sharky said:
As for cheering at baseball games, Sting, I would have no problem cheering any soldier that walked in to that stadium. But people weren't cheering a soldier. They were cheering the president's particular stance in Iraq -- despite the fact that there are still soldiers in my subway stops and on my streets. The city has been at Level Orange since the color coding system started. How is stirring up anti-American feelings in the Middle East and not catching a terrorist supposed to make me feel safe? Why did we use those bombs on Iraq instead of bin Laden?
Sting, you may be right. I may be too obsessed with bin Laden, but I can also still taste the Trade Center in my mouth as I outran the collapse of the south tower. My city was destroyed, my life was turned upside down -- all because of bin Laden. I think its understandable if I'm obsessed with catching the guy.
I'm going to take issue with a few of your statements here. I like the fact that when I walk up the stairs at Penn the first thing I see is an armed National Guardsman. I feel safe when I take the Throgs Neck and see police and National Guardsmen doing random searches of vans and trucks. All these things give me reason
to cheer the President, because at least I finally see something going on, some sort of extra security to protect me. Is it 100% fool proof? Of course not. But it's a start in the right direction. Even if Bin Laden was caught. Even if he was dead... which he may be already, that does not mean that the threat is over. America got a big punch in the mouth, and instead of sitting back and taking it, we're taking it to the people who delivered it, their friends, their allies, and those who sympathize and support them. Was Saddam directly involved in 9/11? Most likely no. Does he sympatize with the terrorists, provide support to various terror groups, and would he, given the chance, have given more than just money to these groups? You're damn right he would have. So rather than sit around and wait for the next attack to happen, we have a President who's proactively going after the people who may attack us
before they get that chance. That is reason for a stadium full of New Yorkers to cheer the President at Yankee Stadium. That is reason for a room full of New Yorkers to booo Eddie Vedder at the Nassau Coliseum.
We're still not out of the woods. The next terror attack could come today, tommorow, next year, or never. But I feel a lot better knowing that we have someone going after these people, Al Qaeda and others, before they get a chance to hit us again, then I would if we had someone who was going to wait for an attack and then lob a couple of cruise missiles at a pharmacutical plant, that's for damn sure.
And one more thing... all of us in New York had our lifes turned upside down by what happened. That is without doubt. But while a few buildings may have been destroyed, and thousands of innocent lives lost for no reason, New York City is most deffinetly still alive and well. We may not agree on politics, but I think we can all agree on that.
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