Early last evening, I sat down to about an hour of news TV to catch the results of the U.S. Senate’s questioning of General Petraeus about the impact of the recent troop surge in Iraq and of his related recommendations. I was appalled at the conduct of some of the senators. It outraged me that these politicians would use a national forum on a day like 9/11 to inflate their political and presidential ambitions by treating one of America’s finest soldiers with such impunity and indignity.
Except for perhaps less than a handful of senators on the panel, not a one is qualified to even tie the shoelaces on the boots of such a distinguished American warrior as General Petraeus.
Don’t misunderstand me about what’s happened in Iraq: I think that President Bush grossly misunderstood and miscalculated the nature of the conflict in the Middle East. He never wrapped his mind early enough around the intense tribal and religious distrust between Iraqi Sunnis and Shi‘as. But so has today’s cadre of irresponsible senators who, on the platform offered by 9/11, used it to bloviate incessantly to the tune of their own voices.
Yesterday, the elected officials who spoke eloquently at Bridgewater’s 9/11 commemoration ceremony outside the municipal complex, honored the dead of the Twin Towers, their families and survivors, and America’s military personnel. Flannery, Bateman and Ferguson did not use the occasion of this solemn day, as did senators in Washington, to sully the national honor with pointless, obtuse accusations.
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