Flutterby™! : September 12th

I considered writing something yesterday about it being 5 years after September 11^th, 2001, but I spent the day in a compatibility lab down at Apple and didn't get to it. So y'all were mercifull spared.

However, on the way home I heard a snippet of Dubya's speech for the occasion:

Whatever mistakes have been made in Iraq, the worst mistake would be to think that if we pulled out, the terrorists would leave us alone.

And I thought "nice fucking strawman, asshole". Normally I'd tone that thought down a bit when I transcribed it for here, but... Five years ago the nation pulled together in a way that hadn't happened in my lifetime. Five years ago we had a purpose, and we had the national will to solve some real international problems. Five years ago we, even out here on the left coast, suddenly gained some national pride.

All of that got pissed away by a bunch of incompetent lying morons who have their own agenda that apparently involves fucking up the Middle East badly enough that their "rapture" will come and end the world.

Yeah, if we pulled our troops out of Germany the terrorists wouldn't leave us alone, either. Our troops in Iraq, or Germany or most other places we've got 'em, are completely orthogonal to the issues that enraged those who attacked the United States 5 years ago, and the continuing struggles in Iraq are orthogonal to solving those problems. Although through the magic of some really boneheaded politics and diplomacy, the Executive Branch has set it up so that if we "win" in Iraq we get nothing, but if we lose, we lose big.

But any ranting I can do on that topic is stuff you've already heard. But Columbine's "Twin Tragedies" points out that the attacks on the U.S. were the first tragedy, the second happened because of the national response to the first.