As published at
Daily Speech
Today, October 20, 2005 marks 1500 days since September 11, 2001. The memory of that awful day in American history remains seared in my mind. It was like a horrible nightmare, at once both unreal and all to real.
As we watch a possible cataclysmic storm brewing in Washington DC, we are reminded of the fact that that storm is the result of the President taking his eye off the ball. To this day, 1500 days later, the chief mastermind of 9/11 remains free - Osama bin Ladin.
Poor Bush is so wrapped up in his political troubles now, he cannot even promote the spectacle in Baghdad with a defeated Saddam Hussein seeing his day in court.
To be sure, most agree Saddam Hussein was a beast, not a good man. He murdered thousands of his own people and gassed innocent Kurdish women and children during the Reagan Administration without any serious outcry from us. But, all of a sudden in 2002, after Saddam had been denuded of the weapons he did have after the first Persian Gulf war and his army had been decimated, Saddam was such a pressing threat to the United States, we needed to forget about the man who killed 3000 Americans and focus on the man who killed ZERO Americans on our own shores.
I am happy Saddam Hussein is being tried for his crimes against humanity. I look forward to his execution. But there are many other ugly dictators in the world who also have killed millions of innocent people (North Korea, Sudan, Rwanda, etc) and you don't see the American cavalry coming to their rescue?
No, Saddam had the misfortune to be a dictator who sat on huge oil reserves that America thirsts for, plain and simple. The fact that our friend and ally, Israel was not on speaking terms with Hussein did not help his cause. We overthrew Saddam Hussein because we could and we get his oil in return. We dare not mount a campaign against the Iranian theocracy, not because we could not cause them significant damage, but because they are much stronger and geographically larger then Iraq and I assure you, any American attack on Iran would unite most Iranians against the United States and we would have a real battle on our hands. The same is true with North Korea and the possible use of their supposed nuclear weapons.
No, America could have kept their eyes on the Afghanistan - Pakistan border and persuaded General Musharraf to allow our troops into Pakistani territory to hunt down and bring bin Ladin to justice. But we all know 9/11 was a convenient excuse to promote a goal the neocons had since February 1991 when Poppy Bush did not finish the job - the overthrow of Saddam Hussein and the building of friendly Arab puppet governments to support our energy needs and keep Israel safe, as well as a counter balance to Iran.
During the next week, we may see the beginning of the end of the Bush Administration and the discrediting of the neocon fanatics as the real cause of Plamegate blows up in their faces. Or, God forbid, the Bush Administration may escape another bullet and limp along for another three years.