Senator Smith and the Eye of the Hurricane

On 9/11.

I was watching CNN with the volume down. One of the towers was suffering from fire on its upper floors. It seemed an airplane had struck the tower. My news director walked into the office on his way up to do the 7 o’clock news. We were both watching as the 2nd plane hit the 2nd tower.

One plane could be an accident. Two planes could only be an attack.

It was a long day. Not knowing how many attacks would occur kept everyone on an alert footing. No business was conducted that day. Plans to meet friends and family were cancelled. We sat and waited.

I got a phone call from my mom. She was stuck in Las Vegas.

She was to have flown out of Vegas that morning but when she got to the airport she was told that there were no flights going out…and no projection as to when flights would resume.

She was safe. She was with friends. She had been attending a reunion of WWII Air Force veterans. They all returned to their hotel. My mom loves her gambling. There was no gambling that day. She and her friends spent the day watching television and growing angrier and more concerned.

What a community to be stuck with in Las Vegas.

Here, as it became known that air traffic would be suspended for several days, the threat of additional attacks decreased. Any additional attacks would come from a different type of threat. Those would probably occur in major metropolitan areas: New York, Chicago, Los Angeles or Houston. The people who were behind these attacks wanted the greatest possible death and injury with the least amount of effort.

Our news load jumped up to 50 percent of our programming. EAS equipment was double-checked. In thirty years of broadcasting I had never experienced a Presidential Message. The possibility of such an occurrence was higher than it had been since the Cold War days.

By 9/13 I was out talking to business leaders in our small corner of the world.

Three thousand deaths. But that hadn’t been the aim of these Islamic terrorists. If you’ve never been to New York you simply don’t “get” the size of the World Trade Center. Instead of three thousand, it could have easily been 30-thousand deaths. Or more. And we were mad. We. Americans living on the Left Coast. Looney crazy thugs had attacked us. Attacked the Pentagon. Plausibly attempted an attack on the White House.

It was time to terribly defeat this threat, so capably covered up by decades of hubris and ignorance. As events unfolded the commissioners of this policy of neglect were revealed. Names like Gorelick. Louis Freeh. Events like Blackhawk Down were re-visited. After decades of defeat and retreat, our confrontation with Islamic terror could no longer be swept under the rug.

Our nation needed to take a look at the Middle East. For the first time in its existence our nation was going to take off the gloves and defend our nation from any future attacks. We were committed to taking those steps necessary to disrupt any future places/bases for planning and commission of future attacks.

As clearly stated in his 2002 State of the Union Address, President Bush outlined his goals:

“Our second goal is to prevent regimes that sponsor terror from threatening America or our friends and allies with weapons of mass destruction. Some of these regimes have been pretty quiet since September the 11th. But we know their true nature. North Korea is a regime arming with missiles and weapons of mass destruction, while starving its citizens.

“Iran aggressively pursues these weapons and exports terror, while an unelected few repress the Iranian people's hope for freedom.

“Iraq continues to flaunt its hostility toward America and to support terror. The Iraqi regime has plotted to develop anthrax, and nerve gas, and nuclear weapons for over a decade. This is a regime that has already used poison gas to murder thousands of its own citizens—leaving the bodies of mothers huddled over their dead children. This is a regime that agreed to international inspections—then kicked out the inspectors. This is a regime that has something to hide from the civilized world.

“States like these, and their terrorist allies, constitute an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world. By seeking weapons of mass destruction, these regimes pose a grave and growing danger. They could provide these arms to terrorists, giving them the means to match their hatred. They could attack our allies or attempt to blackmail the United States. In any of these cases, the price of indifference would be catastrophic.”

Since this speech, Iraq is no longer a state sponsor of terrorism. North Korea, it is reported, has agreed to end its nuclear program. Libya has ended its nuclear program. Afghanistan is working its way back from its Failed State status. Pakistan is addressing, instead of encouraging, Talibs and radical Islamists within its borders. Iran, and its surrogates Syria and Hezbollah, is clearly identified as an international threat to the world’s democratic movement. Lebanon, Israel, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia are still clearly threatened by this belligerence. As are Iraq and Afghanistan.

And yet, it seems, our country is divided. It is divided between those who believe we must choose to defeat this enemy and those who choose to appease this enemy. This in the face of the evidence. For the Marines who died in Lebanon. For sailors killed in Yemen. For soldiers killed in Somalia. From the clear and simple language of Iran’s leaders. From Syria’s assassination of Lebanese political leaders. From Hezbollah’s kidnapping of Israeli soldiers.

Lefties urge us to withdraw from our battle against this threat. I urge you to consider the words of Oregon’s junior senator, Senator Gordon Smith and ask yourself if this man understands the level of threat opposed to our nation:

“The sad truth is that the surge cannot win the peace; only Iraqi leaders are capable of stopping the bloodshed. The United States should not hand over the keys of American military and foreign policy to an Iraqi government that will not govern. The stakes are too high. America’s mission is the war on terror. Our troops should be fighting Al Qaeda not another country’s civil war.” (Audio here.) Listen to Senator Smith. It's a short clip.

“The eye of the hurricane.”

The senator needs to take a look at a map of the region to get a better idea of the size of the threat that faces this nation. And he needs to commit to standing up to this threat. He can choose to believe that simply walking away is a good plan.

History tends to show that that path leads to further death of innocent men, women and children. Senator Smith needs to find the eye of the hurricane. Even if it takes both hands.

OregonGuy