| I don't like to write much on 9/11. This is a day for thought and remembrance. But I picked up my local newspaper today to find an editorial entitled, "War on terror: We're winning." The justification for such an explanation is that because we haven't had an attack on U.S. soil since Sept. 11, 2001, that means we are winning the War on Terror.
For the last seven years since we entered Afghanistan and the last five-plus years since we invaded Iraq, I have wondered what the definition of success really is. We have been told that we we are having success in Afghanistan and later, Iraq. Ironically enough, today I was driving home when I heard news come over the radio that this has been the deadliest year for troops in Afghanistan since we entered that country seven years ago. This is following last year's total, which was the previous high. And to date, 4,155 U.S. soldiers have perished in Iraq.
On January 20, 2009, we will elect a new president. Presumably on that same day, we will start talking (if we haven't already) about the legacy President George W. Bush will have left. When you put this in perspective, we were attacked on September 11, 2001 and we entered Afghanistan in October 2001. If you don't factor in September 2001 as part of the war effort, that means only nine months of the 96 month tenure of George W. Bush was spent in peace. The rest can be best summarized by war, conflict and many lives lost.
But all of that started on this day seven years ago. Phillip wrote earlier about the need to build something, which is an opinion I align myself with. But we also need to ask this question: How have we defended the 2,974 people who lost their lives that infamous day? In Afghanistan, over 220 U.S. soldiers have lost their lives while our focus shifted in 2003 to Iraq, where billions (and some argue a few trillion) of dollars have been spent on a war that had nothing to do with 9/11.
The long answer to my question in the previous paragraph would take a book or series of books to discuss. The short answer to my question is that when we needed our government to stand up for the nearly 3,000 people who lost their lives that day, they sat down.
The Bush administration could have done this. Instead, they have used the PATRIOT Act and FISA as a way to not punish the terrorists, but tell us that in order to stop the terrorists we need you, the American citizen, to forfeit some of your rights and privacy. They have taken billions of our tax dollars to fight a war in Iraq we have and had no business fighting. Afghanistan became "Forgotistan" and we decided that it wasn't Afghanistan and Pakistan where the real war on terror was but rather Iraq. They have also used 9/11 to capitalize off of the fear of that day by telling us that if we don't give in to their stealing of our rights and if we don't give in to more tax dollars going to Iraq, the terrorists will come back. Oh, and if we elect Democrats, the terrorists will like that. Elect Republicans because then, the Republicans and Bushies say, we will defeat the terrorists and keep them out of our country.
Just like Bush, a Republican, did on 9/11.
So when Bush leaves office in January 2009, everyone will start talking about his legacy. His legacy is best described by that big empty space in New York City. A lot of nothing, plenty of inaction and misguided ambition. Sept. 11 was the beginning of the downfall of the Bush administration. Two failed wars and possibly trillions of dollars later, all Bush has to show for it is the worst presidency in history, a big empty hole in New York City and a massive failure in defending the lives lost on September 11.
In other words, you can put lipstick on George W. Bush, but he's still George W. Bush. |
