Wednesday, March 24, 2004

Verdict: The 9/11 Commission has reached the conclusion that both Bush and Clinton are to blame for the terrorist attacks. I appreciate the attempt to spread the blame to both parties, but I respectfully disagree. I think Al Qaeda is to blame for the 9/11 attacks.

The commission is paying too much attention to the finger pointing by both parties and is attempting to placate them by accusing both sides. But this country needs to stop fighting each other and to start concentrating on fighting our enemy. Al Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden are still threats. Wahhabis and other cults of Middle Eastern terrorists who are looking to spread international carnage need to be stopped.

When looking at past mistakes, the commission faults Clinton and Bush for not invading Afghanistan sooner. But there’s no way we could have gotten American and international support for such an endeavor, even with all the human-rights abuses the Taliban committed. And even if we had successfully nabbed Bin Laden and destroyed much of Al Qaeda in Afghanistan, that wouldn’t have prevented 9/11 from happening. Instead, the public would have thought that the 9/11 attacks were a response to American military action.

Now that we are truly at war with the terrorists, it’s still difficult to get the American public to sign off on military action. Some people consider the mission in Iraq to be a waste of time. Even after 9/11, many people thought invading Afghanistan was a bad idea.

I keep hearing that we didn’t connect the dots to prevent the 9/11 attacks. That was a mistake, but we decided not to make the same mistake in Iraq. But for some reason, people are scared that we’ll make the terrorists mad.

My friends, the terrorists are already mad and have already declared war against us. After several terrorist attacks throughout the 1990’s, we held back on decisive action in favor of diplomacy. As a result, 3,000 people died on U.S. soil.

Clinton’s hands were tied. When he fired a few cruise missles at suspected sites, conservatives were screaming that this is a distraction from the Lewinsky scandal. If Clinton had declared war against the terrorists, the Republicans would have impeached him (… oh, wait).

Now Democrats are pulling the same tricks with with catcalls of “oil” and “daddy”, which hamper Bush’s response to terrorist threats. This only give strength to our enemies. And that makes this country more vulnerable.