Mr. Ken Chrosniak wrote in a recent letter to the editor
that he is insulted by Vice Pres. Joe Biden’s comment that the Taliban per se
is not our enemy. While I make no judgment
on Mr. Chrosniak personally, I find his comments incredibly naïve. They exemplify the hyper-political climate we
are in these days.
Here is what I believe Mr. Biden meant by his remark. The Taliban did not attack America. Al qaeda did.
The reason we went to war against the Taliban was that they refused our
demand to turn over the perpetrators of 9-11.
Mr. Biden was not saying that he embraces the narrow-minded
hyper-religious views of the Taliban. He
was simply saying that we should not choose to go to war with every
organization with whose policies and actions we do not fully agree. Especially in these days of budget deficits,
we can’t afford this, if indeed we ever could.
We had a President who seemed to embody
Mr. Chrosniak’s world view, George W. Bush.
After 9-11, he declined to focus our energies on the group directly
responsible for 9-11, al qaeda. Instead,
he first attacked Saddam Hussein based on trumped up charges that he had WMDs,
would soon have nukes, and possibly had something to do with 9-11. His partner in crime, Dick Cheney, suppressed
those within the CIA who questioned the truth of these allegations. This led us into a decade of trillions of
misspent dollars, thousands of lost lives and much lost prestige on the world
stage.
I prefer an Administration that
carefully investigates allegations before proceeding with force, and keeps its
commitments such as systematically eliminating Osama bin Laden and the other
leaders of al qaeda. Apparently Mr. Chrosniak
would like to go back to the bad old days of “Mission Accomplished”. He and I disagree about that.
