Everything Changed After September 11

No it didn't. Nothing changed unless you had your head in the sand.

Tonight on Lou Dobbs on CNN Dennis Miller touted this line. How could your worldview not change after September 11, he asked. He went from Bush basher to Bush supporter.

Dennis. Darling. You are an idiot.

After the hijackings of the 1970's people settled into a place where terrorism only happened over there. "There" being the Middle East and Europe. Germany had terrorists, Italy had terrorists. Greece had terrorists. The US had no real terrorist events.

Even the 1979 Iran hostage crisis wasn't really seen as "terrorism". The suicide bombing of the Marine barracks in Lebanon, killing 241, was not seen as "terrorism." Beirut was a war zone.

The wake-up call for the US should have been the December 1989 bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. Again, it wasn't. It happened overseas. It wasn't something that could happen here.

In 1993, Islamic extremists organized in cells throughout New York and New Jersey detonated a truck bomb in the parking garage of the World Trade Center. Six killed, one thousand injured. But again, we really didn't think of it as terrorism. It was an isolated incident ineptly (?) executed by a bunch of radicals following a crazy one-eyed sheik from Egypt. Anyway, the superiority of American design overcame the wretched attempt by these Arabs to hurt us. And we caught them anyway. Yes, but only after a multi-year worldwide chase that gave us a glimpse of a growing enemy: Al Qaeda.

The shadowy network of Islamic extremists that supported the first group of World Trade Center bombers--a network that stretched for New York to the Philippines to Pakistan--was what we now know as Al Qaeda. Unfortunately, only a few within the government realized the danger. Very few within the FBI (of course with the exception of John O'Neill, the head of the underfunded anti-terrorism task force). More within the CIA. A few within the White House. Not a whole lot of others though. Not Peter Jennings, Dan Rather, Tom Brokaw, or anyone at Fox News.

As the obsession with domestic terrorism form right-wing skinhead extremist blossomed following the bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, the government became more interested in Al Qaeda. There was the bombing of Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia. The bombing of US embassies in Africa. And finally the bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen.

Domestic terror events were avoided. An attempt to bomb LAX was stopped by an alert border guard in Washington state prior the turn of the Millennium. A plot to blow up 11 US airliners over the pacific was also foiled. These early victories on the war in terror led to complacency among the American public and the American media. Luckily the government was taking more notice.

In 1999, expecting some sort of terrorist action to coincide with the Millennium celebrations the White House went to "battle stations." The head of the CIA and FBI had to report to the president every morning. They were forced to shake the tree to make sure they could say something was being done. It worked. The "Millennium Bomb Plot" was thwarted.

In 2000 the CIA was using unmanned Predator drones to track Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan. President Clinton tried to kill Bin Laden in 1998 but was hampered by his political trouble at home and the prevalent state of mind that killing civilians along with Bin Laden would only make the situation worse in the eyes of the Islamic street.

To those studying political science at the end of the Cold War the lingering question is what would be the next great threat? What would replace the stalemate between superpowers that kept the world at the brink of war but at relative peace for nearly 50 years?

The answer: localized hot conflicts in the third world. Instead of being the proxy wars of the superpowers, these conflagrations in foreign lands would be organic conflicts: ethnic conflicts, power struggles, fights for self-determination or just plain old fights between warlords.

Ah yes, Somalia. Afghanistan. Rwanda.

But why would the United States incur the wrath of these backwards places where we sure no longer had a national interest. Well, the US tried to help in Somalia, thus interfering with the warlord's reign. We forgot to help in Afghanistan where we just left, so that the warlords could go fight among themselves.

So, the answer to insulate America from the wrath of the great unwashed around the world, was simply to withdraw from the world. Abandon the Clintonian form of nation-building that led us to suffer the greatest combat losses since Vietnam--the deaths of 18 Army Rangers in Somalia. A more humble foreign policy, Candidate Bush said.

So, Mr. Bush withdrew from the world and stuck his head in the sand and most Americans followed suit.

John O'Neill the head of the anti-terrorism task force, the person responsible for the capture of the terrorists who bombed the World Trade Center in 1993, got fed-up with the FBI's de-emphasis of terrorism and quit. He went to work as the head of security at the WTC in August 2001. On September 10, 2001, Attorney General John Ashcroft vetoed additional anti-terrorism funding.

So, Mr. Miller the world didn't change on 9/11, you just woke up. You woke up too late and in the fog of sleep latched on to the loudest voice that played to your uninformed emotional response. Rally around the President. Send in the Marines! The "War" on terrorism is the new Cold War, our united fight against a common enemy. Rally the allies! What a mistake attacking the US homeland. The Government of the United States of America will not rest until the terrorists are brought to justice. But first we must go get that guy that tried to kill George W. Bush's daddy.

Mr. Miller, your head went from being in the sand to being up your ass. Pretty stupid.