SEPTEMBER 11, 2001 - UNITED WE STOOD...

Americans have seldom been more united in outrage and patriotic fervor than we were by the Attack on America in 2001. President Bush played the tune we could all march to - to strike al Qaeda wherever they may be found and to overthrow the Taliban government in Afghanistan in retaliation for aiding and abetting the enemy.

The problems arose and the unity began to splinter when the focus became scattered. Instead of pursuing and destroying al Qaeda, the mission morphed into reconstruction of the Afghan government into a Jeffersonian democratic republic, a difficult task at best. It was a mission requiring a long-term strategic commitment of troops on the ground in all the areas of Afghanistan where the warlords and heroin distribution network lay dormant, not dead.

Afghans of various political and cultural inclinations needed to be able to count on the security of the American troop presence in order to encourage foreign investment and gradual conversion from a feudal socio-economic model to a modern entrepreneurial model dependent upon a stable central government, a fair regulatory and taxation system and a judiciary separate from but equal to the executive and legislative functions.

The Bush administration manipulated the emotions of the American public following the attack on America. They co-opted the patriotic fervor. Instead of helping the citizenry to define and try to understand the threats to their security and sense of well-being, the administration waged an all-out propaganda campaign to DISTRACT the American public from Osama's gangsta network and the good work to be finished in Afghanistan - in order to mount an offensive against a sovereign nation's brutal, but effective government.

The DISTRACTION interfered with the logical, relevant, important discussions of security within our borders. I won't let this post descend into another anti-Iraquagmire rant about body counts and wasted treasury. My purpose is to recall our unity of pain, outrage a nd resolve on 9/12/01. Unfortunately, it's dissipated, pissed away in the wind by a cabal of liars and opportunists pulling the strings of a gimlet-eyed weasel who thinks he's the leader of the free world...