Still a Clear and Present Danger

 

 

"It is better to meet danger than to wait for it"

Charles Colton

Last Sunday, as I was killing time waiting for the playoff games to begin, I watched a re-broadcast of one of the Sunday morning talk shows. The show had the usual round table of pundits to discuss the issues of the day. One of the members of the round table was the network foreign correspondent who was home on leave from the Middle East.

As the moderator was going around the table asking questions about domestic issues, he came to the foreign correspondent. He had a unique perspective on things as during his last stint in Syria, he was captured and almost killed. He was asked by the moderator what the people in the Middle East think about our issues such as debt, guns and so on. The correspondent had a smirk when he answered the question. "They are not the least bit concerned about theses issues - they are minor. What they are concerned about is the continuation of the War on Terror, resurgence of Al Quada, and the role America will play in the future". That was a show stopper. The moderator quickly dismissed that answer and tried to get the discussion back on track. "After the next break" he said, "we will discuss foreign issues".

What this foreign correspondent said might have been lost on the panel, but is resonated clearly with me. As much as our Administration as well as the networks that support it would like to think that this pesky little War on Terror is over, it is not. There is still a clear and present danger to this country, to the West, and ignoring it will not make it go away. When it was finally time for the panel to discuss foreign issues, this correspondent went though a laundry list of trouble spots. Iran, and how Israel will deal with it, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, the unrest in Iraq, Afghanistan, Algeria, Mali and the Horn of Africa. In just about everyone of these trouble spots there was a common denominator - Al Quada.

According to the Washington Post, the recent attack in Algeria which caused so much carnage was very well planned. The Post went on to say:
 
An attack on a natural gas complex in the Sahara desert was conducted by an international band of Islamist militants, apparently including two Canadians, Algeria's prime minister said Monday, Jan. 21, in the first official accounting of the bloody four-day siege. Prime Minister Abdelmalek Sellal told reporters in Algiers that the attackers wore Algerian army uniforms and had help from the inside.

This attack, just like the one late last year in Libya, show just how embolden our enemy still is. We can continue to "spike the football" over the killing of Osama, but the sand has filled the hole quickly. Where evil is concerned, the list of candidates to do very bad and vile things is long and endless. A terrorist being questioned after the 9/11 attack told one of the interrogators, "You Americans measure your patience in years. We measure ours in centuries". Translation - they will wait us out. We are tired of this War on Terror and want to get on with immigration reform and re-writing the Second Amendment. Fine with Al Quada. We want to gut our military, reduce our footprint. That too is fine with Al Quada. What has kept us safe since 9/11 has been our vigilance. To move on from that horrible day in September 2001 when our enemies did not, would be the worst of all mistakes .

When our country was founded and the charter of the government established, the cornerstone responsibility was the protection of the states. We need to remember that. Law abiding citizens who legally own firearms are not the enemy. The enemy is a band of murdering thugs who operate without country, without uniforms, and without hesitation. Our families, our neighbors, our fellow citizens are all still in mortal danger. I say mortal danger as this enemy has shown they will kill without mercy, and kill in great numbers.

Now that the euphoria of the second inauguration is over, we need to remind our leaders of what the NRA recently reminded us all - the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun. And that includeds the growing list of bad guys who live outside our borders.