Striking America...and against New York City

By Michael Gaynor

America needs to recognize all her enemies and to take appropriate action against each of them, in order to protect herself, to preserve the rule of law, to render them harmless, and to punish them and thereby deter others from striking at America. Unfortunately, America has domestic enemies as well as foreign ones. And America better pay careful attention. Do not be deceived. Do not be deluded. There are people at home as well as abroad what are determined to attack America and to break America's law, for their own purposes. These people are obscene, not merely oblivious. Patriots who think otherwise are...oblivious.

On September 11, 2001, al Qaeda struck America, targeting America's greatest city (New York), America's capitol (Washington, D.C.), America's military headquarters (the Pentagon), America's economy and America's will.

Like the totalitarian Japanese authorities who chose to attack Pearl Harbor, the al Qaeda leaders miscalculated. To be sure, they sacrificed but nineteen of their readily expendable pawns (at least some of whom were the kind of fanatics the Japanese used against America during World War II and called kamikazes), and inflicted horrific damage. New York City's spectacular Twin Towers were demolished by two planes, a third plane struck the Pentagon, causing death and destruction, and a fourth plane would have hit the White House or the Capitol but for the heroism of the passengers, who made sure that plane crashed into an empty field. America's economy took a massive hit, as the stock markets dropped very significantly. But, America was awakened and enraged instead of intimidated. America's will was strengthened instead of broken. America finally fully focused on the al Qaeda threat. And, when America focuses on a threat, America is a sure bet.

President Bush became what he never wanted to be (what NO American President worthy of the office ever should want to be): a wartime President. He rightly treated terrorism as a grave threat, instead of a criminal nuisance. After all, al Qaeda had not only declared war on America, but suddenly struck the America homeland in an unignorable way.

Since at least 1863, the United States Supreme Court recognized that when America is attacked, the President is supposed to act, with or without Congressional cooperation and with or without a Congressional declaration of war. The Court stated: "If a war be made by invasion of a foreign nation, the President is not only authorized but bound to resist force by force. He does not initiate the war, but is bound to accept the challenge without waiting for any special legislative authority. And whether the hostile party be a foreign invader, or States organized in rebellion, it is none the less a war, although the declaration of it be 'unilateral.' Lord Stowell (1 Dodson, 247) observes, 'It is not the less a war on that account, for war may exist without a declaration on either side. It is so laid down by the best writers on the law of nations. A declaration of war by one country only is not a mere challenge to be accepted or refused at pleasure by the other.'"

That's good American common sense! Why do so many Dems pretend to be dense?

President Bush did not have to go it alone, of course. With Congressional support, he refused to give al Qaeda safe haven in Afghanistan. Instead, he took the war to the terrorists and liberated Afghanistan in short order (which a few naysayers grumbled and/or insisted they knew how to have done the job better).

In addition, President Bush decided not to wait for Saddam Hussein to use weapons of mass destruction against America or any of America's allies. He decided to enforce the unenforced United Nations resolutions that Saddam had refused to obey; to stop Saddam's forces from firing on American and British planes patrolling the no-fly zones; and to make sure that Saddam would not cooperate with al Qaeda in its attempts to bring death and destruction to Americans and America. Congress overwhelmingly authorized President Bush to take military action and President Bush did. Iraq was liberated in short order (faster and more efficiently than expected), Saddam was captured and his psychopathic sons were killed in battle, and the necessarily bloody, expensive and time-consuming, but ultimately very reward, process of transforming a terrible tyranny into a functioning democracy was undertaken. A series of elections culminating in the awesome December 15, 2005 election of an Iraqi Parliament followed. And, after ignoring the outrageous charges of his pathetic, but poisonous, political enemies for months (apparently on the erroneous assumption that they automatically would be recognized as such), President Bush watched his approval rating drop from more than 50% to less than 40% and decided to set the record straight and reassure Americans that he was, is and will continue to be throughout and after his presidency the principled and compassionate conservative that they entrusted with "[]he executive Power...of the United States of America," including the power and responsibility of "Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States."

As a result of four sensational speeches and the superbly successful December 15, 2005 Iraqi election, President Bush's approval rating is on the rise and his political enemies are being recognized as the ones telling lies.

