Friday, August 10, 2007

Fear This May Be True

Stu Bykofsky | To save America, we need another 9/11

ONE MONTH from The Anniversary, I'm thinking another 9/11 would help America.

What kind of a sick bastard would write such a thing?

A bastard so sick of how splintered we are politically - thanks mainly to our ineptitude in Iraq - that we have forgotten who the enemy is.

It is not Bush and it is not Hillary and it is not Daily Kos or Bill O'Reilly or Giuliani or Barack. It is global terrorists who use Islam to justify their hideous sins, including blowing up women and children.

Iraq has fractured the U.S. into jigsaw pieces of competing interests that encourage our enemies. We are deeply divided and division is weakness.

Most Americans today believe Iraq was a mistake. Why?

Not because Americans are "anti-war."

Americans have turned their backs because the war has dragged on too long and we don't have the patience for a long slog. We've been in Iraq for four years, but to some it seems like a century. In contrast, Britain just pulled its soldiers out of Northern Ireland where they had been, often being shot at, almost 40 years.

That's not the American way.

In Iraq, we don't believe our military is being beaten on the battleground. It's more that there is no formal "battleground." There is the drip of daily casualties and victory is not around the corner. Americans are impatient. We like fast food and fast war.

Americans loved the 1991 Gulf War. It raged for just 100 hours when George H.W. Bush ended it with a declaration of victory. He sent a half-million troops into harm's way and we suffered fewer than 300 deaths.

America likes wars shorter than the World Series.

*****************

Bush I did everything right, Bush II did everything wrong - but he did it with the backing of Congress.

Because the war has been a botch so far, Democrats and Republicans are attacking one another, when they aren't attacking themselves. The dialog of discord echoes across America.

Turn back to 9/11.

Remember the community of outrage and national resolve? America had not been so united since the first Day of Infamy - 12/7/41.

We knew who the enemy was then.

We knew who the enemy was shortly after 9/11.

Because we have mislaid 9/11, we have endless sideshow squabbles about whether the surge is working, if we are "safer" now, whether the FBI should listen in on foreign phone calls, whether cops should detain odd-acting "flying imams," whether those plotting alleged attacks on Fort Dix or Kennedy airport are serious threats or amateur bumblers. We bicker over the trees while the forest is ablaze.

America's fabric is pulling apart like a cheap sweater.

What would sew us back together?

Another 9/11 attack.

The Golden Gate Bridge. Mount Rushmore. Chicago's Wrigley Field. The Philadelphia subway system. The U.S. is a target-rich environment for al Qaeda.

Is there any doubt they are planning to hit us again?

If it is to be, then let it be. It will take another attack on the homeland to quell the chattering of chipmunks and to restore America's righteous rage and singular purpose to prevail.

The unity brought by such an attack sadly won't last forever.

The first 9/11 proved that. *

E-mail stubyko@phillynews.com

Thanks to Drudge.

7 comments:

Rita Loca said...

Sad but, oh so true! We are a nation in need of instant gratification in all areas.

Anonymous said...

Have you forgotten that we were warned by the President and Sec. Rumsfeld that the war on terrorism is going to be long, and difficult? The war against SADAM did go fast, and well, and it has been over for some time. The war on terror, relatively speaking, has just begun!

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the link, I've posted this on NiT.

Anonymous said...

Funny how Bykofsky fails to point out that America was unified until we were lied to repeatedly by this administration which used charlatans as witnesses. And all the war hawks in our media propped up as much terror as they could articulate so that the country feared a nuclear attack by Saddam more than life itself and we just had no choice but to invade a country that never attacked us.

Anonymous said...

What an absolutely repulsive column. Wanting to have 3,000 of your fellow citizens murdered is beyond sick. Any American who actually wants our country to be attacked again...that is just simply horrible.

If that columnist - or anyone else for that matter - wants to get angry again, watch the CBS news documentary "9/11". Or the movie "United 93". Or go to the library and read the newspapers and magazines from September 11th and the days following. Read any of the books by the 9/11 widows.

Here's a singular purpose all Americans can get behind: finding and killing Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri. 6 YEARS after the September 11th attacks is long enough. Let's find them and kill them in the most painful and humiliating way possible.

Anonymous said...

And Jungle mom wants that instant gratification to be mass murder on Americans so people will repect our president's war. Great christian principles!

Webutante said...

Jenny and Vienna,

Please ladies, let's try and be a bit more nuanced in listening to what this columnist is saying...

How about considering this: Mr. Bykofsky, I believe is saying that our country needs to comne together to fight the real enemy, radical fascist Islam, rather than straw men like Bush and Cheney. It is a real threat to our civilization, so much so that even another 9-11 pales in comparison to what will happen here if we don't.

He is not wishing for another 3,000 of our people to die. But he is bemoaning the fact that we've gone back to business as usual and are playing politics with a deadly enemy which will stop at nothing to bring us all down---conservative and liberal alike.

I totally agree with Jungle Mom's comment. She gets what Stu is saying....