Friday, August 9, 2013

Latest terrorist scare should be a wake-up call


It’s obvious from the recent events at our diplomatic outposts in parts of the world that the war on terrorism is far from over.  Notice that we did not close embassies in predominantly Christian countries or predominantly Jewish countries.  We closed embassies in Muslim countries.  Perhaps a bit of unintended profiling from an administration that keeps trying to sell us on the idea that we’re not really at war with Muslim terrorists.

Make no mistake about it.  We’re at war with radical Islam.  We can pretend that’s not the case but it doesn’t change the facts.  When a nation is at war with a certain people it just makes sense to look at people who fit the profile a little more closely.  It was that head-in-the-sand approach that got us killed on 9/11.  Then Secretary of Transportation Norm Mineta strictly forbade any type of profiling.  One airline ticket agent said he checked a man in at his counter and a chill ran down his spine.  He said everything about the man told him he was a terrorist but he had to “mentally slap” himself and process the ticket anyway.  That man turned out to be Mohamed Atta, the ringleader of the 9/11 hijackers.

It’s this continued naiveté that continually makes us vulnerable.  The Fort Hood terrorist attack by Maj. Nidal Hasan is still officially logged as a “workplace shooting.”  The mainstream media, in the wake of the Boston Marathon bombing when we knew the suspects were Muslim, continued to caution us not to jump to conclusions.  It’s conclusion-jumping that makes us safer.

Apparently, the Obama administration jumped to a conclusion when it closed embassies in Muslim countries.  They had intelligence indicating another “9/11-style” terrorist attack and, to their credit, they acted accordingly.  Which raises the interesting question of why we still allow people who fit the profile from countries known to sponsor or encourage terrorism into our country?  We can debate the NSA snooping and its merits in keeping us safe but much of it would be totally unnecessary were we to simply take some common sense steps to ensure that those most likely to kill us aren’t allowed into the country.

That’s not even counting the possibly hundreds of thousands of people from terrorist-sponsored nations who have slipped into this country under the cover of darkness across our southern border.  While Congress is fixated on an amnesty program they are completely ignoring the biggest threat to our country.

Hopefully, the all-out alert recently at our embassies will be a wake-up call to the nation.  We cannot let our guard down.  And we cannot tip-toe around the political correctness of the threat.  Not all Muslims are terrorists but most of the terrorists these days are Muslim.  To ignore that fact is to leave us wide open to another attack.

We need to, first and foremost, secure our borders and stop this nonsense about amnesty.  We also need to cancel visas from anyone who might fit the profile of a terrorist.  The risk is just too great. It’s time we got serious about this terrorist threat.  We’re never going to kill it completely, especially overseas, but we certainly need to be taking every precaution here in the U.S.  Closing embassies is one thing but what about the threat that’s already here?  What do we do about that?  In some senses it’s already too late.  The back door has been left open for too long. Sleeper cells are already here.  At the very least we should be profiling those who might already be members.

We ignore the truth at our own peril.


Phil Valentine is the host of the award-winning, nationally syndicated talk radio show, The Phil Valentine Show.


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