8 of 42

Safer

Write now Article Tools

While battling Islamo-Arab terrorism remains a fight in progress, the reality is the US is indeed safer than it was in September 2001. Some of it is indeed luck, but it is mostly becuase of recognition of the key aspect of Islamo-Arab terror - its status as an act of war by proxy, launched by Middle eastern states.

The reality is groups like Al Qaida, the PLO, and its offshoots were never strong enough to function to the extent they have without massive backing by states such as Saddam Hussein's Iraq, the Ayatollahs of Iran, and the family of international brigands known as the Assads of Syria. Soviet Russia in its heyday was as major an arms supplier and trainer of Islamo-Arab terrorism as any. The mystery of the modern debate about Islamo-Arab terrorism is why so many liberal-leaning political figures and news reporters still seem in denial about the state-sanctioned war-by-proxy angle that drives Islamo-Arab terrorism.

By taking down two of the strongest governments backing Islamo-Arab terror - Saddam Hussein and the Taliban of Afghanistan - the US dealt a blow the likes of which Islamo-Arab terrorism has not seen before, not even when Israel all but destroyed the PLO in the 1982 strike into PLO-occupied Lebanon. And for all the rhetorical rage spouted by terrorists in hiding like Osama Bin Laden, the net result of their attempts at "retribution" - a meaningless term since Islamo-Arab aggression is driven by base hate, not legitimate grievences - has been infinately more costly to them than to the US. Liberal comparisons of Iraq to Vietnam reveal both ignorance of both conflicts - cases of outside aggression being resisted by the US, with the Vietnam crusade undermined by an antiwar campaign that, like today's anti-Iraq War campaign, was only perfunctorily concerned with actual peace - and also showcase refusal to understand the cost of the war on the enemy's side, which has been infinately greater than for Allied forces.

People forget the impunity with which state-sanctioned terror groups like Al Qaida operated in the 1990s, with attacks on the World Trade Center in 1993 - which saw its bombers rather openly sheltered by Saddam Hussein - the Khobar Barracks in 1996, various overseas US embassies, and a US Navy ship costing a great many lives. Response in the Clinton era was never more than perfunctory, with the enemy's war against the US treated as almost a minor-grade police procedural instead of what it was, acts of war. It didn't help that the CIA - the same CIA whose operatives were almost wholly contaminated by corrupt sources of information and a liberal mindset at variance with the real world graphically shown in the Aldrich Ames fiasco - was not getting much right about Islamo-Arab terror.

Taking the offensive is what has made us safer after the September 2001 attacks. It's a fact one should regret some remain in denial about.

Learn more about this author, Michael Daly.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.

Add your voice

Know something about Are we safer now than we were immediately after 9/11, or have we just been lucky??
We want to hear your view. Write now!