“The condition upon which God has given liberty to man is eternal vigilance.” – John Curran

Sixty-three years ago the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was created when 12 Western democracies joined together in a military alliance whose purpose was mostly defensive. World War II was a fresh memory, but the greatest threat to peace in 1949 was the Soviet Union, which had dropped an “Iron Curtain” — in Churchill’s memorable phrase — around the nations of Eastern Europe, strangling their freedoms and rigidly controlling their economic, cultural and political institutions.  The Western European democracies feared greatly that the Soviet army, the largest in the world, would someday invade their territories and do the same to them.

So did America, which joined NATO to help defend its members.  U.S. troops were stationed in Europe both as a defensive force in case of a Soviet attack and as a “tripwire,” meaning that should any American blood be shed there was the real possibility that any American retaliation would involve nuclear weapons.  The intent was to make crystal clear to the Soviets that, as Article 5 of the NATO charter stated, an attack on one NATO member was considered an attack on all, including America.

It worked. Not once in NATO’s history did the Soviet army enter NATO territory, meaning that not once was Article 5 ever invoked, and with the dissolution of the U.S.S.R. in 1991 and the release of its Eastern European satellites from its grip, NATO was considered history’s most successful military alliance.

And then on September 11, 2001, the world changed forever and so did NATO.  On September 12, 2001, after five hours of deliberation among NATO members, NATO’s secretary general, Lord George Robertson, not only invoked Article 5 of the NATO charter for the first time in history, but did so with an expanded definition of NATO’s mission.  No longer would NATO exist solely to protect members from threatening states, but also from threatening entities such as terrorist organizations.  Upon proof that the September 11 attacks came from a foreign origin — and a month later it was confirmed that al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden were behind them — then this attack on America would be considered an attack on all NATO members.

And so, for all of our disagreements, past and present, with our NATO allies over how best to meet the menace of terrorism, we should not forget on the anniversary of the terrible tragedy of September 11 that our allies stood with us when it counted.  Indeed, the irony is that after 50-plus years of thinking America would one day have to come to the aid of its NATO allies, it was the NATO allies who came to the aid of America.

This week (June 7) in 1981, eight Israeli pilots flying U.S.-made F-15 fighter jets, departed Israel’s Etzion airfield and flew 2,500 miles to a location near Baghdad, Iraq, where Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein had built a French-designed, Osirak-type nuclear reactor that Israel feared would soon produce nuclear weapons. Facing no Iraqi resistance — the attack was a total surprise — the Israelis destroyed the Osirak reactor and returned safely to Israel.

And then the explosion occurred.  In Europe, the Soviet Union and particularly in the Arab world, Israel was denounced as an international outlaw and warmonger, and even the United States joined a unanimous resolution of the United Nations Security Council that “strongly condemned” Israel’s actions.  Many critics also claimed Israel had violated the U.S. Arms Control Export Act, which prohibited foreign nations from using American-made military equipment “except in self defense.”

But to Israel, bombing Osirak was self-defense.  Having spent years watching Saddam Hussein relentlessly build up his military arsenal, including medium-range missiles that could reach Israel, the tiny Jewish state felt it could not allow Saddam Hussein to “go nuclear,” and it was clear to Israel that Osirak would have a nuclear weapons capability within two to five years.  Prime Minister Menachem Begin made what he called his “most difficult decision” to destroy Osirak because he feared he might not be in office when Osirak finally went on-line, and he wasn’t sure the more dovish Israeli Labor Party would have the fortitude to destroy Osirak once it had crossed the nuclear threshold.  A Holocaust survivor, Begin had vowed that Israel would never be threatened by a holocaust again — nuclear or otherwise.

Fast-forward 10 years to 1991. Saddam Hussein, who has previously used chemical weapons on Iran and his own people, invades Kuwait and threatens to use the same weapons on both Israel and on the American forces rushing into the Middle East to defend Kuwait’s neighbor, Saudi Arabia, and eventually force Hussein out of Kuwait.  The simple fact that — thanks to Israel — Hussein did not have a nuclear weapons capability radically altered the military balance in that war and allowed the American-led coalition to defeat Iraq without precipitating a nuclear Armageddon.

Lo and behold, condemnation turns to commendation. In October of 1991, then-U.S. Defense Secretary Richard Cheney spoke before the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, saying.  “Let me tonight, in front of this group, thank my good friend David Ivy (chief of the Israeli Air Force in 1981) for the action Israel took … There were many times during the [Gulf War] that I gave thanks for the bold and dramatic action taken some ten years before.”

Fast forward to today as Israel watches its sworn enemy, Iran, attempt to go nuclear …

In his new book, “After America: Get Ready for Armageddon,” columnist Mark Steyn posits that if a man from the 1890s entered a time machine and traveled to the 1950s he would be astonished at the changes in America.  Imagine! A “refrigerator” that keeps food cold!  Look, a contraption is washing people’s clothes — no human hands involved!  And how about that shiny machine carrying people really quickly down the street?!

Then Steyn posits that this man jumps back in the time machine and fast forwards to today, another 60 years later, only to be disappointed that little has changed from 1950.  True, the machines are sleeker, faster, more mobile, but other than that, not much is different.

The one exception being the personal computer (and its ramifications), which — as Steyn points out — got its start when two guys named Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak formed a company called Apple in their garage.

What’s Steyn’s point?  That the bureaucratic regulatory state that is now America is stifling entrepreneurialism and free enterprise — and, as a result, innovation.  Case in point:  Today, merely complying with federal (not state or local) regulations costs around $1.5 trillion a year.

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