The threat then and now

Today is the fifth anniversary of the terrorist attacks by Osama bin Laden’s al Qaeda network that killed about 3,000 people in the United States. Americans will appropriately remember their fallen countrymen. Inevitably, the question will be asked, “Are we safer?” Yes, we are, but the unfortunate reality is that the Islamist terrorist threat will potentially endure for decades.

Unlike the Clinton administration, we have taken the fight to al Qaeda and are winning. Recently, British authorities disrupted a plot to simultaneously blow up 10 airliners over the Atlantic, en route to the United States. As summed up by a British counterterrorism official, the threat from Islamist terrorists “is real, it’s here, it’s deadly and it’s enduring.”

This summer offered a stark reminder of state-sponsored terrorism, as an Iran-backed Hezbollah fired rockets indiscriminately into Israel with the sole purpose of terrorizing innocent civilians. I was in Haifa during the attacks and saw the death and destruction firsthand. Make no mistake, Hezbollah is a formidable foe.

Just as the terrorists have evolved, we as a government and society must evolve too. Judge Richard Posner wrote last month, “To the extent that our laws do handicap us in fighting terrorists, it is one more sign that we do not take the threat of terrorism seriously enough to be willing to re-examine a commitment to a rather extravagant conception of civil liberties that was formed in a different and safer era.” The administration’s “terrorist surveillance program,” which aims to intercept al Qaeda communications, is absolutely necessary. Judge Posner is right on the mark. We must find out who the terrorists are, and we must do so aggressively.

We must examine the options for creating a domestic intelligence service without police powers, similar to the British MI-5. Criminal prosecution and intelligence collection are vastly different tasks, and to date, the FBI has received poor marks on intelligence collection. We wouldn’t need to consider such steps if the threat weren’t so deadly and durable.

Islamists have taken control of large swaths of territory in Somalia, and other parts of Africa remain susceptible to terrorist exploitation; our dependence upon Middle East oil funds schools of hate; Iraq’s future is at a crossroads; Iran aggressively pursues nuclear weapons; Afghanistan shows worrying signs of regression; in the world’s largest Muslim nation, Indonesia, a once tolerant Islam is being radicalized; in the tri-border area of South America, Hezbollah raises funds. Almost nowhere is immune to the radical Islamist, and all parts of this chessboard are equally urgent.

Complacency is a serious enemy at home, where things as elementary as border security are stymied by Democratic politics and the Kennedy-Reid Senate Bill.

Democrats would have you believe there would be no terrorism were it not for supposed shortcomings of administration policy. They fail to note that the forces driving terrorism —Islamic radicalism — have been long in the making. Indeed, our nation was attacked several times before September 11, 2001, and as history shows, the Clinton administration failed to act decisively.

The bottom line is that we haven’t been hit since September 11, despite facing a determined and resourceful enemy. All means of national power must be harnessed to combat radical Islam.

Ed Royce, California Republican, is a member of the U.S. House of Representatives.