Remembering 9/11

Perhaps if Al Gore had been president instead of Howdy Doody, it might not have happened at all. We should have reacted by beefing up airport security (which we did, sort of) and sending in a team of Special Forces to take out bin Laden. Remember John Walker Lindh? He was a kid who went over there and managed to join al Qaeda and was completely accepted by those people. Instead, we spent trillions on two completely pointless wars that accomplished nothing other than creating ISIS, an even more radical terrorist group than al Qaeda, and making Iran an even more dominant power broker in the Middle East. Meanwhile, at home, we soon got used to much more intrusive government surveillance.

And yes, hindsight is 20/20, but there were people at the time saying none of this was necessary. They were drowned out by the usual war profiteers and the nationalists who wanted a new war that would make up for Vietnam. So now that particular adventure is finally over with. Rest assured that before too long, there will be some other compelling reason to waste lives and money on another pointless foreign excursion. I don't know what it is, and I don't have to know; I'm already against it. Unless foreign troops are on our soil, we need to stay the hell out of these places.