Bear in mind-the editor,Neil White,is about as red as they come...feel free to email Neil and thank him for an insightful editorial.This is as good as it comes in red country
http://thedailylight.com/articles/2007/09/11/dailylight/opinion/editorials/column1.txtIt was a day that forever changed a nation. In less than 90 minutes, a terrorist organization carried out a series of attacks that ultimately took the lives of 2,974 Americans as committed by 19 terror cell operatives on U.S. soil.
As we watched the events unfold on our televisions and listened to news reports on the radio, for all of us, Sept. 11, 2001, forever ceased being a day on the calendar.
Throughout the day, national and international intelligence agencies pointed to al Qaeda and its founder Osama bin Laden as the main suspect of the attacks. Though the 9/11 Commission concluded in its 2004 report the attacks were conceived and implemented by al Qaeda, bin Laden has never been formally indicted — though the United States has posted a $50 million bounty for his capture, dead or alive.
In the six years post 9/11:
The United States has successfully toppled Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq based primarily on reports the despot was building a cache of weapons of mass destruction. In more than five years since the War in Iraq began, more than 3,700 U.S. service members have been killed as the United States continues its effort to establish democracy in the Middle Eastern nation where we once aided in Saddam’s rise to power. While no weapons of mass destruction were ever found, our military continues to stand in harm’s way in Iraq, while the reconstruction effort is being led, in large part, by defense contractors being paid billions by the federal government. According to a recent McClatchy Newspapers report, at least one defense contractor admitted to paying Iraqi insurgents (the bad guys attacking U.S. troops) not to attack the firm’s projects. Question to the president: Instead of giving billions to defense contractors, why not give everyone in the military a pay raise and the equipment they need and let the military lead the war?
In a measure meant to protect U.S. citizens and make us all feel safer, Congress approved the Patriot Act (and reauthorized its powers in 2006) which allows the government power to conduct warrantless searches and surveillance and to detain those suspected of terrorism and hold them without due process.
Despite much rhetoric in Washington and national public outcry to shore up our borders and tough talk on U.S. immigration policy, our borders remain porous with thousands of illegal immigrants streaming in daily and there is little will in Washington to enforce existing immigration laws, let alone pose viable reform.
bin Laden (the former militia leader trained and funded by the United States during the Afghan War with the Soviet Union), remains at large and continues recruiting, training and inciting fanatical Muslims to wage a holy war against the United States, Israel and basically everyone else who doesn’t think the way they do.
Six years post 9/11, are we safer?
We all would admit the government agencies have been successful in preventing further terrorist attacks on U.S. soil.
Was it worth the loss of civil liberties taken away by the Patriot Act? That question will long be a matter of public debate. However, we hold that the basic tenets this great nation was founded upon were freedom and liberty. If security comes at the loss of a single liberty — whether self-imposed or at the hand of a foreign power — it is too much of a price to pay. For nearly a quarter of a millennia, Americans have continuously defended the principals of freedom at home and abroad — against enemies far greater than the one we now face. It seems sadly ironic we are now so willing to cede some of those liberties for a false sense of security.
Lastly, we can’t help but wonder why it is so difficult for the greatest nation in the history of the world, with all of its resources, to capture or kill Osama bin Laden. It seems if we could defeat fascist dictators and communism, impose and dethrone foreign despots in the name of imperialism all while feeding the world and engineering a way to put man on the moon, surely we could track down a 6-feet, 6-inch tall Saudi Arabian who leads the world’s most radical and highly organized terror network. While that may be an oversimplification, remember we did manage to find Saddam hiding in a spider hole in the Iraqi desert.
Six years post 9/11, we find no great victories to celebrate. There are only sad reminders on how much our nation and lives have changed at the acts orchestrated by a madman we can neither find nor defeat.
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