Both sides of the equation

The 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks is upon us and there are still
questions that need to be asked and answered, facts to be addressed openly.
Many things have changed and not necessarily for the better.

Are
U.S. citizens safer now than before the attacks? Not necessarily, yet we are
less free. The inappropriately named Patriot Act has helped see to that.

AsGail
A. Jaquish wrote in an Aug. 29 Washington Times column,“Today, we gradually surrender our freedoms to
an insatiable federal government that feeds on our hard-earned dollars to
accumulate more power to control our lives while eroding our liberties.”

That is in the name of security, she tells the
reader. Yet, there’s that centuries-old adage that says, “Those who give up
essential liberty for the sake of some perceived security deserve neither
liberty nor security.”

FBI
agents are now permitted to write their own search warrants instead of going to
a judge. Old women with prosthetic breasts and young children are being frisked
before they get on airplanes. So are old men, people in wheelchairs, those who
limp and anyone else who expresses disapproval over the process, even if that
disapproval is nothing more than a brief look of disgust.

There
is rendition and Gitmo and foreign policy still has us engaging in the affairs
of other nations. As a nation, we must ask ourselves how we would feel or act
if another country interfered in our affairs as the U.S. does in other places.
Odds are we would not like it. So what gives our nation the right to interfere?
Nothing. Yet our foreign policy is one of contemporary gunboat diplomacy. Do
things our way or else.

The
3,000 people who died in the attacks were victims of crime committed by
civilians, not an act of war by another government. Yet the criminal act was in
response to our government’s intrusive policies, “blow back” as it’s known. The
government, be it under the presidency of George Bush or Barack Obama, is still
intruding. It hasn’t learned. It remains in denial that our foreign policy is
part of the problem. It makes enemies.

Even
with that, the government had the right to go after those responsible
—specifically the al-Qaida leadership and Osama bin Laden — though invading two
countries while bin Laden was in a third was not the right way to go about the
job. Making matters worse is that even though bin Laden is dead, we are still an
occupying force.

We do
owe it to ourselves, and the family members of the victims to remember both
sides of the equation — what “they” did and why they did it.

The
United Sates is not invincible. Neither was ancient Greece nor Rome. All great
civilizations fail once they forget and ignore what made them great, when they
turn their backs on their own principles. Gone are the days of free trade and
commerce with others. Gone are our liberties. We must work to bring them back.

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  1. Peter Jesson

    Well said.

    However, let’s get the facts staight. Bin Laden was, in fact, in Afghanistan when we invaded. Bush had him cornered at Tora Bora; by exercusing miliitary timidity he let him get away. He then committed the unconscionable error of drawing away froces and using them in Iraq. The Bin Laden problem could have been cleared up in short order but for this disasterous diversion.

    Obama’s situation illustrates how easy it is to stimulate neo-con agression and how hard it is to cldean up after them. Although I think Iraq will likely fall under the Iran sphere of influence whatever we do now, it would happen almost immediately if we left cold turkey.

    Obama is attempting to withdraw from both engagements while not giving away the store. The number of troops engaged has declined substantially.

    Equating Bush and Obama’s actions is a gross and unfair distortion

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