Let’s Give Credit Where Credit Is Due

Yesterday, those Americans who are rational, vowed anew not to forget the events of 9/11, the heroes who saved so many, the people who died, and the monsters who murdered them. Let’s also give more recognition to the two men who have done so much to keep us safe ever since, earning little but vitriol, threats and obscenities for their successful efforts; let’s give due credit to President Bush and Vice President Cheney.

From the article excerpted below: “TO REVIEW: Seven years ago bin Laden enjoyed the state support of the Taliban, Saddam was in power and bribing his way to greater autonomy, and Ghadafi was still a serious burr under our saddle. Now they are, respectively, encaved, embalmed, and enlisted (at least partly) in our cause.”

The Terrorists Are Losing
By Quin Hillyer

Published 9/11/2008 American Spectator (Excerpt)

"Seven years. Zero attacks. And almost zero credit.

President George W. Bush deserves better.

Seven years ago today, evil men killed 2,998 innocent people in New York, Virginia, and Pennsylvania. They did so in service of an evil ideology. And they were directed by evil, small-souled creatures protected by a rogue state halfway across the world. The creatures called their murderous organization Al-Qaeda, which means "The Base" -- a name appropriate for an organization that serves man's base instincts, for base motives, to achieve base results.

At the time, there was every reason to believe that Al-Qaeda would strike again on American soil. There was every reason to believe that even if the free world could track down Base leader Osama bin Laden and pulverize him, the cost in the meantime would be the endurance of more terror -- mechanical, chemical, biological, maybe even nuclear.

President Bush said no. Not on his watch. Not if he could help it.

And for seven years, he has backed it up. The only terrorism on American soil since 9/11 came from a home-grown scientist, clearly disturbed, who sent some mail laced with anthrax for a few scary weeks and spent the next seven years trying to hide his tracks. Sure, the bad guys have tried again -- they've planned more plane bombings, a bridge bombing, an airport bombing, and other assaults against American civilization -- but they were interdicted every time.

This wasn't a dog that didn't bark merely because it felt like being mute; this was a dog that didn't bark because it was forcefully muzzled. And Bush was the one who applied the muzzle.

HE DID IT by fashioning, with the help of Colin Powell (before Powell went off the reservation), an incredibly impressive coalition that went into Afghanistan -- even then, liberal pundits predicted, yes, a "quagmire" in Afghanistan, too -- and in incredibly short order kicked out the rogue regime, killed numerous members of Al-Qaeda, and chased the remaining ones high into the hills where they presumably live in caves perfectly suited to their troglodyte mentality.

Bush did it by directing his government to use all the tools at its disposal to identify and freeze Al-Qaeda assets, improve intelligence-gathering (and intelligence-sharing, back and forth, with anti-terrorist nations), disrupt Al-Qaeda communications, and track down and kill Al-Qaeda leaders. He did it by getting tough on other terrorists, too, even ones not directly affiliated with Al-Qaeda. And he did it by encouraging democratic movements throughout the Middle East and central Asia, while providing material support where necessary.

And yes, Bush warded off terrorists by toppling Saddam Hussein's dangerous outlaw regime in Iraq. It was a regime that had repeatedly shot at American aircraft. It was a regime that demonstrably owned weapons of mass murder and then refused to account for their removal or their destruction. It was a regime that had invaded its neighbors, and that had gassed and slaughtered its own people. And it was most certainly a regime that harbored terrorists, trained terrorists, and that maintained friendly communications and at least some operational ties with Al-Qaeda. Hussein's Iraq provided asylum for infamous terrorists Abu Nidal and Abu Abbas. It gave reward money to homicidal Palestinian suicide bombers. It ran a terrorist training camp at Salman Pak. It provided asylum for Al-Qaeda terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who later founded and ran "Al-Qaeda in Iraq." An interdicted letter to him from Osama bin Laden's chief deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, made clear that Zarqawi's efforts in Iraq were an essential part of al-Qaeda's plans for conquest -- indeed, that "the expulsion of the Americans from Iraq" was the single essential predicate for "the establishment of a caliphate in the manner of the Prophet."

Well, Zarqawi is dead now, and so are most of his lieutenants, and so is his entire Al-Qaeda-in-Iraq organization except for a few final remnants in isolated last-ditch redoubts…..

Seven years after 9/11, the victories have been far greater than the intermittent setbacks. No jihadists have struck within our borders. Freedom reigns and rings. And President Bush deserves some thanks.” American Spectator

Senator Obama and Senator Biden are promising that, if they win the presidency, they will try President Bush for various crimes. We know from previous statements that they mean war crimes. Patriots will not let this happen.