The far left did not stop campaigning after President Bush was re-elected in November of 2005. They feared he finally would get the chance (or even chances) to appoint strict constructionists to the United States Supreme Court, who would undo the damage done by secular extremists having tried to separate the United States of America from God by creating by judicial fiat that would have been anathema to America's Founders an official neutrality between religion and nonreligion or irreligion, an unbreachable wall between "church and state" and a ban on any governmental support of religion generally.

So the far left regularly complained that peace and democracy were not coming to Iraq fast enough, there were (gasp!) casualties, and the Americans fighting in Iraq were behaving badly. Instead of blaming the terrorists and the diehard Saddamists, the far left blamed President Bush and the American troops! They made a mother (Cindy Sheehan) who used the heroic death of son (Casey Sheehan) in Iraq to try to vilify President Bush and to force immediate withdrawal of American troops from Iraq. The far left media treated her as a darling instead of a kook, or a shameless publicity seeker. Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid shamelessly pretended that there really was a need for a secret Senate session just before Election Day 2005 to spur investigation of alleged governmental wrongdoing instead of just a need to posture to boost the Democrat vote. With Cindy finally having been show to be what she actually is instead of the heroine that she was presented as, and the evidence demonstrating that the Bush administration neither deliberately deceived not manipulated intelligence to rush into a needless war, House Minority Leader Nast Nancy Pelosi trotted out a veteran Congressman and Marine veteran(John Murtha) who flip flopped for her and called for immediate withdrawal (denominated redeployment just beyond the horizon), in an attempt to snatch defeat from the jaws of near victory and to stop the December 15, 2005 Iraqi election from becoming the fantastic success it became (because House republican forced a vote on withdrawal and, forced to vote, only three Dems voted for immediate withdrawal (and they did NOT even include either Pelosi or Murtha). Dem leaders dedicated themselves to rebutting or blunting the impact of President Bush's four speeches, but it did not work well for them. The Iraqi election exceeded the most optimistic expectations, and the President was rebounding nicely. So The New York Times announced right after the election a national secret that apparently had been leaked to it by an enemy of America a year ago: that President Bush had authorized electronic surveillance in order to detect and thwart possible terrorists attacks. As though that imperiled instead of preserved the Republic!

Al Qaeda has allies that strike at the heart of America. Including politicians who shamelessly pander to every decent American's heartfelt desire for peace, in their reckless pursuit of personal political power, even at the expense of the causes of peace and freedom and America's best interests, and media manipulators who prefer to present America's troops as terrorists instead of liberators and to pretend that the Iraqi war is not winnable.

And striking at America is catching.

In New York, it is illegal for public employees to strike. But the Transportation Workers Union, a public employees union with utter disdain for the law, just went on strike anyway, so that subways and buses ground at the height of the holiday shopping and tourist season, threatening to plunge the city into chaos by forcing about 7 million daily riders to find new ways to get around.

New York City's Mayor, Michael Bloomberg, estimated that the illegal strike would cost the city as much as $400 million a day. He also commented that the strike would freeze traffic into "gridlock that will tie the record for all gridlocks." As for what the illegal strike represents, the Mayor did not mince words: "This is not only an affront to the concept of public service, it is a cowardly attempt by Roger Toussaint and the TWU to bring the city to its knees to create leverage for their own bargaining position."

New York's Governor, George Pataki, added: "They have not only endangered our city and state's economy, but they are also recklessly endangering the health and safety of each and every New Yorker."

Of course, the lawless strike leaders have concocted a very different story. "This is a fight over dignity and respect on the job, a concept that is very alien to the MTA [Metropolitian Transit Authority, a governmental authority with which the union negotiates and which it is trying to bully with an illegal strike after the MTA offered arbitration, calculating that conducting an illegal strike somehow would work out better than obeying the law and accepting a neutral arbitrator's ruling.

America needs to deal effectively not only with terrorists and diehard Saddamists, but also with traitors, political hacks, moles, irresponsible journalists, irresponsible union leaders and public employees who choose to violate the law at the behest of irresponsible union leaders.

© Michael Gaynor