So now it is the 6th Anniversary of 9/11. Here are my thoughts from last year.
What's changed?
Are we safer?
More to the point, if this is indeed a conflict the likes of the Second Wold War, why have we not taken more steps to defeat the enemy.
Osama bin Laden is still at large. And it seems using Just for Men to color his beard.
Do we have an energy policy? Our addiction to oil is a national security issue that on one seems interested in addressing.
Are our ports safer?
Is cargo sent by plane screened?
Have the American people been ask to sacrifice anything (other than those in uniform)?
The answer is no.
And that means we really aren't any safer than we were six years ago.
Will next year be any different?
3 comments:
The latest justification for the war in Iraq is the most immoral, perhaps the most cynical (if Bush is capable of sufficient "nuance" to express cynicism) argument yet. That is, Better to fight the terrorists in Iraq than fight them at home. That is, it's better to use another society as a means to saving your own, even if it means destroying that society. This is pure Machiavellianism. The worst despots of the 20th century could not have conceived of a more ruthless policy. And, worse, many Americans seem to accept it uncritically. The gullible and the pitiless create a mutually reinforcing dynamic of ruin. — Ed
Yes that's true.
But what's more this current policy's goal is to move all the hard decisions of how to get out of Iraq to the next administration.
The Bush people will be able to say "well when we left office things were going pretty good (i.e. the surge). It's not our fault things fell apart after we left.
The thing is I believe come next year the American public will be really fed up with Iraq. The security situation won't be much better than it is now and the political situation probably won't have changes.
I believe the electorite will want its pound of flesh. One hopes that it will come out of the butt of the Republican Party
I think you're both right, but I'm not optimistic about the 2008 election. The 2006 election showed that Americans weren't willing to vote for real change or else they'd have given Democrats a veto-proof majority, and maybe they'd have voted for real Democrats, not those Republican Lite "Blue Dog" Democrats. We'll see, as someone once said...
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