Thinking About It
September 8, 2006
by Robert Guttman
President George W. Bush is turning up his rhetoric in a series of speeches warning Americans of the dangers of Al Qaeda and other terrorists as we approach the anniversary of the worst terrorist attack on American soil that killed nearly 3,000 U.S. citizens on September 11, 2001. The attack that brought down the World Trade towers in New York and the attack on the Pentagon have dramatically changed many Americans views of the world. Many of us wake up every morning and turn on the news to see what new terrorist act has taken place somewhere in the world.
The one thing that has not changed in the last five years is that the United States has not captured or killed Osama bin Laden, the man responsible for this unbelievable horror inflicted on the United States five years ago.
President Bush, in a press conference on September 17, 2001, responded to a reporter’s question “Do you want bin Laden dead?” by saying: “I want justice. There’s an old poster out west, as I recall, that said, “Wanted: Dead or Alive.” Three days later in an address to a joint session of Congress the president stated: “Whether we bring our enemies to justice, or bring justice to our enemies, justice will be done.”
The question I have for this administration is “Why, after five years of looking for this man who committed this terrible carnage on our country, have we not found him and brought him to justice?”
The president is now giving speeches quoting Osama bin Laden and his top aides about what they are going to do to inflict more terror in the world. We also constantly see these crude Al Qaeda videos on our television screens.
The president should not be quoting these terrorists. He should be capturing these terrorists. It is simply outrageous that Osama bin Laden is still at large. How can this administration claim that the world is safer today when the leader of the terrorist movement is still evading capture from the world’s best trained army?
Why does the U.S. only have 20, 000 troops in Afghanistan plus a similar number of NATO soldiers and have nearly 140, 000 troops in Iraq? Shouldn’t the troop levels be reversed? Why don’t we have 140, 000 troops in the mountains of Afghanistan and Pakistan looking for this terrorist? The president says Al Qaeda has been “degraded and disbursed” but they haven’t been defeated or their leader captured or killed.
Why did Osama bin Laden get away when we had him surrounded in the mountains by U.S. and Afghan troops several years ago? With all of our sophisticated and expensive new counter-terrorism agencies and departments why can we not find Osama?
Today a car bomb killed two American soldiers in Afghanistan and the situation in that country is getting worse as the Taliban becomes bolder in its terror campaign. NATO has called for more troops in Afghanistan to quell the rising violence. If we are in this life and death struggle in our War on Terror then why do we not put all of our extensive resources into getting the world’s top terrorist? How has Osama bin Laden successfully launched the worst terrorist attack against the United States in our history and successfully gotten away with it by still being free?
It is a disgrace. The president can talk and talk tough but the fact remains that the world’s leading terrorist is still at large and yet to be punished for his heinous crime against America five years ago.
The best way to honor those who were killed on 9/11 would be for the administration to double or triple its efforts in bringing Osama bin Laden to justice. Surely, the world’s only superpower with the best and most well equipped army the world has ever seen can find an elderly Saudi Arabian living in the mountains of Afghanistan or Pakistan or wherever he might be these days.
All the tough rhetoric from the president, vice-president and the secretary of defense cannot hide the fact that the country’s worst terrorist attack happened while they were in charge and, inexcusably, they have not caught the man who brought about this disaster.
Mr. President, find Osama bin Laden and bring him to justice for 9/11! Robert J. Guttman
Director, CPFR Click here to return to the Thinking About It archive.
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