It’s going to happen again. Terrorists will strike somewhere in America and, as every expert has said since September 12, 2001, it will happen sooner than later.

Then why in the name of God has this country rolled over on its collective side, hit the snooze button, pulled the covers up over its head and gone back to sleep?

Tony Blankley has a column today that asks the same question:

But I have to say that the public has let me down, some. It is less than four years since the September 11 wake-up call — the day that the murderous malice of our enemy was so tragically compounded by years of Washington inattention and incompetence — but after that rude awakening, it seems both Washington and the public have hit the snooze button.

After December 7 the public expected action — and plenty of it. From that day on until almost the day he died, FDR rarely let a day go by without vigorously acting on and talking about the threat and how to defeat it.

But after a flurry of energy and bold and courageous actions from the Bush administration in the first couple of years, one has the sense that things have returned to business as usual.

Is it something in our national character that allows us to be so sublimely unaware of danger? Or is it some flaw that goes deeper; a true ignorance of the peril we’re in coupled with a willful blindness that shuts out the unpleasantness and darkness that pervades so much of the planet?

Whatever it is, it’s going to cost us dearly. Blankley takes the Democrats to task for attacking the President from the wrong side of the debate – the side that advocates less firm measures to counter the implacability of our enemies. He speculates what would have happened with a Democrat in the White House:

It may turn out to be the second tragedy of our time that the president’s opposition has criticized him from the weak side of the war effort. If a Democrat had been president on Sept. 11, it is a virtual certainty that the Republican Party (in recent generations the more aggressive military party) would have kept up a daily barrage for the president to do more. They would be howling at the fact that only 5 percent of the cargo containers entering our country’s ports are inspected on or before arrival by American inspectors.

They would be chastising a notional Democratic president for not building up the size of the active and reserve forces of our military. They would surely have held hearings demanding that the Pentagon explain how it would actually invade and occupy, say, Syria, Iran and Pakistan while also holding Iraq and Afghanistan and fulfilling all the other worldwide responsibilities we have assigned to our troops, with the current strength levels — should such actions be judged necessary for our national security.

All of these are legitimate criticisms of the President and I would add a few others. I believe the President’s gravest mistake has been in carrying on with his domestic agenda as if we weren’t at war. This has not only caused people to forget the price we’re paying in Iraq and Afghanistan with our young men’s blood and nearly $300 billion in national treasure, it has caused massive federal deficits that can be brought down only through huge cuts in entitlement programs and/or hefty tax increases. Given that the political will to do either is sorely lacking, the deficits remain and could become a drag on the economy if the nation’s economic recovery were to stall.

Will it take another massive attack by terrorists to finally wake us up to what needs to be done? According to this article in the Washington Times, the possibility that the murderous thugs who are targeting America will once again use airplanes to assail us would seem improbable after 9/11. Indeed, the story referenced in the article was widely ridiculed on the left and generally scoffed at by so-called air line security professionals.

If this were the case, why is the Department of Homeland Security still investigating the incident?

The Homeland Security Department’s inspector general is investigating an incident involving 14 Syrian passengers aboard a flight from Detroit to Los Angeles last summer described by many federal air marshals and passengers as a dry run for a terrorist attack.

The investigation began shortly after the June 29 incident, but did not become public until the final phase of the inquiry when passengers reported facing hours of questioning in March from inspectors.

The interviewed passengers said the questioning by inspectors suggested the flight had faced a serious situation. Some federal officials have dismissed the incident and suggested passengers had overreacted and were never in danger.

The incident was written about by Annie Jacobsen in womenswallstreet.com.” The truly scary thing is that to this day, no one is sure exactly what those 14 Syrian passengers were doing. Why did their actions scare the heck out of dozens of passengers and cause so much concern that federal agents met the plane when it landed? And if, as some have suggested, the passengers were unduly alarmed, why the continued interest? And how the heck in the aftermath of 9/11 could the feds not have checked their visas?

Just before landing, seven of the men stood in unison and went inside the restrooms. Upon returning to his seat, the last man mouthed the word “no” as he ran his finger across his throat.

At least four other passengers also were questioned, and learned from inspectors that the musicians from the terrorist-sponsor state of Syria had traveled back and forth across the country with one-way, cash-paid tickets, and entered the country on P-3 cultural visas. Two months prior to the flight, the FBI issued a warning that terrorists may be trying to enter the country under P-3 cultural or sports visas.

When the men were detained briefly for questioning after the flight, only two of the 14 were questioned and officials did not notice the men’s visas had expired, inspectors said.

Is this political correctness run amok? Or do we really have a bunch of scatter-brained dullards in charge of protecting us?

Annie Jacobsen received an enormous amount of flack for telling her story. Since then, other passengers from that flight have come forward to corroborate her story. The Federal Air Marshals, who have a vested interest in downplaying the threat due to their lack of action against the Syrians, have stopped talking. In the meantime, other passengers from other flights have told of similar possible “dry runs” by terrorists.

Can we come to any other possible conclusion except the brutal fact that not only are we going to be hit again but that more than 3 1/2 years after the unthinkable happened we’re still not doing enough to protect ourselves?

SHHHHH…Go back to sleep now…Nothing to worry about.