Two days later, it kissed off the events of 9/11 as not war, but crimes committed by criminals. Read it for yourself:

July 3: “Its ruthless leader notwithstanding, Iraq was a sovereign nation before it was invaded and occupied by a U..S. -led coalition of nations. The citizens of a sovereign nation presumably have the right to take up arms to repel invaders and even against countrymen they believe to be collaborating with the invaders.”

July 5: “The rhetoric of a ‘war on terror’ aside, the 2001 attacks were crimes committed by criminals, not an act of war by a hostile state.”

For God’s sake, 9/11 was worse than an act of war by a hostile state. You can drop a bomb on a hostile state. This was an attack by religious fanatics representing an ideology of death to non-believers, and who have spread like cockroaches into many kitchens all over the world, including our own. We have never been able to eliminate cockroaches and we will never eliminate these human cockroaches either. We can only decimate their ranks until they retreat as they have done before to regroup for another day.

They decided long ago that we were infidels who must be killed. Their children are taught that. We can’t very well complain when we tolerate a professor in a Wisconsin public university teaching, with the approval of his superiors, that the Bush administration masterminded 9/11. Our influence powerhouses now include not just the executive, legislative and judiciary branches but the media and academia.

And can someone explain why 9/11 was a crime committed by criminals rather than an act of war? What did they gain by it except 3,879 deaths? What was their motive in sacrificing their own lives to do it? They got no money out of it. Didn’t Osama bin Laden declare it to be a jihad, a religious war and his forces, mujahedeen or holy warriors? Did criminals attack London and Spain, Russia and it appears likely, India?

Face it, folks, this is World War III and because we’re the most powerful and successful country in the world, we’re the prime target.

And if by having them revealed in the press, we keep plugging up the surveillance systems used by our intelligence people to monitor the activities of suspected terrorists, it’s only a matter of time before there’s another 9/11 catastrophe, this time maybe ferries.

And when that happens, some of the nation’s leading newspapers should be hauled into court for aiding and abetting, because they have gone all out to reveal any secret under cover work going on to monitor terrorist suspects and their sympathizers. In editorials all over the country, the protection of civil rights and the public’s right to know was deemed more important than the secrecy of the programs.

True, the reporters of these secrets had to get them from government sources who should be rooted out and imprisoned. But it won’t stop the leaks because the media learned back in the Woodward and Bernstein days that the prizes and the money come from revealing what the government may be trying to keep hidden.

With circling of the wagons by the media around their right to be the means by which enemies or critics of the government within the government can expose anti-terrorist strategy, our enemy won’t need a Fifth Column to keep abreast of what we’re doing to stop them. . Not with the Fourth Estate determined to tell all.

(Adele Ferguson can be reached at P.O. Box 69, Hansville, Wa., 98340.).