When we look back on the year 2001, one date comes to mind – Sept. 11.
It will be the date that defines the year for historians and for the media analysts in their year-end summaries and retrospectives – and deservedly so.
We’ve heard it over and over – Sept. 11 changed everything for Americans. It was the date this generation – which had long forgotten Pearl Harbor – learned, once again, just how vulnerable we are as a nation. It was the date we learned just how fragile is our way of life. It was the date we learned just how blessed we have been as a people for more than 200 years.
But Americans have short memories.
Americans, who have been so comfortable for so long, tend to think life will never change. They tend to think their blessings of peace and liberty and safety and security will always be there. They tend to believe that the extraordinary freedom we have experienced here is normal.
It’s not normal. It’s not the way of the world. Throughout the course of human history, freedom and peace are exceptional experiences. They are rarities. They are precious gifts. They can only survive through hard work, sacrifice, gritty determination and eternal vigilance.
That should be what we remember about 2001. Let it indeed serve as America’s generational wake-up call. If it does, the thousands who died Sept. 11 will not have perished in vain.
America is vulnerable – extremely vulnerable. It is defenseless not only against attacks like those we experienced Sept. 11, but from future attacks we cannot yet imagine – events even more horrible and tragic.
America must prepare – in earnest. We can only do that as a nation if we remember 9-11. There was a rallying cry for the World War II generation. It was “Remember Pearl Harbor.” That slogan, on the lips of every American, ensured that the nation would mobilize to defeat its enemies.
Today, America is more relaxed than it should be. The other shoe never dropped after Sept. 11. Americans are advised by their government leaders to get back to business, go about their normal lives – and they are doing just that.
That’s good advice, in one sense. But it is bad advice if Americans accept it as their only course of action. There’s more work to be done than getting back to producing and consuming. America needs to prepare for the next attack. It’s coming. It’s inevitable. It’s only a matter of time.
There are many grave threats on the horizon. While we congratulate ourselves on the “quick victory” in Afghanistan, it’s important to remember that Osama bin Laden is probably still alive. WorldNetDaily was the first news agency to report, back on Dec. 8, that bin Laden escaped Afghanistan with his entire family. WorldNetDaily was the first news agency in the world to report that thousands of al-Qaida terrorists were airlifted out of Afghanistan to safety. The war is no longer fought in Afghanistan. It is moving to new fronts – in Africa, the Middle East, on every other continent and, of course, right here in our own back yard.
Are we prepared for this long fight? No.
Terrorism will rear its ugly head again in America and elsewhere in the coming months. Of that, I have no doubt.
But there are other threats, too. We are only a few short years away from facing the inevitable prospect of nuclear extortion from rogue states inching toward the capability of delivering nuclear warheads to our shores via intercontinental ballistic missiles.
President Bush took the bold step of scrapping the Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty with Moscow a few weeks ago in anticipation of building a missile shield to protect Americans. But the successful deployment of such a shield represents only half the battle, as we point out in the January issue of Whistleblower magazine. We must get serious about civil defense – a forgotten concept for far too long in America.
How we remember 2001 in the coming months and years will define our actions. What we learn from Sept. 11 will make all the difference. Will we prepare? Or will we go back to business as usual and risk the lives of our children and grandchildren? It’s up to you to decide.
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