9/10 Mentality Squanders Our Future

We will soon observe the 8th anniversary of the mass murders of 3,000 people in the September 11 terrorist attacks. As the event recedes further into the past we hear more and more about the “9/10 mind-set” versus the “9/11 mind-set.” The former is the way we looked at the world the day before the attacks: smug, ignorant of the evil forces at loose in the world, and heedless of our vulnerability to them. The latter, the 9/11 mind-set, means facing the reality of an era when we are no longer the safe, secure, and geographically isolated fortress that this country had been for more than 200 years.

The 9/10 mind-set allowed us to squander the strength and security that was created for us by our predecessors.

Geographic isolation provided less and less protection with the development of military weapons such as supersonic jets and missiles. But it wasn’t the armed forces of our enemies that led us to September 11; it was the failure to care about who we were allowing into our country, the failure to control our borders.

The September 11 mass murders resulted from the refusal of government officials to enforce the immigration laws already in existence, the primary purpose of which are supposed to be the protection of our country and its people.

The Independent 9/11 Commission, in very great detail, revealed how it was that three officials of the U.S. State Department, ignoring federal law and the regulations of their department, allowed 19 men to come to the United States.

The Commission described how these 19 were then able to hide in plain sight thanks to the presence of millions of illegal aliens. It detailed how they were able to obtain the authentic U.S. driver’s licenses, that enabled them to then obtain all the goods and services they needed in order to plan, rehearse, finance, and then carry out their attacks. How they were able to rent motel rooms and apartments; obtain credit cards and open bank accounts; transfer funds; rent cars; buy flying lessons; and on the morning of 9/11 use their authentic, U.S.-issued identity documents to board the planes they turned into missiles.

These killers (all readily identifiable as young, single men from terroristsponsoring nations, men who perfectly fit the profile of a Muslim terrorist) were able to obtain the tools of mass murder and then live in the U.S. for up to two years while they made their preparations, thanks to the 9/10 mentality.

The 9/10 mentality caused President Bill Clinton to ignore the recommendations of a commission headed by his own vice president, which, in 1996, recommended that airport security be drastically improved. But Clinton did not take action, because the airline industry, unwilling to bear the greater costs, gave handsomely to his 1996 reelection campaign.

The 9/10 mentality caused Clinton Attorney General Janet Reno and her subordinate Jamie Gorelick to prevent counter-terrorist agents in the FBI from communicating with the FBI’s criminal investigators. They also prevented the CIA’s anti-terrorist agents from communicating with the FBI.

The 9/10 mentality allowed tens of millions of people from all parts of the Earth, including nations actively hostile to our country and way of life, freely to cross our borders either illegally with no screening at all, or legally with equal failure to screen.

Certainly, this negligent attitude, this head-in-the-sand mentality is not limited to Democrats. Republicans such as George W. Bush and Senators John McCain and Richard Lugar have been just as eager to expose us to some of the world’s worst human beings as anyone in the other party.

During his eight years in office President George W. Bush was at least as negligent as his predecessor, and perhaps even more so because he refused to learn the lessons of 9/11. He refused to stop illegal immigration, refused to expand the Border Patrol, ICE, and prison facilities for illegals to anywhere near the strength authorized by Congress in 2005. Bush, in combination with Congressional Democrats and some Republicans, even increased the number of nations whose citizens can come to the USA without having to apply for a visa.

Certainly, the 9/10 mind-set is a learning disability that afflicts both parties. But it’s not a disability that arises naturally in these politicians. It is planted in them by the wealthy and powerful forces that profit from open borders and uncontrolled immigration, both legal and illegal.

The 9/10 mentality results from a unique alliance based on the financial greed of those on the political right and the radical ideology and greed for power of those on the left.

The ACLU, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Communist parties, American Bankers Association, People for the American Way, homebuilders, George Soros, Ford Foundation, agribusiness, La Raza, American Bar Association, NAACP, American Immigration Lawyers Association, United Church of Christ, the travel industry, and the AFL-CIO all lobby for open borders.

Consequently, despite much window dressing, and despite the erosion of the rights of American citizens, we are very much in a pre-9/11 situation.

Putnam County and our neighboring communities nearby sadly prove this. On September 11, 2001, eight Putnam County residents paid the price of our government’s failure to protect its citizenry with their lives. Let us never forget the sacrifice made by Thomas Kuveikis, Robert Minara, Daniel Harlin, Christopher Blackwell, George Cain, Stephen Driscoll, David Fodor, and George Paris. Let us also never forget that in 2005, Elizabeth Butler was savagely murdered by a multiply-convicted illegal alien and, more recently, the deaths of Mrs. Donohue and her daughter in Brewster at the hands of someone who should never have been in our country in the first place. These tragic deaths are no less the result of the pre-9/11 mentality than were the 9/11 attacks themselves. And what these murders and thousands of others around the country share in common with the murders of September 11 is this: all of them could have been avoided had politicians stood up to the ACLU, La Raza, and the Chamber of Commerce. None of these thousands would be dead had elected officials refused to allow our country to be overwhelmed by a tidal wave of uncontrolled immigration.

Mr. Gadiel is president and a cofounder of 9/11 Families for a Secure America. His 23-year-old son, James, an assistant trader for Cantor Fitzgerald, worked on the 103rd floor of the World Trade Center, North Tower, and died in the September 11 attacks.