By BI: In 2000, 19 months before Sept. 11, 2001, Donald Trump wrote extensively of the terrorism threat the United States was facing. Trump went so far as to say that an attack on a major U.S. city was not just a probability, but an inevitability. Trump wrote:
Buzzfeed Four years before The Apprentice ever aired, Trump devoted an entire section of his book to keeping America safe from terrorism, arguing our ignorance of the threats we faced from terrorism was the biggest threat to national security.
“I may be making waves, but that’s all right,” wrote Trump. “Making waves is usually what you need to do to rock the boat, and our national-security boat definitely needs rocking. Let’s point fingers. The biggest threat to our security is ourselves, because we’ve become arrogant. Dangerously arrogant.
It’s time for a realistic view of the world and our place in it. Do we truly understand the threats we face? And let me give a warning: You won’t hear a lot of what follows from candidates in this campaign, because what I’ve got to say is definitely not happy talk. There are forces to be worried about, people and programs to take action against. Now.”
“We face a different problem when we talk about the individual fanatics who want to harm us,” The Donald continued, discussing the threat from individual terrorist organizations that despised American culture.
Trump said such people were determined to attack us.
“We can kid ourselves all we want by mocking their references to the Great Satan, but also keep in mind that there is no greater destiny for many people than to deal the Great Satan a major kick in the teeth,” he wrote, adding they despised the U.S. support for Israel.
“Our teenage boys fantasize about Cindy Crawford; young terrorists fantasize about turning an American city (and themselves) into charcoal,” Trump wrote.
Trump predicted a major attack on an American city that would involved weapons of mass destruction, writing,
“Yet it’s time to get down to the hard business of preparing for what I believe is the real possibility that somewhere, sometime, a weapon of mass destruction will be carried into a major American city and detonated.”
Trump added that even if the U.S. mobilized, the country probably wouldn’t be able to stop most attacks. Trump said many people would willingly sign up for a suicide mission in America, and that the many U.S. military incursions create more terrorists who want to harm us.
“Whatever their motives — fanaticism, revenge — suffice it to say that plenty of people would stand in line for a crack at a suicide mission within America,” Trump wrote.