A Tour Of The Fronts

***D'ya s'pose that this might be another reason why the Left doesn't have much, if any, problem with Islamic imperialism?

***With the election of the Tories led by Stephen Harper north of the border, Canada has once again returned to the ranks of American allies and friends. But that does not appear to have improved their anti-terrorism competence all that much:

Radioactive devices - some of which have the potential to be used in terrorist attacks - have gone missing in alarming numbers in Canada over the past five years.

A new database compiled by The Canadian Press shows that the devices, which are used in everything from medical research to measuring oil wells, are becoming a favoured target of thieves.

At least seventy-six have gone missing in Canada over the past five years - disappearing from construction sites, specialized tool boxes, and generally growing legs and walking away.

Some of the devices could be used in a "dirty bomb," where conventional explosives are used to detonate nuclear material, spreading the contamination over a wide area, said Alan Bell, a security and international terrorism expert from Globe Risk Security Holdings.

Well, the crooked Liberal ex-Prime Minister was named "Cretin," even if he didn't spell it that way. Kind of bolsters the adage about elections mattering, doesn't it?

***It's no accident that all three members of the London/Glasgow al Qaeda plot were doctors. Nor does it seem to be any coincidence that a group of forty-five jihadis arrested for plotting mass attacks in Jacksonville, Florida were all physicians as well.

It's just one more example of our enemies exploiting our openness and generosity of spirit as weaknesses to gain the opportunity to slaughter more of us. It also demonstrates, once more, that Iraq is a central front in the War Against Islamic Fundamentalism, was even before we invaded, and absolutely cannot be abandoned now if we do not want to be overwhelmed by lethal terrorist mayhem on an unprecedented scale.

But that doesn't fit the Left's template, so it will never be "official reality".

***Christopher Orlet introduced a new phrase - "gesture security" - to the anti-terrorism lexicon in the American Spectator this week. Basically it is the boosting of the appearance of security at airports and other terrorist-vulnerable "soft" civilian infrastructure and transportation sites without any real enhancements to actual security after a successful or near-successful attack. The main point is to reassure the public that the government is "on the job," "on the case," and that another such attack "can't happen" - at least not for a while.

It isn't so much that there's anything intrinsically wrong with "gesture security" in and of itself; rather, the problem is that it is symptomatic of what passes for the Left's approach to fighting the War Against Islamic Fundamentalism in general:

Here then is one of the unfortunate consequences of an endless war. If the War on Terror drags on for another decade or three - which seems certain - all of those security measures and new laws will begin to add up. There will be checkpoints on the boulevards manned by M16-carrying cops.

This doesn't mean the terrorist cannot be stopped before he goes on the attack; though it would require something of which the West is in desperately short supply, i.e., good intelligence. It would mean penetrating the Jihadi networks and cells. It would mean recruiting Muslim agents - even unsavory ones - in Islamic countries, in Europe and in the US. It means sending Arab Americans with pro-American sympathies back to the mosques of Saudi Arabia and Britons of Pakistani ancestry back to the madrasahs of Pakistan. In a word: espionage.

Indeed it was largely the prohibition on espionage that led to 9/11, says former CIA agent Robert Baer. "We weren't allowed to spy in Saudi Arabia," he told the Hoover Institution's Peter Robinson. "It was too politically risky. It upset the State Department, upset the oil companies, it upset the Royal Family who've got houses in Aspen, Colorado and Washington, D.C....We didn't know what was going on in this whole Jihad movement." We still don't. [emphasis added]

When we on the Right denounce lefties as being "unserious" about national security, this is what we mean. Indeed, "unserious" is a gentle euphemism; "delusional," "insane," and in some instances, "treasonous" are more appropriate adjectives. It is another reason why it was imperative for the Bush Administration to try and win this war against ALL the "terror master" regimes in the Middle East as soon as possible while the 9/11-triggered window of opportunity was still open. Because of faulty "strategery" that didn't think big enough, and the enemy's bottomless patience (versus our short attention span/instant gratification culture), the Left's "land of make-believe" has lulled the public back into its pre-9/11 complacency. And when that breeds the next major terrorist strike, that complacency is likely to be a great deal more resilient than it was the last time.

There is one piece of solace, if you can call it that: it makes it much less likely than Mr. Orlet believes that the war will drag on for years or decades. The bad news is those of us our conquerors leave alive are all going to have to invest in prayer rugs.