a view into evil, that was it. But it was more terrifying because of their nonchalance. They talked of the attacks, of their operatives, of the victims of the attacks and of the United States with cool detachment.

The only emotion was the laughter – their happy astonishment at how more successful the attack was than they anticipated. They expected only a few floors of the buildings would go down. What a wonderful bonus when whole buildings collapsed. What greater bonus that so many more infidels died. There was so much “praise Allah” that you had to wonder about their definition of God.

While there was no compassion for the victims, there was absolutely none for their own terrorists who went down with the planes. Apparently most of them didn’t even know the real purpose of their mission until there was no turning back. They were just cogs in the wheel and expendable.

That video is the strongest argument for an ABM system. Do you doubt for a moment that those people would use such missiles against us if they had them? Those people have researched biological and chemical agents of terror. They want nuclear weapons.

Do you doubt they would use them? If they enjoyed their commercial jet venture, can you imagine what fun they’d have with nuclear missiles? That’s one video I don’t want to see. Actually, it’s probably one none of us would live to see.