David Skocik is a resident of Dover.
Several days ago, Kent County tornado warning sirens and emergency messages on TV and radio sent many people to their basements or secure areas.
Americans aren’t used to warnings to take cover. We veterans of all conflicts took it in stride, but it evoked wartime memories of shot and shell.
More relevant to today’s concerns, “Death to America” was the cry heard around the world with the creation of Iran’s theocratic dictatorship in 1979. Iranian students scaled the walls of our embassy and took 66 American diplomats and citizens hostage.
They were released 444 days later, as Ronald Reagan was being sworn in as president Jan. 20, 1981.
Other plots included Osama bin Laden’s 2006 plan to bring down 10 civilian airliners on the East and West coasts. It was canceled because George W. Bush’s border restrictions denied entry for those involved.
There was also the 1983 suicide bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut, which killed 241 Marines who were part of a U.N. chartered peacekeeping force from the U.S., France, Italy and the U.K. that was overseeing the peaceful withdrawal of the PLO from Lebanon.
Ten years later, a truck of explosives failed to bring down the north tower of the World Trade Center. That operation’s organizers finally succeeded in 2001, with four airliners full of innocent people.
During the past month, our nation has experienced four instances of radicals willing to die to kill “nonbelievers.” Other planned mass casualty events have been prevented by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the FBI, the CIA, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and other agencies.
I’m calling out Sens. Chris Coons and Lisa Blunt Rochester, and Rep. Sarah McBride, all D-Del., who voted four times to block funding for the federal protective agencies created after the 9/11 attacks on the twin towers, the Pentagon and what’s assumed to have been the White House or the U.S. Capitol. More than 5,000 people were killed that day, and many others died later from toxic exposure.
Particularly concerning earlier this year was withholding pay from highly trained air traffic controllers responsible for directing commercial aircraft carrying hundreds of thousands of passengers across the nation daily.
As a former military and Federal Aviation Administration air traffic controller at the New York TRACON — which controls the space over the LaGuardia, JFK and Newark airports — I thank God no one died while overworked, unpaid controllers were treated as chattel by elected officials who ignored the stakes involved.
Radical Muslims who have terrorized Iran and other nations have infiltrated the globe. Some have pledged to die to impose their radical theology on others.
More than 400 Transportation Security Administration workers quit after not being paid since the government shutdown five weeks ago. To reduce hourslong delays and cancellations, some airports have relaxed screening. TSA was created to prevent radical martyrs from bringing explosives onto commercial aircraft to kill everyone on board in the name of their God.
Cyber experts and our Coast Guard are also without pay because our federal elected officials are holding our safety hostage to their demands to punish Homeland Security for tracking down thousands of identified terrorists among the 10 million people allowed in by the previous administration. I fear that Delaware’s military and civilian targets are vulnerable.
Radical convert-or-die mullahs have made clear that their agenda not only includes attacking other branches of Islam but murdering some 30,000 of their own unarmed citizens who dared to protest. The hanging of three young athletes accused of defying the “will of God” is the most recent example.
Iran’s leaders repeatedly stated that their interest in refining uranium was only to provide electrical power. Perhaps hoping to show good faith, President Barack Obama sent them $400 million in cash and released $1.4 trillion of Iran’s frozen assets to help its citizens. Iranian officials then made it clear that those funds were theirs to use as they wish.
Now, we know it was used to create thousands of missiles, drones and centrifuges to enrich the 1,000 pounds of uranium Iran’s leaders admitted having to create 11 nuclear weapons.
How long will it be before their bombs reach us by air, sea or land to fulfill their promise of “Death to America” and how will our elected officials justify their opposition to paying our protectors?
Reader reactions, pro or con, are welcomed at civiltalk@iniusa.org.
