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Ralph Peters is a regular columnist with the New
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| PETERS |
Thank
The Feds
by Ralph
Peters [author,
novelist] 6/27/06 |
With the
fifth anniversary of 9/11 approaching, we need another vote
on Capitol Hill: a vote of thanks to the federal
career employees who've kept us free from terror attacks while
politicians blathered, appointees bungled and our enemies did
their best to kill Americans.
It's time
to give credit where it's due, to the ever-criticized, never-thanked
feds, from the FBI agents who busted the Miami Seven last Thursday,
through the intelligence professionals working diligently amid
all the political flak, to the Border Patrol agents who daily
face some of the most miserable tasks in government.
Contributors
Ralph Peters - Contributor
Ralph
Peters is a retired Army officer and the author of 19 books,
as well as of hundreds of essays and articles, written both
under his own name and as Owen Parry. He is a frequent columnist
for the New York Post and other publications. [go to Peters Index] |
This isn't
to slight the great work down at the state and local levels.
But it's
the feds who get attacked no matter what they
do. If they devise innovative ways to take down terrorists, a
trash-America paper blows the secret on Page One. Yet the same
voices warning so self-righteously of "threats to our civil
liberties" will be the first to screech that the government
failed when terrorists strike us again.
The feds aren't perfect. Only God is. But in our War on Terror
the greatest proof of success is a negative - the absence of
attacks. And since the horrors of 9/11 (so soon forgotten by
so many), al Qaeda and its surrogates have not been able to stage
a single strike on American soil. And it isn't because they haven't
wanted to hurt us.
The viciousness which those on the left aim at honest - and
underpaid - federal employees was on evidence again this weekend.
After the Thursday bust of the al Qaeda wannabes down in Liberty
City, it took less than 48 hours for the critics to mobilize.
By Saturday, we were being told that those arrested weren't a
serious threat, that they'd been entrapped, that they're just
misguided youths who need a hug.
The entrapment charge
won't hold up. If there's one thing the FBI understands, it's
how to build a case. But the left will
nonetheless champion murderous thugs again ("Free Mumia!").
We'll hear ad nauseum that the Miami Lice were incompetent, that
they had no weapons or money, that it was all talk.
Now consider how Timothy
McVeigh, Terry Nichols & Co. would
have come across had they been popped for conspiracy three or
four months before the Oklahoma City bombing - namely, as nuts
with delusions of grandeur. Jobless and living on the edge of
poverty, McVeigh and Nichols would've seemed pathetic, not deadly.
Losers. Like the perps in Miami.
It only took a pile of cheap fertilizer, an old vehicle and
one committed killer to bring down the Murrow Federal Building,
kill 168 people and shatter thousands of lives. And it wouldn't
have taken very much for those half-baked fanatics in Miami to
kill hundreds, if not thousands.
Then we would've heard
endless shrieks of "Intelligence
failure!" The Pelosi-Dean-Kerry Surrendercrats would've
damned the Bush administration as asleep at the wheel and incompetent.
And the elite media would've expressed outrage that no undercover
programs were in place to detect terrorists before they struck.
The FBI did exactly the right thing in Miami: It took madmen
seriously. Yet the agency damned for overlooking Zac Moussauoi
pre-9/11 is now under attack for busting up a terror ring before
it achieved operational capabilities.
What do the critics want, besides putting cowards in office?
Even if the Miami Seven could only manage to bomb a suburban
Starbucks, instead of the Sears Tower, wouldn't we want to stop
them?
It isn't the scope of their vision or their lack of resources
that matters - it's their intent to kill innocent Americans.
It's both legitimate and necessary to criticize our government
when criticism is deserved. But fair's fair. When the men and
women charged to protect us 365 days a year get it right, they
should be applauded, not pecked at by critics who never did a
single act of service to this country in their lives.
The courts will decide whether the Miami Seven are criminals
or not. They'll get a fair trial at the expense of those they
wished to kill. But the FBI has already been condemned by the
terrorist-huggers. We are a miserably ungrateful nation.
If Sept. 11, 2006, passes without a terrorist attack on our
soil, Congress should thank our homeland defenders with a formal
resolution. Before the November elections. And let's see who
votes against it. CRO
Ralph Peters'
latest book is New
Glory: Expanding America's Global Supremacy. His next
book, Never Quit the Fight, is due
out July 10.
This
piece first appeared in the New York Post
copyright 2006 - NY Post
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