How Safe Are We?

The White House, on the eve of the fifth anniversay of 9/11, said today the country is safer. Not yet safe, but safer. After five years and hundreds of billions later we'd damn well better be safer. One might even say after five years we should be quite safe. Not so. One of the biggest factors in our vulnerability is the failure of the war on terror.

Instead of concentrating on the real threats: Al Qaeda, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and failed states like Somalia and Sudan; instead of strengthening our defenses at home Bush went off on a terrible tangent. He's spent $300 billion+ and heaven knows how much more, invading a country which was no threat to our national security. If we'd used that money to strengthen our borders, inspect port and air cargo, develop and install sophisticated sensor equipment at airports, guarded chemical and nuclear facilities and adopted a system where first responders could talk with each other we'd be much safer today.

We've had five years to do so. Bush has failed to implement most of the 9/11 Commission recomendations. He's failed to make us safer. Instead he's turned Iraq into a terrorist training ground. 2,600 more Americans have died as a result and 10,000+ serious casualties have been added to the carnage of W's watch. Add in the 1300 killed by Katrina because the DHS remains an incompetent agency incapable of protecting the Homeland even from a hurricane.

Bush's mantra is that we're fighting them there so we don't have to fight them here. What difference does it make in which streets Americans are dying? They're still dying.

But Georgie and his cronies like Rick Santorum are banging their war drums again to invade yet another country: Iran. Iran is no immediate threat to us. They may be a threat to Israel at some future time, but folks, Israel isn't the USA. They're capable of defending themselves. It isn't our national security interest to fight their wars for them.

This statement is interesting:

President Bush today renewed his pledge to accept nothing less than "complete victory" in the war on terrorism and delivered a strong warning to Iran, which he described as the leader of a strain of Islamic radicalism just as dangerous as that of al-Qaeda.

Just a short while ago the Iraqi Shia's, who are wholly supported by Iran, were our allies in forming a government in Baghdad. They were the moderates and "reasonable" Iraqis, fending off the invitations of the Sunnis for civil war and working with America for stability. Now they're the equal of Al Qaeda? See, you cannot separate Iranian Shia's from Iraqi Shia's. They are all the same sect regardless of borders. That's like saying the Iraqi Kurds are different from Turkish or Iranian Kurds.

Trying to bang the war drums by demonizing Iran will do nothing but push Al Sistani and the Iraqi Shia's further from us and further into civil war. It will do nothing but create more disaster and turmoil in a region that doesn't need more. What are these idiots in the Oval Office thinking? They couldn't come up with a successful and intelligent plan for Iraq. How the heck do they think Iran will go? War with Iran will make Iraq look like a Sunday picnic. It would also cause an immediate cutoff of oil from the Persian Gulf. Are you willing to pay $10/gallon so we can lose a war in Iran too?

Where does Bush think he'll get the military needed to invade Iran? 80% of our forces are tied up in Iraq, tanks, humvees and other equipment are wearing out quickly and must be replaced and the sheer number of troops and equipment for a war in Iran is mind boggling. Perhaps he's planning on nuking them. Wouldn't that be great, the only country to ever use nuclear weapons and we do it as a first strike and for imperialistic purposes. The country's reputation worldwide would NEVER recover. The entire world would turn against us instantly.


Comparing Islamic states to fascism shows they don't know what they're talking about. If any state is on the road to fascism it's ours. Ray McGovern, former CIA analyst refers to a "creeping fascism" in America today. Bush has severely restricted our constitutional rights and is spying on Americans without probable cause. I'm more concerned with that threat to freedom than anything Osama or Iran can do. Saddam was no threat to me but George Bush is.

I felt safer on September 11, 2001 than now. I was driving on the Pennsylvania Turnpike and down I-81 that fateful morning listening to the horror on the radio. I saw State Police cruisers lined up in the median on 81 from south of Shippensburg to the state line every mile. They were all faced west, obviously looking for Flight 93. I was on my way to visit my mother who lived near Camp David. We didn't fear for our personal safety that day.

Now I do fear for my personal safety when I protest Bush. He was here in 2004 and the Secret Service security was very gestapo-like. I protested his appearance in Ardmore back in 2003 and the SS took my picture when all I was doing was standing on a street corner. That's a threat. Restricting my free speech rights to designated "zones" is a threat to my freedoms. Saying you can search my home, tap my calls and intercept my emails is a threat. Creating thousands of new terrorists in Iraq is a definite threat.

Enabling record bumper crops of opium which winds up as cheap heroin on the streets of Reading is, perhaps, the greatest threat I face. The gang and gun violence being spawned by our failed policy in Afghanistan has made me considerably less safe in my own home. So Mr. Bush answer that for me: answer why you've made my streets so violent, enabled the deaths of local people because of the heroin. If we'd "stayed the course" in Afghanistan, where we the war on terror actually was, we would be safer today. If you'd stayed in Kabul instead of going to Baghdad we'd be safer with a dead Osama bin Forgotten.

Maybe we're safer today. Perhaps. Only history will judge that based on future events. How safe should we have been five years out? Much, much safer than we are.