Casualties of 9/11

I honor the 3000 who died in the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon five years ago. In addition to them, there are a number of other casualties of that attack, the greatest of which is the country I was ready to defend. Many of Republican Washington's policies are no longer defensible. This is the saddest casualty of the attack.

We lost foremost truth. Our government has systematically lied to us about a number of results of the attack, most notably the war in Iraq. Even though the Republican Senate has reported that there was no connection between Iraq and the attacks of five years ago, Cheney continues to assert there somehow is.

We lost our honor. We have become a country of torturers, something I would never have considered years ago. The Russians were the bad guys, they did things like waterboarding and "unconventional interrogation techniques." We were the good guys. No more can we make that claim.

We lost our civil liberties. This is the saddest of casualties and the greatest of victories for our enemies. We've become like them in that we will torture, we will kidnap, for what were the CIA's secret prisons other than organized, government-sanctioned kidnapping. We will imprison without the hope of trial and when the judiciary is engaged, the Government will play shell games to keep the prisoner from being tried, accused, counseled. We will summarily sentence the condemned without giving them the right to see the evidence against them and to confront their accusers all in the name of secrecy. No more can we claim the honor of shining beacon of freedom.

We've lost our moral compass. Espionage without oversight is considered by Republican Washington to be quite all right as long as it's not happening to them. Republican Washington wages a war based on lies but does not send their own nor do they pay taxes to support the war. Corporate profits are at an all-time high measured against the GNP while wages are at an all-time low against the same yardstick. We will not raise the minimum wage unless we cut $1.4 million from 8000 of America's wealthiests' taxes.

We've lost our leadership in the world. Republicans send a bully to the U. N. in the guise of a diplomat. We've traded our traditional allies for third-world partners of convenience who will support our twisted policies.

The greatest casualty of 9/11? America. I give up, the terrorists won.