September, October, and November
By Alan Caruba
web
posted September 16, 2002
I don't know why, but really bad things seem to happen in September and October. Germany invaded Poland in September 1939, thereby starting World War II. Earlier, the stock market crashed in October 1929, thereby starting the Great Depression. And now, the infamy of September 11, 2001.
Permit me to worry about this month and those to come. I worry about not if, but when, President Bush will attack Iraq. It is absolutely necessary to remove Saddam as a threat to the region and ultimately the world. Frankly, I hope Bush chooses to attack before November. I favor October. How will it change the Middle East? It cannot make it any worse and holds many prospects for making it better.
War these days is no longer something that only armies wage. We have seen how suicide-killers ended the charade that Palestinians wanted peace with Israel. Today a single person, equipped with a small nuclear device or who is infected with smallpox is now empowered to wipe out an entire city of people. Consider how 19 men turned commercial jets into flying bombs. Individuals are now empowered in ways we used to associate only with vast armies.
To make things worse, we are faced with an enemy that wants to kill us more than they want to live. We are faced with an enemy not only capable of imagining the worse thing they could do to us, but willing to do it.
There are an estimated eleven million illegal aliens living in the United States and the government has virtually no idea where any of them can be found. We talk of "homeland security" when we have, for all intents and purposes, no borders at all. We have troops in Europe who have been there since the end of World War II to protect against the threat of a defunct Soviet Union. There are 40,000 US troops stationed in Korea since 1950 to keep the Communist North from attacking the democratic South, but we have insufficient personnel to guard our vast borders with both Mexico and Canada.
I worry about September because two important Jewish High Holy days occur. Rosh Hashanah, the New Year, and ten days later, Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement on September 16th. One of the wars Arabs unleashed against the Israelis began on Yom Kippur. Showing such Islamic contempt for a Jewish holy day suggests that the next attack on the US could come on Christmas or maybe as soon as our secular holiday of Thanksgiving.
Neither September, nor October will bode well for Wall Street as these
are two months that traditionally are a wait-and-see period. This brings
us to November and the elections. I worry that President Bush's personal
popularity will not be enough to thwart the election of enough Democrats
to give this traitorous party control of the Senate and maybe even more
power in the House. That would render Bush politically impotent for the
next two years and would militate against taking the action necessary
in Iraq. The Democrats elected Bill Clinton with the slogan, "It's
the economy, stupid." And the economy is not good these days. And
after eight years of doing nothing to respond to one Islamist attack after
another, Clinton's legacy now includes 9-11.
I have no doubt whatever that the killing of millions of Americans is
a goal of the millions of Muslims who support the Jihad. I have no doubt
that some, if not many of the Muslim intelligentsia, middle class, and
young frustrated Arabs and Iranians would give anything to have their
various leaders overthrown and replaced with a form of government similar
to ours. They literally need to be liberated.
So I am going to worry this month, next month, and for whatever time it takes until the enemy is fully engaged and until our flag flies from the highest minaret in Baghdad. If the United States can keep troops in Europe and Korea for all the decades since the conflicts there, we can surely do the same in Iraq and anywhere else in the Middle East. Our success will bring the craven Europeans to our side and we may be very surprised to see how the ordinary Arab reacts. Not all, but enough to make a difference.
And in November, I want you to go to the polls and vote for Republicans
as if your life depends on it. Because it does. 
Alan Caruba writes "Warning Signs", a weekly column posted
on www.anxietycenter.com,
the Internet site of The National Anxiety Center. Copyright, Alan Caruba,
2002
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