The Sleeper must Awaken

It is another day upon the Stoa. The day after the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.

The world of today is a very different world than the world of 9/10/2001. My children can not know what it was like to wave goodbye to a friend or family member from the boarding ramp at the airport. They never knew of a time where you did not have to take your shoes off or stand in an x-ray unit before you could even get close to the gate.

On 9/11/2001, the United States was punched in the nose by a punk who worked through others and hid in other people's countries. The Clinton administration had treated previous attacks like criminal actions and not the acts of war that they really were. OBL was not a vandal, he was not just wrecking things for the joy of it. He bombed the WTC in 1993 to kill Americans. Sounds simple. He tried again in 2001 and succeeded in bringing down the towers, hitting the Pentagon, and failed in his attempt to hit either the White House or the Capitol.

Problem was, he did it during a Republican Administration. OBL was quite surprised when Afghanistan as a Taliban nation was swiftly destroyed, barely escaping from Tora Bora as we closed in. Iraq was next and hundreds of covert missions of which we will likely never hear about were carried out as well.

The Sleepers were Awoken on 9/11/2001. Party affiliation was set aside, for a time, in mutual anger and sadness over the tragedy. Blood, food, clothing, you name it; all were donated to help out. Thousands joined the military in the hopes of being sent overseas for some payback when war was declared.

The wars have gone on longer than anticipated because of politics and "nation building", but that is another blog entry.

It was not long before the nuts came out and claimed 9/11 was an inside job, despite the evidence. A man so dumb that he could not turn a door knob planned 9/11. Cheney, a man so evil that he could not go hunting without shooting a friend for the fun of it, supervised the planting of explosives in the WTC and the Pentagon, disguised cruise missiles to look like airplanes, and then sprinkled the rest on the levees in New Orleans while he waited for their Hurricane creation/guidance machine to be perfected.

As the years went by, those on the left tired of playing nice and went back to being kooks. Under Bush, to voice your opposition was considered the highest form of patriotism. Under Obama it is treason. Eric Holder prosecutes the very agents who have prevented more than 25 additional 9/11's. Really, Holder? Really, Obama?

Some may consider those actions to be more than a little treasonous on the face of it, Mr. Obama.

One of my students asked me yesterday, "why were we attacked?" This could have been answered any number of ways rather directly, but in this case the direct answer was not the best one. This one had to be answered more philosophically. The answer was as easy as the question: we were perceived to be weak.

History is crammed full of wars that started because one side thought that they could roll over their opponent in a matter of weeks and claim whatever prize motivated their need for war. Just pick your war.

In WWI, Austria-Hungary failed to realize that Serbian treaties of mutual defense would be honored. Plus, Serbia put up one hell of a fight against the Austrians.

Hitler slammed into the Soviet Union in 1941 without even bothering to issue cold weather gear because he was so certain of a quick victory.

The Japanese hit Pearl Harbor in the hopes that we would not have the resolve to fight an extended war, especially since Germany would be pulled into a wider conflict.

North Korea invaded South Korea because of a belief that our drawn-down post WWII military would not prove to be a hinderance.

The United States went into Vietnam thinking that the North Vietnamese were simple guerrillas and could be swiftly defeated with American military might.

The Ayatollah attacked our embassy because he knew that Jimmy Carter would not do anything substantive.

Saddam invaded Kuwait because he felt that the rest of the world would simply accept a done deed.

No one willingly places their hand in a meat grinder. The radical Islamists poked and harassed as long as they knew they could get away with it. The Iranians let the hostages go as soon as Ronald Reagan was elected President. They knew that he would not tolerate the situation, and they were right.

The Jihadists bombed embassies and vacation sites around the world knowing that there would be no concerted effort to stop them as a movement. When Reagan pulled out of Lebanon in 1983, a young OBL realized that there was a limit to how much America would tolerate in the way of casualties. He went to war against the Soviet Union and learned the art of war in Afghanistan. He knew that he could operate openly against President Clinton and even tried to bring down the towers in 1993.

His mistake was hitting the towers again a year too late. A Republican was in office now and this act of provocation could not be allowed to stand. The Sleepers had Awoken and we had become the Wrathful Giant of Japanese fame. There was going to be payback and it was not long in coming.

That fire has dwindled, flared back only briefly when OBL was killed. The cries of distaste were sickening when the left derided patriots for showing joy at the death of OBL. The Tea Party had already been labeled a Terrorist organization by the left, despite the obvious breakdown in reality with that statement.

We must Awaken once more. We must shake off the stupor that the left has once again wove about us. I hate to think that it will take another 9/11 for this to happen. Obama, Holder, Pelosi, Reid; they are the true enemies of the State. When returning soldiers and veterans are considered prime fodder for home grown terror and the border with Mexico remains open then my statements stand. Try to call those extreme and you will simply prove your position.

Live well and remember what happened and why on 9/11. Live well for their memories.

--Zavost