Burrs in My Saddle

I really did try NOT to need to write this, but I just took my BP and I'm afraid if I don't vent, something else...something I'd rather NOT have venting...will...SO here goes!

Ann Coulter...The self proclaimed WITTY one, who finds it is humorous to call women who lost their immediate loved ones in 9/11 "harpies", opportunistitc witches who have made their fortunes off of the backs of their dead loved ones so should not care if anything has changed to prevent ANOTHER 9/11, is the catalyst for my risen blood pressure.

Ms. Coulter...you say that 9/11 was not THEIR tragedy. To a certain extent I DO agree. This Country, that had not been violated on its OWN soil since Pearl Harbor, lost its innocence. In that respect we are ALL victims of the carnage of 9/11. BUT unless I missed something, YOU, MS. COULTER, did not lose anyone immediately attached to you...even though, may I add, you have certainly parlayed the 9/11 events and the actions of the current "would-be-king" to make your own fortunes. What price innocence? Having not still been in diapers during the Viet Nam War and Richard Nixon's attempts to usurp power in the name of that War, I have many more memories to draw upon in making my commentaries than you do...here and elsewhere.

That said, I would much rather lose my innocence than someone I have loved and lived with. We already knew that America's borders were not secure and that Al Qaida wanted to harm America. (Do you NOT remember the attack on the WTC nine years earlier?) SOOOO America lost her innocence....sorta, but not on 9/11...She, America, was already aware that she was vulnerable to outside enmity. Al Qaida had not spent those intervening nine years transmiting its contempt and hatred for America via the old tin-can phone line...so how much of OUR innocence did America REALLY HAVE to lose on 9/11?

We hurt. The Nation of America hurt...and the world understood our pain on that day. How could they not? How could anyone not understand the pain of losing 3000 plus innocent lives and in such a dramatic way? How could anyone not understand the soul-shattering tragedy for all those families that lost their loved ones on that day...and the aching void they've had to endure every day since?

The pain of 9/11 is a wound that still bleeds five years later. As long as I live, I will never forget the anguish I felt watching innocent people throw themselves out of the crippled towers. I will never forget the masses of people covered in the pulverized aftermath of the Towers disintegration or the stark looks of the bewilderment on the faces of New Yorkers fleeing Ground Zero.

I hurt, MS. Coulter...for all of those lives whose unique voices were crushed out on 9/11. BUT, I did NOT lose an immediate member of my family. Had I lost a loved one, the gaping wound that exists within my memories of 9/11 would multiply to the nth degree. There would be no level of peace for me...especially when I see that nothing...not ONE thing has changed. Imagine knowing that your loved one's death was for nothing, because this Country did not learn from it, and others could so easily be blasted into the same depths of despair five years later.

Our borders are no more secure today, despite the billions wasted in the last five years, allegedly FOR securing those borders. The Intelligence community is a quagmire of misdirection, confusion, and incompetency draining us of our hope for a better future.

Imagine, Ms. Coulter, if your loved one had died on 9/11...then imagine that the Administration tries to push through a plan for the very geographic factions that bred the murderers of 9/11 to be contracted to secure our sea ports! Does that make any sense? Isn't that the same as locking the fox inside the henhouse and throwing away the key all the while hoping that THAT fox doesn't have his own rabid fangs?

Wishful thinking didn't work after the FIRST attack on the WTC...Somehow I doubt that the terrorists have dummied down enough since 9/11 for us to think it'll work as a deterrent now.

You lost no one, but you have ridden to celebrity on the tainted carpet of 9/11. You have lined your bottom line on the sacrifice of others. You tar and feather any who disagree with you and/or your little Dubya as non-patriotic...but you are not over in Iraq fighting for the war that your Dubya touts so highly...any more than any of HIS family members, friends, or cronies are there.

You like the freedom afforded by the Constitution, but viciously wish to deny those same rights to the brave women who chose not to just disappear within their grief, the same rights to speak out and be heard. They lost family, but they also HAVE family...family they are tenaciously trying to keep from ever having to live through another senseless 9/1l-like assault. You, on the other hand, seem to have lost nothing more than your humanity.

I praise the New Jersey Widows. I praise the mothers, sisters, wives, brothers, fathers, sons, aunts, and uncles of our Courageous Soldiers for speaking out and demanding to know WHY they must sacrifice when nothing is being done to make it better. War is not a panacea...nor should it be an accepted way of living. Since no WMDs were ever found, this war is allegedly NOW about giving the Iraqi people democracy...but you, Ms. Coulter, viciously wish to deny democracy to the people who have lost their loved ones fighting for that philosophy.

In other words...simpler words...It's time to get off your soap box and let those who have earned their rights to speak out, to do so.