Blog of a discontent conforming noncomformist

This past week marks the seventh anniversary of the September 11 attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center. Are we any closer to winning the War on Terrorism? I really don't believe so. Let me explain.

The war in Iraq is costing us resources, in both money and manpower, that could be better used in defeating Al-Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan. That was a war that we were already winning before the beginning of the Iraq war. So far, thousands of American servicemen have died and thousands more wounded occupying a country that had nothing with the 9/11 attacks. Saddam Hussein was a United Nations problem, not a United States problem. It is not our responsibility to be the world's policeman. Al-Qaeda is only there because there are now American soldiers there for them to kill. We have lost focus.

If the Iraqi government wants us to stay there, they can use the money they are making off their oil fields to pay us back for what we have spent on securing and trying to rebuild their country. The war in Iraq is costing us the war in Afghanistan. That is where the real war on terror is.

The Iraqi war is costing us roughly 12 billion dollars a month. We are spending money we don't have to rebuild their infrastructure while our own is falling apartment. Our education system has become a joke due to lack of funds, but we seem to have the money to educate the Iraqi people. Yet, because of their oil exports, they seem to have a surplus of money. I say make them use that money on their own people. We would be able to shift our focus to the real people who attacked us. That would be Al-Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden who, after all these years is still at large.