WHICH PRESIDENT DO WE THANK? – AT 10:59 A.M. ET:   There is all this yapping about multiculturalism.  You know the drill:  "We must understand other cultures."  But please notice what is missing from that declaration:  "We must understand other cultures...and they must understand us."

The multiculturalists would never include that full construction because multiculturalism is, for the most part, a branch office of anti-Americanism.  It's the oldest wine in the newest bottle, the leftist party line repackaged for the new century.

Other nations have, because they misunderstood the United States, made terrible mistakes.  Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor came about, in part, because the Japanese government ignored warnings that the United States would react ferociously.  Those in power in Tokyo didn't understand us.  Similarly, Hitler boasted that Americans would fight "like Boy Scouts," and he therefore wasn't afraid of us.  He declared war and took us on, not understanding that the Boy Scouts could be turned into superb soldiers.

It's pretty clear that Osama bin Laden, who knows nothing of Americans,  made a serious mistake in attacking us on 9-11.  And now one of his associates confirms that truth: 

WASHINGTON - Osama bin Laden had no idea the U.S. would hit al-Qaida as hard as it has since the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, a former bin Laden associate tells WTOP in an exclusive interview.

"I'm 100 percent sure they had no clue about what was going to happen," says Noman Benotman, who was head of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group in the summer of 2000.

"What happened after the 11th of September was beyond their imagination, " says Benotman, who adds that al-Qaida thought the U.S. was a "paper tiger."

Sitting on the floor at bin Laden's compound in Kandahar, Afghanistan during a meeting the summer before the attacks, Benotman shocked bin Laden and more than 200 other international jihadist leaders by telling the al-Qaida leader his jihadi strategy was "a total failure."

And...

Benotman attributes al-Qaida's overconfident attitude to the United States' response to al-Qaida attacks on its in embassies in Nairobi, Kenya and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania in 1998.

Zawahiri, according to Benotman, expected only a missile attack.

"When they attacked the embassies in East Africa, they estimated the U.S. launched 75 cruise missiles and eight people got killed. So they said this time, maybe they will launch 200 and they laughed about this."

COMMENT:  Hmm.  I think it was Bill Clinton who launched those ineffective attacks on Al Qaeda and then forgot about the issue.  It was George W. Bush who fought back hard and kept this country safe for the remainder of his presidency. 

But Clinton is treated like an elder statesman and Bush is still the butt of jokes.  Would you say that our media and intellectual elites have a misplaced sense of values?  Yeah, I'd say so.

We can only imagine how Barack Hussein Obama Jr. would have handled September 11th.  No, let's not imagine.  Aggravation shortens the life span.

April 27, 2010