Saturday, January 14, 2006

Words for the Unwise

Those who are trying to dismantle our defenses should read this:

Reliapundit links to a report which he says can be considered circumstantial proof that the NY Times, in leaking the NSA wiretapping program, has tipped off terrorists and thus made our job more difficult. Seems disposable phones are selling like hotcakes in certain quarters. They’re tough to trace. . . .

Maybe some Americans forget what 9/11 was like. It’s easy to do; we don’t like to dwell on what is sad and tragic, and we don’t like to feel insecure. And perhaps because our president and his team HAVE managed to keep us safe, HAVE managed to prevent another attack on our soil, using these (what the left would call) “impeachable” tactics, perhaps we are feeling a little too safe, a little over-confident. That must be true for some, particularly many Democrats, who would like to “kill the Patriot act,” as Sen. Harry Reid crowed, or leak every covert measure we are taking, (hello, New York Times, hello James Risen) or who seem to wish to tie the hands of the government at every turn in the War on Terror.

Feeling pretty safe, are you? Pretty secure? Has 9/11 become a faded memory for you?

I haven’t forgotten. . . .

I remember Tom Brokaw’s voice as the endless loop of a plane slamming into a tower played, “This,” he intoned, gravely, “is war.” . . .

I remember knowing, four years ago, that terrorists were evil and that terrorism needed defeating. I thought we all knew it.

I’m a New Yorker, and if it happens again in New York, I will hold these “pure, patriotically motivated” leakers (yes, they’re leakers) responsible, because they allowed their hate to take them too far.

I will wonder how Harry Reid and the NY Times and the leakers and “anonymous sources” they have lionized can live with all the blood on their hands, even as they (predictably) immediately blame the White House for not “connecting the dots.”

If it happens anywhere in America, (or, really, anywhere else) I will look toward the NY Times and the rest of the “pure, patriotically motivated” press and leftists, because they will have, by their actions and their rhetoric, enabled terrorists to move forward where they had perhaps formerly been stalled. By making the job of surveillance and information-sharing more difficult (drop the Patriot Act and Jamie Gorelick’s wall snaps back in place) and the terrorist’s job easier, they will have participated in something deadly - all because they wanted to “get” the president and keep him from succeeding - which means keep America from succeeding - which means keep the world from progressing away from the scourge of terrorism.

If it happens again, if after we’ve been safe for nearly 5 years only to find - after these “noble” leaks - that we are safe no longer, I will know where to look. Most Americans will know where to look.

I know right where to look.

Related posts:

Getting It Wrong: Civil Libertarians and the War on Terror (A Case Study) (05/18/04)
The Illogic of Knee-Jerk Privacy Adocates (10/06/04)
Treasonous Blogging? (03/05/05)
Absolutism (03/25/05)
Shall We All Hang Separately? (08/13/05)
Foxhole Rats (08/14/05)
Treasonous Speech? (08/18/05)
Foxhole Rats, Redux (08/22/05)
September 11: A Remembrance (09/11/05)
The Faces of Appeasement (11/19/05)
Give Me Liberty or Give Me Non-Aggression? (12/08/05)
We Have Met the Enemy . . . (12/13/05)
Whose Liberties Are We Fighting For? (12/16/05)
Prof. Bainbridge and the War on Terror (12/17/05)
The Constitution and Warrantless "Eavesdropping" (12/21/05)
NSA "Eavesdropping": The Last Word (from Me) (12/28/05)
Privacy, Security, and Electronic Surveillance (01/06/06)
Privacy: Variations on the Theme of Liberty (01/11/06)
Worth Repeating (01/13/06)