Shades of Heinlein

Bob Newman

Like Valentine Michael Smith in Robert Heinlein’s 1961 masterpiece Stranger in a Strange Land, which I read in 1980 while in the North Arabian Sea, I look about me these days and wonder. Not about my upbringing by Martians, mind you, but about what has happened since 9-11 and why it is so difficult for many Americans to understand what has happened—we have gone to war with an enemy in as many as 90 countries who wants to kill every American man, woman and child on earth, and who is desperately seeking nuclear weapons—and what will happen if we fail in our mission to defeat an enemy whose most dangerous asset is the knowledge that America consists of a fractious, naïve, spoiled people who have no genuine interest in coming to grips with the nature of the beast in which they are engaged in mortal combat.

We are indeed our own worst enemy.

I’ve used all my psionic powers to predict 37 specific events in the war on terror that have come to pass.

I’ve pointed out the hate-America-first tactics of the likes of John Kerry, Michael Moore, Nancy Pelosi, Ted “The Chappaquidick Aquaman” Kennedy and even the irrelevant and weirdly animated Al Gore and how those tactics are joyfully watched by al Qaeda (these five characters will vote just as Osama wants them to vote this November, of course).

I’ve reported how it was the Clinton administration that first reported twice on the collaboration between al Qaeda and Saddam (Al seemed to have forgotten about that during last week’s rant about President Bush lying about an al Qaeda-Saddam link).

I’ve reported on how the United States has a plan we may have to enact to blockade Iranian ports (a possibly necessary act of war that could suddenly and graphically escalate the war on terror).

I’ve revealed how North Korea is using Chinese transportation systems to provide Iran with nuclear technology and equipment.

And along with some of my colleagues and contemporaries, I’ve warned that al Qaeda is right here in the United States, hoping to carry out simultaneous mass-casualty attacks on a variety of targets that will make 9-11 look like the good old days (back when we lost a mere 3,000 people in a single day).

Yet John Kerry, whose voting record and statements in Congress point to a man who has no intention whatsoever of aggressively fighting the war on terror, is (according to polls) somehow just about neck-and-neck with George W. Bush. And tens of thousands of Americans are raving about the “truth” and “facts” in Michael Moore’s masterful propaganda piece, “Fahrenheit 9-11,” and how these gullible, easily manipulated fools say it exposes George Bush’s link to Osama.

Many Americans no longer have the patience, discipline or vision to fight a protracted war, and this war on terror, which is global asymmetric warfare the likes of which has never been experienced before, may very well be the golden bullet that fells the great land.

Impossible? Name a country that has endured forever. Name a country in the last 2,000 years that was undefeatable.

Yes, that is quite a short list, given that there are no names on it.

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Bob Newman, a retired, decorated US Marine, is co-host of "Redmond & Newman" on 630 KHOW in Denver, and is the military science and terrorism columnist for The Denver Daily News.

bobnewman@clearchannel.com