(This column was published in the North Shore News on Sept. 15, 2004)
Reflections on the war against terror
By Leo Knight
Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing ever happened. -Winston Churchill
ON the third anniversary of the horrible terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., now euphemistically reduced to simply 9/11, were one to read much of the media coverage, one might wonder if anything more serious than another Liberal scandal had happened.
News stories for the most part all paid lip service to the victims of that terrible day.
But inherent in many of them were the weasel words that show their hearts weren't really in it.
One, which ran in the National Post of all places, referred to "Bush's lamentable war."
Lamentable?
I don't get it.
Nearly 3,000 people died in the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.
In response, two-thirds of the leadership of al-Qaida is either dead or in custody.
The Taliban are gone.
Bin Laden has bin running since Tora Bora, assuming he's not already dead.
Saddam Hussein was found in a hole.
Boy Assam of Syria, has been trembling in Damascus since the United States crossed the Tigris.
The madman of Libya, mastermind of numerous terror attacks including Pan Am 103 and host to terror organizations around the world, capitulated as soon as he realized he might be next.
And, I might add, he turned over his weapons program, which many analysts believe he developed with the aid of Saddam.
I don't know, but it seems to me that with all that on the credit side of the ledger and no further attacks on America, George W. Bush's war is not going too badly.
Sure, there are still skirmishes in Iraq and people are still dying there.
No question that Iran's mullahs are still rattling their sabres.
But no one ever said this would be easy.
Indeed, Bush himself said at the outset that this would take years, not months.
We, as a country, still have troops on the ground and at sea in harm's way.
Although I might add, Canada's most notable contribution to the war on terror has been the Khadr family, albeit they suited up for the wrong team.
I find it amazing that so many in the media are so steadfastly against what must be done to ensure the safety of not only the United States, but of all Western civilization including Canada.
We are, after all, "the infidels" the terror fanatics swear they will destroy.
I started off with a quote by Churchill, Britain's great wartime leader.
Here's another: "Never, never, never believe any war will be smooth and easy, or that anyone who embarks on the strange voyage can measure the tides and hurricanes he will encounter.
"The statesman who yields to war fever must realize that once the signal is given, he is no longer the master of policy but the slave of unforeseeable and uncontrollable events."
Certainly, we have seen limited erosions in our freedoms because of the heightened security concerns that are the natural ramifications of 9/11.
Vladimir Ilych Lenin is often credited with coining the phrase "useful idiots" of Western society - even though he didn't actually speak English - about how the liberal left in Western democratic society were helpful to the Bolshevist cause.
Think Sean Penn, Michael Moore and Barbra Streisand for latter-day, more famous examples.
Or Carolyn Parish, the Liberal MP of the, "Americans, I hate those bastards" and "coalition of idiots" fame for a good Canadian example.
The past two weeks have demonstrated the war on terror is tangible.
Ask the hundreds of parents mourning their dead kids in Beslan, Russia.
Or check with the people of Nepal or Jakarta.
Or ask the families of hostages from America, Italy, France and Turkey.
There are those in this world who have sworn to destroy our civilization.
The security costs to defend against them, whether in financial terms or in the terms of vigilance and a small erosion of our liberties at airports, must be paid.
Not to do so is to welcome suicide.
On Sept. 11 , 2001, more New York City firefighters and police officers were killed than the United States military lost in Kosovo, the Gulf War, Panama, Grenada and Lebanon combined.
They lost their lives because they ran into the burning twin towers as everyone else was running away.
They did that because it was their job to protect the rest of the population.
The security of our nation and our borders is the first duty of government and should be the primary concern of the population at large.
Without it, all the public health care, pharmacare, safe-injection sites, criminal rehabilitation and abortion arguments don't matter.
I think that the useful idiots need to learn that.
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