I lost an uncle in NY on September 11th. I firmly believe that the ambivilance and indecisiveness of previous adminstrations emboldened the likes of Bin Laden and others. What I find frightening is the theme running through this forum that we have been cursed by the results of our last election. Whatever you may think about Mr Bush, I shudder to think what our response to 9/11 would have been with the alternative. I was so afraid on 9/11 that our response was going to be as tepid and pathetic as was our response to terrorism under Clinton, lob a couple cruise missles and wait for the results of the next poll, yeh that's leadership all right. We needed to send a frightening message that would last and I think we did. And I for one am not ashamed of it. In November when there was the whining about how we should lay-off during Ramadan I was sooo relieved we didn't get sucked into that nonsense. Here we are taking shots about the "mistreatment" of detainees in Cuba, page after page. Yet one of our soldiers is knocked out of a helicopter in Afghanistan, falls to the ground living, is captured by the Taliban fighters and shot on site. Where is the outcry for him? Was he not a prisoner?

I have a lot of feeling about being an American. I can assure you that "ashamed" is not one of them

B