Are We Safe Yet?
Janet Kuypers
I don’t know, I know I say I write poetry, but I know I graduated with a News/Editorial Journalism degree, so I’ve had this old newspaper article (from the Naples Daily News, actually) sitting on my desk for months, and the headline emblazoned across the top of the page says: “U.S. military hold AP photographer in Iraq 5 months without charges.” And I just had to throw away that old newspaper page and ask, are we safe yet?
After I don’t know how many months, years we have had the discussion over weapons of mass destruction in Iraq (even after everyone has pretty much agreed that there weren’t weapons of mass destruction set up by Saddam Hussein for attacking us), to destroying the dictator Saddam Hussein when W’s father couldn’t do it (my husband keeps saying that the Iraq war in 1990-1992 was a U.N. led mission and we didn’t have the authority to get Saddam, even though every American wanted to get him), to declaring that our “war” efforts are to liberate a third world country (which really has something to do with the lives of U.S. citizens, what our military is supposed to exist for), I just keep thinking back to President Bush (you know, just for ease of writing I’m going to call him W from now on...) saying that we’re safer now that we’ve battled Iraq. A ton of other sources will say that our entering that country and staying there has created more people who hate us, and if you compare the number of deadly attacks (2 in Clinton’s reign of 8 years and 3 or 4 that I can count off the top of my head in W’s reign), we’ve had more terrorist attacks since 9/11 than before 9/11. And W keeps saying that we’re safer (after he stopped searching for Bin Laden and decided to go after Saddam Hussein, who had no direct ties to 9/11), and the only image that keeps popping in my head is an image of the Bush family driving along in their hummer (not like they’d use something fuel efficient), with Jenna and Laura continually asking over and over again (instead of are we there yet?’) the question, “Are we safe yet?” And after they ask one too many times, President Bush (I mean “W”), their father, turns around and yells, “If you ask that one more time, I’ll turn this car right around.”
Anyway, that’s the image I get in my head. Maybe it’s fitting for the way our President looks at this conflict in Iraq, I don’t know, but it’s all I keep thinking. He does seem to have a bit of an “I don’t care” philosophy, coupled with his Texas macho-bully persona. You think I’m silly for saying he doesn’t care? When asked by reporters about W’s search for Bin Laden within a year of 9/11, W said something to the effect of Bin Laden isn’t a concern for him to find’.
Ask any American (from a fear-mongering Republican to a Hacky Sack playing Democrat), at any time after 9/11, if Bin Laden was a priority to find, and I think you’d get a different reaction than the reaction of our President.
Want to hear some more collaborating evidence of W’s manners? Carol V. Hamilton noted in Being Nothing on ctheory.net (