America

Hopefully, one week from today, John Kerry will be the President-elect of the United States. Kerry wasn't my first choice, but he is now the only choice. I was watching Anderson Cooper 360 last night, and Bill Maher was on. He made a fantastic point:

First of all, they should have made the issue 9/11. You know if the situation were reversed and the Republicans were running against President Al Gore, this whole election would be about 9/11 happened on your watch, I don't want to hear about any excuses, this was your problem. Somehow the Republicans get a mulligan on 9/11. Well, we let it happen once. Won't happen again.

You know and I know that there is an unimpeachable truth to that statement. If Al Gore were President:

• do you think the Republicans would be treating 380 TONS of explosives lost under our noses as unimportant?
• do you think that Gore would get a pass on Abu Ghraib, or would the impeachment already have begun?
• do you think that the CIA "disappearing" people would be just fine with Rush Limbaugh, et al?

Of course not. Let's be real: 9/11 happened on George Bush's watch. He was on vacation in Crawford during the entire month of August. The same month that the daily intelligence report screamed, "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US". Bush and his minions like to say John Kerry has a 9/10 mentality. George Bush ought to know - no one had more of a 9/10 mentality than he. Bush, his neocon handlers, and his entire administration have used 9/11 as an excuse to change America into something it never was, and never should have been. We have used 9/11 as an excuse to throw people in prison, and they're never heard from again. That's America? We have used 9/11 as an excuse to overthrow the brutal dictator of a nevertheless sovereign nation-state. That's America? We have used 9/11 as an excuse unilaterally, preemptively, and with little or no legitimacy to commence a war against a sovereign nation-state. That's America? The people in our administration shield themselves from the news and proclaim that all is well, while at least half of the country knows that's not true. We brutalized, tortured, and murdered Iraqi detainees in a U.S.-controlled prison in Iraq. Those detainees hadn't been convicted of any crime. Instead of placing blame with the commanders, common soldiers like Lynndie England take the fall. That's America? We send fathers and mothers who jined the National Guard to defend America's homeland overseas to Iraq to occupy a sovereign nation and fight a local guerrilla insurgency. When they try to resign, they are refused. That's America? While 45 million Americans go without health insurance, we have $225 billion to spend on the occupation of country - the occupation of which, we were told, would pay for itself with sweet, sweet oil money.