US and the World

A simple question and no answer

The New York Times > Opinion > Op-Ed Columnist: The Real Enemy Staring Us in the Face

This column seemed pretty routine to me until I got to these paragraphs:

If we know that bin Laden and his top leadership are somewhere along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, and that they're plotting an attack against the United States, why are we not zeroing in on them with overwhelming force? Why is there not a sense of emergency in the land, with the entire country pulling together to stop another Sept. 11 from occurring?

Why are we not more serious about this?

I don't know what the administration was thinking when it invaded Iraq even as the direct threat from bin Laden and Al Qaeda continued to stare us in the face. That threat has only intensified. The war in Iraq consumed personnel and resources badly needed in the campaign against bin Laden and his allies. And it has fanned the hatred of the U.S. among Muslims around the world. Instead of destroying Al Qaeda, we have played right into its hands and contributed immeasurably to its support.

So what's the answer?

And while you're busy coming up with that, tell me - why haven't more of the media asked this most obvious of questions?

What we got was some obvious reaction about possible fear-mongering, but I didn't see one other person turning this around and asking Tom Ridge, Donald Rumsfeld and the president why the hell we are ignoring the obvious threat they outline.

Oh.... you mean the whole damned Army is pinned down in Iraq? Or most of it? Is that idiocy, or what? You have a major threat from a known terrorist hiding in a general region we know about and instead of throwing everything in that direction, we're dying in Iraq for what we now all know is the wrong reason?

Why can't see the obvious when it slaps us in the face? Just how stupid can this administration be? And how stunned is that herd of cattle we call the press?