Hindsight

We have a phrase in our vernacular that says, "Hindsight is 20/20." Although somewhat cliché, it is so true. The reason this one phrase is used so many times is basically because it's easy to analyze a situation after it has happened.

Everyone's an expert on things after they happen. The unfortunate thing is that when it comes to legal cases, or politics, hindsight can be used as a terrible weapon against innocent people.

Someone who made a decision based on their current situation and facts should not be made to justify those decisions unless it where demonstrated that those decisions were indeed done with forethought and malice.

After a football game we can sit back and watch all of the recorded footage and say that a coach or player should have done this or that. During that game, however, in the heat of the moment you don't have that luxury.

Watching "Survivor" last night, for those of you that follow that show of social interaction, we saw that Lex did a friend, "Boston Rob" a favor and spared the ousting of his girlfriend, "Amber." In hindsight, he realized that it was a very bad move and Rob led the charge to vote Lex away from the million dollar prize.

In the case of 911, we're not talking about losing a game, we're talking about losing many lives, and the security of our country. Although the stakes are higher, and what had happened was devastating to many families and our country, is a witch hunt really necessary?

Regardless of whether or not you're a Democrat, or a Republican, do you seriously believe that former President Clinton, or President Bush had any idea whatsoever that something like 911 was going to occur? More importantly then that, if they did know, that they did absolutely nothing to try to prevent it? I highly doubt it.

Thinking of 911 in this way, what the heck is this 911 commission trying to accomplish? From the reports I am seeing, it appears to me that they are trying more to find someone to pin the blame on, rather then to truly study what happened, and how it might be prevented in the future.

The general consensus from just about anyone who has been asked from the Clinton administration to the Bush administration, is that even if they had an idea that something might happen, it may not have been easily prevented.

Once we got word of it we would have had to shut down every airport for weeks, or perhaps months, to implement a fraction of the security we now have. Again, using our hindsight we would say that it would be worth it, regardless of what it takes. While the game was on, we all know there is no way in heck that the steps to prevent 911 would have been tolerated by the American people.

Up until 911 we could not even imagine an attack that horrible an unprovoked, much less come up with a giant national plan to thwart it. If we were to shutdown our shipping, transportation, monetary, and government every time we caught wind of a possible terrorist activity we would be a crippled country held hostage by thugs.

I plan on living my life how a usually do, and if I die in some terrorist attack I hope the country hunts the bastards down who are responsible for it and makes them pay the price. Until that day comes I will gladly take my chances with the rest of you no matter what happens. I will not cower like some little whipped puppy hoping it does not happen to me.

The people in this country and this 911 commission seem to be using hindsight to go after individuals and trying to find a scapegoat. This sort of thing is crap in the workplace, and on this grand of scale it looks even worse. How embarrassing for us as a country to appear like we're playing childish games trying to place blame on an unforeseen act of terrorism.

The commission needs to focus on things like why we were not aware of what was about to happen. Why we did not have enough agents in the FBI and CIA to see this coming? How the FBI, CIA and any other agency should work together in the future so that we may be able to prevent another 911.

The world is different for the United States. We can no longer live in the fantasy that nobody would dare attack us again after Pearl Harbor. The reality of it is that we were complacent, and ignorant to the fact that we are just as vulnerable as those countries who deal with this every day.

Our collective faces have been slapped by the gauntlet of terrorism. The time has come to answer the challenge, not to run around accusing each other of past inadequacies.