Few things are more fascinating to me than the American left’s continuing attempt to disconnect cause and effect with regard to the war against Islamic terror.

To listen to these misguided souls, one would think the Bush administration’s success in preventing another domestic terror attack for seven-plus years had virtually nothing to do with the strategies and tactics employed by it. In fact, in watching the latest expression of leftist self-righteousness regarding those strategies and tactics, one could be forgiven for thinking that such things as enhanced interrogation of terrorists, wiretapping international phone calls, tracking financial transactions and putting troops in the Middle East was little more than a “neo-con over-reaction” to 9/11.

Perhaps the American left needs to be reminded that their approach to Islamic terror played itself out the when the World Trade Center was bombed in 1993. We had trials, we had convictions. We took the “law enforcement” approach. Unfortunately, the underlying cancer was left to metastasize–something for which the American left cannot be exclusively blamed. No one anticipated the depth of jihadist hatred, nor the extent to which they were capable of inflicting harm on this nation.

But we know what they’re capable of NOW–and we also know the previous administration kept them from executing a repeat performance.

Yet for the American left, little of that matters. For them, George W. Bush and Dick Cheney are the essence of evil and excess, American “war criminals” who must be prosecuted–despite the stubborn facts revealed last week that liberals in Congress were “in the loop” regarding all of the strategies and tactics employed.

If liberals really want to prosecute those who were involved in protecting us–on both sides of the aisle–I say go for it. Let Americans see the difference between those who prefer waterboarding terrorists and those who would have preferred enduring a second 9/11-type attack on Los Angeles prevented by that waterboarding. Let them see the difference between those who believe the world would have been better off with Saddam Hussein still running Iraq, the Taliban still running Afghanistan, Libya still in possession of nukes, terrorists communicating abroad without restraint, or terrorist funds being left untracked–and those who don’t.

Let them see the difference between those who believe stateless, mass murdering thugs deserve American Constitutional rights and those who don’t, the difference between those who believe terror is a “bumper-sticker slogan” and those who think we’re in a war for our survival.

But all the while, remember one thing: the American left’s self-righteousness–and 20/20 hindsight–grows in direct proportion to the number of years America has been spared from enduring another domestic atrocity.

And therein lies their Achilles Heel. All of their anger, self-righteousness, disdain for the military, their unending hatred of conservative Americans and their assuredness that we’re “no better or worse” than any other nation–all of it hangs on the slender thread that there will be no further domestic attacks on a par with 9/11 or worse.

If there is (God forbid), this effort to criminalize the previous administration’s approach to terror–the one that kept us safe–will be recognized as the ideologically-driven witch hunt that it really is. And once again, just as with 9/11, those who believe America is “just another country” will be ideologically neutered by those of us who think American exceptionalism is worth defending–as vigorously as necessary, even as we do it as thoughtfully and humanely as any country in the world has ever done it.

With apologies to no one.

atahlert@comcast.net

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