Comfortably Numb #55
SO CYNICAL
By Wyatt Haldin
Wyatt Haldin
I hate being so cynical about anything having to do with the government of this nation, but I will always remember my reaction to the recent hit job on Osama Bin Laden. We had spent the weekend in Northern Illinois, attending the season opening race at Byron Dragway, and when I flicked on the TV in the motel room Monday morning, it was wall-to-wall coverage. I sat on the edge of the bed with my mouth hanging open because, if we’re all honest, most of us had given up on this criminal ever being brought to justice. Not five minutes into my crash course on the demise of the most wanted person in the world, I started asking myself quiet little questions. Body immediately dumped into the ocean from one of our warships? Crashing poll numbers for Obama made the timing of this operation extremely convenient for him. What a distraction from high fuel costs, inflation, and high unemployment, right? I asked myself, why couldn’t I just celebrate the victory that the death of Bin Laden represented for the USA, instead of picking the operation to pieces with criticism.
Don’t get me wrong here. The images of thousands of our fellow countrymen dying on Sept 11th, 2001 has been seared into my soul and anyone who had anything to do with this heinous act deserves much worse than a quick bullet to the brain. I really do not consider myself to be a 9-11 “truther” but in conversations with some pretty smart people, there are always questions raised that I cannot begin to answer with a satisfactory explanation. A couple of suspicions about September 11 that really dog me are, why was there no plane wreckage found at the site of the Pentagon attack and why did the twin towers fall at faster than the speed of gravity when they started coming down? I’m not here to reopen that whole can of worms but I learned a long time ago not to trust the “official” explanation given by some government type. Everything that happens in Washington, and I do mean everything, is not done because it’s the right thing to do. It’s done for political reasons and that always leaves the stench of corruption lingering behind.
What would be the ideal situation for a president who was facing re-election and was presiding over a disastrous economy, exploding deficit, and massive unemployment? I would have to think that killing OBL would be in the top three on the wish list. It may surprise some of you when I congratulate President Obama on the elimination of this blight on humanity. Hey, I’ll always give credit where credit is due, but if we’re going to hand out trophies for victory, let’s not forget about those who set it in motion and those who did the deed.
First and foremost, a debt of gratitude and eternal respect goes out to our military in general and Seal Team 6 in particular. These people are the baddest of the bad and if they are dispatched to pay you a visit, your day just took a turn for the worse. Let’s not forget about the “moronic” Bush administration that put all the flawed policies in place that led us to Bin Laden’s doorstep. My congratulations to Obama end right here because if he and his ilk had had their way, the intel that allowed us to do this job would have never existed. The irony here is thick. It’s like Barack is taking his victory lap and looks down and sees that he’s being carried on the shoulders of Bush and Cheney. If a person thinks that we didn’t get the intel used in this mission from anything other than “enhanced” interrogation, they are fooling themselves. This means waterboarding and other means of extracting information. If Obama and Holder had had their way, we would have been tucking these terrorists into bed at night with cookies and milk and asking questions in a nice way. Maybe we should have taken the advice of that twit, Joy Behar, and given the jihadists a six million dollar book deal to give it up.
Maybe these are just the times we live in, but regardless of who’s at the helm in Washington, I’m not taking what they tell us a face value. We’re spun daily about how we’re really starting to turn the corner with the economy. The Administration trumpets that a quarter of a million “new” jobs were created in the first quarter but that sinister unemployment rate continues to rise. You can blow all the hot air you want about making a bad situation look good but the truth always rises to the top and smacks you in the jaw like a Smokin’ Joe Frazier left hook.
The American people hunger for honest leadership in all levels of government, but the old saying “power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely” has proven true time and time again. I hate not believing what my government tells me, but until we can install some citizen legislators and rid ourselves of the career politicians, I will continue to view almost all of those in power the same way I view the three card monte dealer set up on the street corner.
