SteevAK

Byron York has written a hypothetical speech given by John Kerry after the next terror attack. It poignantly demonstrates how the accusations that the current terror alerts are driven by politics is pure paranoid conspiracy theory. The speech is given by John Kerry on October 18th, after a successful Al Qaeda attack wipes out the NYSE and the World Bank.

We have learned that in June and July of this year, our government arrested senior al Qaeda terrorists in Pakistan.

U.S. agents seized computers filled with information about the attacks that took place last week.

The information was very detailed. The terrorists had studied every aspect of the Stock Exchange and the World Bank.

They knew how many people walked by each building at every minute of every day.

They knew the buildings’ structures. They knew their weak points.

They knew which type of explosives would do the most damage.

All of that information — and much, much more — was contained in those computers captured in Pakistan.

And yet, did the president put the nation on alert?

Did he move heaven and earth to guard those buildings, to re-route traffic around them, to warn people of danger?

The answer, sadly, is no.

Everybody has been saying, and everybody has agreed, that it is highly likely that Al Qaeda is going to try to hit us again before the November elections. Should it come as any suprise that terror alerts are inevitably going to be raised? Would Bush be prudent in any way if he did not raise terror alerts just because he didn’t want to seem to be “playing politics with national security”? Of course, the ultra-liberals are going to accuse him of this, but is there really any sense to it? Are we to gamble on thousands of lives just so we might avoid the spectre of “election year scare tactics”? Besides, if it really is just politics why did Bush wait until two days after the DNC? Why not during or just before?