Stu Bykofsky | To save America, we need another 9/11

ONE MONTH from The Anniversary, I'm thinking another 9/11 would help America.

What kind of a sick bastard would write such a thing?

A bastard so sick of how splintered we are politically - thanks mainly to our ineptitude in Iraq - that we have forgotten who the enemy is.

It is not Bush and it is not Hillary and it is not Daily Kos or Bill O'Reilly or Giuliani or Barack. It is global terrorists who use Islam to justify their hideous sins, including blowing up women and children.

Iraq has fractured the U.S. into jigsaw pieces of competing interests that encourage our enemies. We are deeply divided and division is weakness.

Most Americans today believe Iraq was a mistake. Why?

Not because Americans are "anti-war."

Americans have turned their backs because the war has dragged on too long and we don't have the patience for a long slog. We've been in Iraq for four years, but to some it seems like a century. In contrast, Britain just pulled its soldiers out of Northern Ireland where they had been, often being shot at, almost 40 years.

That's not the American way.

In Iraq, we don't believe our military is being beaten on the battleground. It's more that there is no formal "battleground." There is the drip of daily casualties and victory is not around the corner. Americans are impatient. We like fast food and fast war.

Americans loved the 1991 Gulf War. It raged for just 100 hours when George H.W. Bush ended it with a declaration of victory. He sent a half-million troops into harm's way and we suffered fewer than 300 deaths.

America likes wars shorter than the World Series.

Bush I did everything right, Bush II did everything wrong - but he did it with the backing of Congress.

Because the war has been a botch so far, Democrats and Republicans are attacking one another, when they aren't attacking themselves. The dialog of discord echoes across America.

Turn back to 9/11.

Remember the community of outrage and national resolve? America had not been so united since the first Day of Infamy - 12/7/41.

We knew who the enemy was then.

We knew who the enemy was shortly after 9/11.

Because we have mislaid 9/11, we have endless sideshow squabbles about whether the surge is working, if we are "safer" now, whether the FBI should listen in on foreign phone calls, whether cops should detain odd-acting "flying imams," whether those plotting alleged attacks on Fort Dix or Kennedy airport are serious threats or amateur bumblers. We bicker over the trees while the forest is ablaze.

America's fabric is pulling apart like a cheap sweater.

What would sew us back together?

Another 9/11 attack.

The Golden Gate Bridge. Mount Rushmore. Chicago's Wrigley Field. The Philadelphia subway system. The U.S. is a target-rich environment for al Qaeda.

Is there any doubt they are planning to hit us again?

If it is to be, then let it be. It will take another attack on the homeland to quell the chattering of chipmunks and to restore America's righteous rage and singular purpose to prevail.

The unity brought by such an attack sadly won't last forever.

The first 9/11 proved that. *

E-mail stubyko@phillynews.com or call 215-854-5977. For recent columns:

http://go.philly.com/byko.

Excuse my language, but this guy is completely out of his fucking melon!

He actually believes that the reason Americans are so upset about and against the War in Iraq is due to its longevity and the fact that it has been botched. He couldn’t possibly be closer to wrong.

Americans are angry because they were lied to in order to start the war in the first place. Had Saddam Hussein actually been a threat or had anything at all to do with 9/11, we would have most likely all been behind it. In fact, the invasion of Iraq was approved of by most Americans in its infancy because we were told that Saddam Hussein had ties to Al Qaeda and was, or had intentions of, producing weapons of mass destruction with which to kill us. Once those accusations turned out to be, to one extreme, unfounded, and to the other extreme, totally fabricated, we withdrew our approval of both the war and the President who ordered it. To make the situation worse, Vice President Cheney maintained, and still maintains in fact, that Saddam Hussein intended to produce weapons of mass destruction. Delusional at best, insane at worst.

Mr. Bykofsky says that Bush 1 did everything right and Bush 2 did everything wrong, but with the backing of Congress. Well, no one faulted Bush 1 with anything because Saddam Hussein actually did something wrong then! We say that Bush 2 did everything wrong because he has. Who enters a war with no exit strategy whatsoever? In addition, he may have had the backing of Congress, but he lied to get it!

Mr. Bykofsky says that Americans don’t like wars that last longer than the World Series of Baseball. That is not true. What Americans don’t like are wars of aggression and wars based on lies. Americans don’t like seeing their young men and women, who have bravely chosen to lay down their lives and bodies to protect our way of life, coming home in boxes covered in flags. Americans don’t like the sound of an unnecessary 21-gun salute. Americans don’t like living in the constant fear that the Bush Administration has instilled in them, that some invisible bogey-man in a turban is going to walk into the shopping mall food court where they are engorging themselves on MSG-laden, crappy Chinese food, Diet Coke, Dippin’ Dots and Cinnabon and blow themselves up while taking everyone around them to meet Allah in the process.

Americans are also not fond of being misrepresented. We don’t like the idea that between 69,045 and 75,495 Iraqi civilians have been killed allegedly in our name. We also don’t like the fact that 3,678 American troops have been killed since the beginning of Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003. In case you’ve forgotten, that’s 704 more people than were killed on 9/11 (there were 2974, not including the “hijackers”), which brought us into this war in the first place. Simply put, Mr. Bykofsky has absolutely no clue what Americans do and do not like.

Mr. Bykofsky suggests that another terrorist attack of the magnitude of 9/11 would bring Americans back together in a unified front. Well, he has a point. Unfortunately for him, it’s the wrong point. The unity that is likely to be brought about should another 9/11 occur would be a solidified stance against the imperialist policies of this administration. There is also the strong likelihood that Americans would be suspicious of such a move, even if it were an actual terrorist attack. The 9/11 Truth movement has its share of nuts who believe in every loony conspiracy theory vomited by every internet whack-job, but it also has a significant political and social relevance. Not just that, but it is asking for what, I think, every American wants. That is for our government to tell us the truth about what happened. We want the truth as determined by an investigation completely independent of the government that failed us in the first, second and last place..

In closing, I think that Mr. Bykofsky should crawl back under whatever rock it is that he crawled out from under and STFU!