Paying the price
One of our Founding Fathers noted that the price of liberty is eternal vigilance. Today, our allies in London are paying that price. While the devastation is on a smaller scale than the 9-11 attacks or the Madrid bombings, the psychological impact is still horrific, the loss of life tragic, and our resolve to hunt down the animals who perpetrate this kind of fanatical hatred should be unshaken.
So, let’s focus on the issues at hand (and ignore the constant whining by the Seattle Times editorial page that “Iraq is a quagmire” and all that crap). We cannot falter because our enemies will not. We are not safe, because some crazed jihadist could walk into Alderwood Mall tomorrow during lunch and blow himself up. It can happen here. Why it hasn’t yet is a testament to the effectiveness of what intelligence-gathering capabilities we do have. Who knows how many Londons have been prevented in the USA? They struck us once, and we struck back harder, faster, and with superior firepower. They no longer have bases in Afghanistan, or support from Saddam Hussein (who, even without WMDs, had plenty of cash that he got from the UN Oil-for-Food program to pay off homicide bombers in Israel – anyone want to take bets that he would have done the same for an eager bomber willing to blow himself up in a Washington, D.C. subway station?).
We have to deal with these threats today. I would rather have my brother and brother-in-law deal with terrorists in Iraq now, than live in willful ignorance and have my son face evil twenty years from now. He may still have to, because evil does not die. But it will not be for a lack of trying on our part.
Will the world ever be safe and perfect? Nope, not until Christ comes back and makes things as they should be. But in the meantime, we press on. We are vigilant. We will protect our freedoms and the rights of others. For my Munchkins, and for the Munchkins all over the world who deserve to live in peace.