9/11

On the anniversary of a horrible event, there seems to be a need to say something. I suspect many people expect there to be some appropriate degree of emotion everyone must display in an articulate way. Others will write essays documenting what they were doing on that day, much the way a previous generation recalled what they were doing when they heard President Kennedy had been assassinated. Events that shock an entire nation are memorable, and all too often for the wrong reasons.

Sometimes events just as horrible do not shock because they are not sudden. They are a slow drip that goes unnoticed by far too many over years worth of time, but are no less shocking.

Senate Republican Mark Warner asked General Patraeus if the war in Iraq has made America safer. The General replied "I don't know."

It's a surreal moment that the commander of our military in a war doesn't know if the primary justification, the primary goal, of the war has been achieved 4 and a half years after war began.

I still don't understand why the General was testifying to congress in any case. He is not a politician. The military is a tool of the civilian authority, and he does as he is ordered to do. His focus is on military objectives, and the politics of it is not his arena.

George Bush should have been the one testifying to Congress and answering their questions. He is the one that started this bullshit war, and he's the one that wants it to continue indefinitely.

Today is for remembrance of the attacks on 9/11, and the Iraq war has absolutely nothing to do with that except to be a disaster equally as horrific.