It's been five years....where's the terror?
In a little over four months, five years will have passed since those dark hours on September 11th, 2001. It's already been nearly half a decade. Time flies.
Since then, we've invaded Afghanistan and Iraq, two pillars of the ideal known as Islamic Terrorism.
Debate that point all you want, but that's why we're there. Bin-Laden is still at large, of course, sending, to our "allies" at al-Jazeera, his infrequent messages and threats. Al-Jazeera also gleefully plays the threats and messages sent by his comrades-in-arms.
In the hysterical days that followed 9/11, everyone was waiting for the other shoe to drop; authorities and pundits galore were warning us that the glory days were over.
Every day in America was now going to be Jerusalem Lite; cities in flames with buildings, cars, trucks and buses exploding and bridges collapsing and restaurants full of patrons being blown up....it was all coming, thanks to the terror cells lying in wait for some secret signal from their master. It was just a question of when.
Well, it's been five years; five years of no such thing.
After 9/11, we had the brief Anthrax scare, but, unless memory fails, that had nothing to do with al-Qaeda's Islamic terror threat.
In fact, I bet Anthrax Guy was more than a little jacked that bin-Laden chose that time to make his move. Took the credit and stole the headlines from Anthrax Guy.
Every time I see a videotaped threat from bin-Laden or one of the other turbans, telling us that America will soon scream, burning in the fires of Jihad or some equally grandiose-sounding verbage, it makes me think of that general in charge of Iraq's defense.
Right up to the end, even with an American tank rolling down the street behind him, he maintained that no American forces had entered Baghdad, and that if they tried, they would be repelled violently.
Bin-Laden admittedly based his opinion of Americans on the reaction we had when the Rangers met with resistance in Rwanda. The sight of dead American bodies on the news was revolting to Americans, and we demanded a withdrawal.
When they attacked, al-Qaeda expected the country to grind to a halt; us fat, lazy, decadent Americans were expected to run for cover and lick our wounds. Instead, we stood together, got mad, and came after them. I truly think they were shocked by our reaction, and it's put them on the defensive ever since.
I know it's probably just wishful thinking, and maybe even just what they want me to think, allowing me to be lulled into a false sense of security. But maybe we've hurt them far more than even we realize.
Maybe all they can do at this point is make idle threats that they know we can't afford to take lightly. Make us get all nervous and jerky when they say they're gonna git us. It probably gives them a chuckle when that happens.
Nikita Kruschev used to say that whenever he wanted to shake up the West, all he had to do was squeeze its "testicles"....Berlin. Just to play around and keep us off balance.
Maybe that's what al-Qaeda is doing.....squeezing our testicles to keep us off balance. Maybe that's all they CAN do?