To answer the Senators question, we all pay the price. We all paid a price on 9-11. We'll all pay a price when it happens again.
That's exactly right, except that the price we pay is not equal.
Cindy Sheehan lost a son in Iraq. George Bush has not lost any of his children in the war he started. The personal price they pay is very different.
The women who lost a husband, the men who lost a wife (or boyfriend), the children who lost a parent in the 9/11 attacks paid a personal price that those who didn't lose a loved one that day haven't paid.
That doesn't make any of them more capable of making the "right" decision about anything, but it does provide a viewpoint that's different from those who don't pay a personal price like that. And that's not inappropriate to note.
Frankly, Rice's speech before the Senate was very disturbing and I applaud Senator Boxer for calling her on it.
The object of the war on terror is to ensure that we don't pay that price again.
The "war on terror" is just another propaganda slogan made up by Bush & Co to win elections and push through their war agenda. The truth is Bush & Co have been as incompetent at addressing the real threat of terrorism as they were at addressing Hurricane Katrina. They're bullies who are incompetent, nothing more.
Terrorism has been part of the world since the beginning of human civilization. It's part of the dynamic of how the haves versus have-nots sometimes plays out. Terrorism did not begin on 9/11 or with al Qaeda. It began when people who feel they have nothing to lose were pushed too far with feeling ripped off, banded together and attacked. Hundreds and hundreds of years before any of us was born. It's a human response, not a cultural response.
Bush & Co, and Republicans, don't own "the war on terror" -- it's something we always have and always will have to deal with. And in fact Bush & Co, and the BushRepublican controlled Congress, have been stunningly inadequate to the challenge. "Bush-league," during this era, has taken on deeper meaning.
