It has been seventeen years since a group of radical Islamists hijacked four commercial passenger aircraft. Two found their way to the World Trade Center, one to the Pentagon in Washington. The fourth, supposedly bound for the White House, crashed in a Pennsylvania field when the passengers tried to retake the aircraft.
In the days after, the world separated into two groups, civilized and uncivilized. The civilized people of this world reacted with horror, anger, empathy, concern and sympathy. The French newspaper LeMonde's headline for September 12th, 2001 read simply, “Nous sommes tous Américains.” We are all Americans.
The uncivilized people of the world danced and celebrated in the streets, giving candy to children. Now, just so you know I’m not talking just about the Middle East, we had (and still have) plenty of uncivilized people here. This person is a prime example. Please notice how brave this person is, hiding behind their sign.
Since then, we invaded two countries, overthrew their governments and tried to give them freedom, with less-than-ideal results. Thousands of our best and brightest served and died in these two countries. A lot of American blood and sweat was expended in this fight. Thousands of our veterans who made it through but never really came home are still suffering. All I can say is we made the best decision we could at the time.
Looking back, I understand the purpose of invading Iraq. We wanted to change Islamic society at the root level by installing a freedom-based government in Iraq, hoping the countries around them would see Iraq prosper and think to themselves, "I want some of that" and the idea of Freedom would spread and fundamentally change the Muslim world. What we ended up with is millions of Stockholm Syndrome sufferers who not only didn't want freedom of choice and action to the degree Americans enjoy it, but actively fought against it. We also did find those chemical weapons stockpiles, however the chemicals were "expired," meaning they were still fatally toxic but not in their designed way. While the MSM touched on the subject, it never received a hundredth of the coverage of "Bush lied, people died."
To all who died on this say, to all who took up arms to defend this country, from on old, grizzled, ex-sailor I salute you.
