J's Cafe Nette

Stu Byofsky has an op-ed up at Philly.com (Philadelphia Daily News) saying it will take another 9/11 to bring our country back together again.

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.

I’ve quoted most of the article because I think it’s a worthy read, and to an extent I agree with him, unfortunately.

Remember how united our citizens and Congress were after 9/11? We had our Congressmen and Senators on the Capitol steps (a presumed target of the terrorists) singing “God Bless America” and resolved to do whatever it took to beat back this enemy.

Our president told us this would be a long war that would not be a conventional war with conventional enemies. The enemy we have does not wear a uniform, but smiles to our faces while he sets IEDs to explode our vehicles and kill our soldiers and any civilians who happen to be in the way.

Some in Congress look at this from only a political view and wonder how it can help them and their party.

It’s gone so far that Congressman Clyburn of SC, the Democratic Whip in the House has stated if the Petraeus report is fairly positive about the surge (and we are reading articles by AP and Brookings Institution think tank people it is) that it would be bad news for the Democrats.

Why would winning or making progress toward peace in Iraq be bad news for anyone? It is only if your entire political campaign is based on us losing the peace there.

Let there be no mistake: We won the war in a matter of days. It’s the peace that is elusive and we have to leave with the country stable enough to defend itself or our efforts will have been in vain.

I know not everyone agrees with me, but that’s what I think and I really believe it.

I don’t want to test the theory it will take another 9/11 to bring us back together. I want our politicians to do things for the right reasons and those reasons do not include how it will help them get re-elected.

I’d actually love to see all 435 House seats get reversed and replaced with all new Congressmen who have no dog in this fight and will do what is right for our country. Then go home and live under the laws they pass, just as our Founders envisioned.

Captain Ed is blogging this story too.

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