THE THREATS AMONG US

Terrorism is for real. We know that because we are missing four passenger planes, two rather large buildings in New York City, and almost 3,000 American citizens.

Of course, time has passed and there have been no further Stateside events to speak of. Oh, we hear now and then about some isolated incident where law enforcement found some kook with an explosive shoe, or some nut with a jug full of nitro trying to get on a plane. But, the threatened bombing of the Golden Gate Bridge, or the leveling of the Los Angeles Air Terminal, or the destruction of the Washington Monument…none of those things has happened.

That’s a fact. Despite the endless predictions that the terrorists would be back to do more damage on American soil, nothing has happened. So, logic has to make one wonder whether or not this “threat” was just nothing more than hype, just as was the “threat” that Iraq was making “weapons of mass destruction.” Could this all just be a demented figment of some Presidential imagination?

Just for the sake of argument, let’s dwell on that thought for a moment. 1f our President happened to be all that deranged, surely there would be more evidence of it by now and the Vice-President would have laid down his hunting weapons long enough to assume “control of the situation.” And, we know that there have been weapons unearthed in Iraq that were buried in the sands…Russian jet fighters, for example. We also know of Hussein’s historical take over of Kuwait and the extent of weapons he held at his command at that time.

Back in our homeland, does the absence of another national tragedy, such as the destruction of the Golden Gate Bridge, likewise mean that there is an absence of those who would like to do us in? Or, does the happenstance discovery by a would-be car thief of a van loaded with explosives in New York portend something more dangerous and sinister than years of quiet would lead us to believe? That van may be tied to two other vans loaded with explosives by a Chinese man on the East coast who has been in jail since January on a charge of trying to blow up one of his tenant’s cars. The vans were evidently rigged to explode upon receipt of some radio signal, but the perpetrator forgot to take his handheld device to jail with him.

Whether or not the man is a radical Muslim remains to be seen. For the sake of my argument, I would prefer that he is not. That’s my preference because I propose that it’s not just the radical Muslims who would like to do this country in. In every corner of the world, there is some one or some faction that believes that they should be in control of the world and that America stands in their way. Whether they are simple crooks that don’t like laws, Black extremists, Communists, dictators, despots…America stands in their way.

What makes the problem worse is that this country is perceived by many to be both weak and vulnerable. To them, it’s just a matter of zeroing in on our soft points and taking over. If they cannot succeed against our military might, then they may succeed by infiltrating our ways of life and using our freedoms against us. And, although their reasons may vary, there is no reason that their goals and objectives cannot be the same.

And, I propose that our weakness, our vulnerability, is that we do not stand united, we stand divided. And, where the price of freedom is vigilance, we have become complacent and inattentive to the dangers now within. Who knows if the guy standing in the shadows is waiting to kidnap and rape the 10-year-old-gir crossing the street toward him, or if he intends to break into the communications building behind him and use the explosives in his backpack to create unknown havoc? Or, do we care? The little girl Is Black and we don’t like the telecommunications company that owns the building, anyway. Here we are, divided and inattentive and vulnerable.

Here’s the point. I know it seems like it never happened, but there was the first bombing at the World Trade Center, perpetrated by Muslim radicals using a van loaded with explosives. Then, there was the Oklahoma City bombing. How does a van loaded with explosives go undetected and uninvestigated in New York for six months?

It happens every day. A carload of thugs drives down a street and guns down innocent people. A child gets kidnapped, raped, killed and many times worse. A college co-ed goes missing. Behind the scenes, with barely a whisper, law enforcement arrests someone planning or about to commit an act of terrorism. Yet, we go about are lives as if nothing is happening. We build around ourselves this artificial cocoon of protection and we isolate ourselves from the facts.

The reality of terrorism is here. We cannot comprehend the reality what it means because we allow ourselves to be wrapped in our cocoons. What happened on 9/11 is removed from us because we could control what we were seeing with the remote control in our hands. But, it was real. People did die.

We need to draw a deep breath, to contemplate where we have been, where we are, and where we are going. Before we take one more step toward where we are going, we need to take a moment to regain our unity and our solidarity of purpose as Americans. With vigilance, we should examine our surroundings and those others within them. And, we should become aware and convinced that the only thing standing between our freedoms and anarchy is us.

That’s MY AMERICAN OPINION, respectfully submitted