But have we fully honored their memory?
Our President almost immediately went after the Taliban in Afghanistan, and justifiably so. They were quite obviously tied to 9-11 as was Osama bin Laden; all available intelligence indicated he was there.
But we lost focus. I, and others, believe that W. planned on attacking Iraq from the time he decided to run for the Oval Office. (I am not going over the evidence here, I'm not out to write a book, but you can easily read about it elsewhere if interested.) So, at the time we had the people responsible for 9-11 on the run, we began to change focus.
White House minions, especially the dastardly Cheney, began telling lies, lies about Saddam having ties to 9-11, lies about weapons of mass destruction which almost noone else - including our own inspectors - believed were there. And after the loss of over 1000 American lives, we still have not found them.
Is the world a safer place without Saddam? Yes. But, we have screwed up the transition there. And at the time, we had higher priorities - but there was irrefutable evidence tieing Saddam to an assination plot against the elder Bush. It's understandable to want to go after the man that tried to have your father killed; but, again, we had other priorities. We would have done ourselves, and the memories of 9-11, better by running the terrorists and especially bin Laden to the ground. Then, it would have made sense to have formed a coalition, which was not done, and gone after Saddam.
What really gets me is that it is apparently the President's handling of the war on terror that has led to his huge jump in the polls. Considering the above discussion, how can anyone who actually thinks believe that his actions were correct?
They are ignoring the fact that fewer people have healthcare and more people are out of work than when he took office - the greatest job loss in American history. (And as discussed elsewhere on this site, the government's unemployment rate is a damn poor reflection of reality.) The jobs created the last several months (indeed, the last several years) do not pay what the jobs lost did.
So, I just don't get it. Maybe it boils down to this: Someone once said that you will never go broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people. Perhaps you will never get voted out of office that way either.
Copyright (c) 2004 Lone Wolf Reviews