Winning the war on terrorism for seven years
Examiner Staff Writer 9/11/08
Exactly seven years after 9/11, the war against jihadist terrorists has been an unappreciated success. Nobody should take that success for granted. In those seven years, despite numerous plans and several attempts by terrorists to replicate or even surpass that horrendous day, they have not succeeded a single time on U.S. soil. No body count of innocents. No successful biological or chemical attacks. No airports, bridges, buildings, or trains blown up. Nothing. President Bush’s strategy has succeeded far beyond what the experts predicted would be the case in the weeks following the horrors at the Twin Towers, the Pentagon, and the rural field where Flight 93 crashed near Shanksville, Pa.The cynics, though, shout that we lost our focus on terrorism by invading Iraq. They are dead wrong. If the war and reconstruction of Iraq was really a dangerous diversion from the war on terrorism, as so many liberal politicians and commentators say, then why have Americans been so safe in our homeland? Why haven’t any “dirty nukes” exploded? Could it be that the effort in Iraq, as messy as it has been, has undercut the terrorists by sucking a host of them to Iraq only to die there, as die they should?
A huge proportion of those terrorists died in Anbar province, where they once enjoyed their greatest apparent successes. When U.S. forces handed control of security in Anbar to the Iraqis on Sept. 1, the occasion merited far more attention than it received here in a nation justifiably distracted by Hurricane Gustav and the political conventions. That the former terrorist haven is now a remarkably safe haven is a breathtaking achievement, considering how bad things were before Bush’s “surge” was announced just 20 months ago. It was in Anbar that bloodthirsty terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi set up shop, and where he operated when Ayman al-Zawahiri, Osama bin Laden’s chief deputy, sent a 2005 letter to Zarqawi calling him the “spearhead of jihad.” There is no better authority than Zawahiri for identifying Iraq as the front line of the terrorists’ efforts. But the spearhead, Zarqawi, now is broken, crushed and buried.
We have been safe in these United States for seven years not because we are lucky, but because we took the fight to our enemies. Iraq has been an essential part of that fight. And we’re winning.
4 Comments
Reader Comments:
POSTED Sep 11, 2008
bob: "As an expat New Yorker living in Australia I can only but heartily agree with the sentiment expressed in you piece. 7 years free from terror has, of course, come at a price and a price that should never be forgotten. Remember to welcome home the boys with all the heartfelt gratitude you can muster. And to those that gave all - never forget their sacrifice - for us. As they say down here on days set aside to remember the sacrifices... "They shall not grow old, as we that are left grow old: Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn. At the going down of the sun, and in the morning We will remember them. Lest we forget.""POSTED Sep 11, 2008
EricTheRed: "All true. And with every success you have mentioned, the hate-America left abroad and within mourns, minimizes, and mocks. http://VocalMinority.typepad.com Jewish and Republican?? Oy gevalt"POSTED Sep 11, 2008
jskippy91: "I agree with you 100%. You have expressed my view perfectly. God bless America."POSTED Sep 11, 2008
JOHN HART: "I wish the media would make at least some effort to give credit to President Bush for his vision and effort to keep America safe after September 11. These are indisputable facts: George Bush was president on September 11, 2001; he is still president on September 11, 2008, and not a single American has lost his or her life on American soil from a terrorist attack since that horrendous day eight years ago."