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I had to bump this thread up after seeing a documentary last night on PBS... I have to admit, I balled... We can never, we MUSTn't ever forget 9/11/01. Some links FYI... Flash video memorial (turn on your speakers) ... very good, very moving. A second page with info on why the memorial was made ... with downloads available to save it to your machine. and An image sent over by one of the U.S. Marine companies in IRAQ... motivation behind their service in that field...
9/11 was the worst moment in American life since I've been alive. Never forget, yes. But... American soldiers in Iraq saying "we remember?" The bogus Iraq-9/11 connection's gone on long enough. It was a lie. That's why Bush and Cheney were so lawyerly careful not to say it explicitly while they convinced more than half of the country, through innuendo, that Iraq was complicit in 9/11. They weren't. Why didn't we attack Moscow and say "we remember?" Why not Des Moines? Why not Neptune? The guys who did this are alive and laughing at us. And we're settling scores from more than ten years past instead of going after the bad guys. Anyone who's actually upset about 9/11 should be upset that this administration has let another 1,000 Americans die in an irrelevant war while blowing off the guys who actually attacked us. The war in Iraq does not honor the victims. Going after the guys who did it would.
At least 19 of them died instantly. Brilliant though of you to say that. Many. many more died in Afghanistan. Mock if you must, but I personally know soldiers that use 9-11 as motivation while in Iraq, to this day. And... Since when did civilians tell the soldiers why to fight? At least they have volunteered to protect your right to mock.
The ones that died didn't mastermind it. They were pawns. The ones who planned it and made it happen are enjoying the hell out of Iraq. It takes the threat away from them and helps them recruit new followers among people who'd never have considered joining up otherwise. I know you guys prefer disengenuous distraction to real dialogue, but I don't tell the soldiers why to fight. And they didn't volunteer to protect my "right to mock." I'm guessing most of them volunteered to protect this country. That's why it's such a shame so many of them are dying in a country that was never, EVER a threat to us while the people who were a threat and who actually ATTACKED us are walking around comfortable in the knowledge that we've turned our attention elsewhere. If you're pissed about 9/11, you should be more pissed at the ones who did it than the ones who didn't. You should be more eager to get revenge on our attackers than to use it as an excuse to preemptively attack people who never had the means to hurt us. But you know... What do I know? I'm just a liberal.
IROC it: In fighting the 'War on Terror,' whom would you consider the greater threat? Osama or Saddam? If Saddam, why? If Osama, why do you think we've shifted our focus? And if you disagree that we've shifted our focus: How many Americans have died in Iraq in the last year? How many have died hunting Osama? How many times has Osama been mentioned by the president in the last year? How many times has Saddam? How many times were each mentioned at the RNC? Did we shift our focus to an enemy we could beat? And, if so, have we acknowledged that Osama's just too hard to find? Seriously, a lot of you guys cite 9/11 all the time in defending the Iraq war. I'd like to know why you aren't citing it in advocating spending every resource we have available to bring our attackers to justice.
