Tuesday, September 11...

...and I remember the way it was six years ago.

Too many people choose not to remember. Of course many of the images we watched on live television that day have been edited, suppressed as "too graphic," "disturbing" or "inflammatory." What we are left with, at least officially, are scenes of collapsing buildings. The humans lost, too tiny to see in the most-replayed videos, don't matter much today to those in power and those who wish to forget and appease.

In the early days after the attacks, I felt pride as well as horror. It seemed our nation would unite, and would retaliate against an act of war. That act of war was supported by some nations we officially consider "friends."

They will never be punished for their roles. Even those organizations and individuals directly responsible are, by and large, not suffering.

Instead, we have a failed president who appears to have no clear idea of what he is doing, and a Congress full of political-hack lunatics more interested in amassing power and and preening in front of cameras.

The dishonor roll has grown considerably in six years. Where once it held the names of Bin Laden, al Qaeda and some in Saudi Arabia, Iran and Afghanistan, it now includes George Bush, John Kerry, Barbara Boxer, Joe Biden, Bill and Hillary Clinton and a host of despicable Americans who have, frankly, screwed the pooch in a self-serving rush to look important.

Our president and elected officials fill me with disgust.

We bend over backward to assure Muslims we are not mad at any of them when the carnage of 9/11/01 was done in the name of Islam and too many of the "good" Muslims complicity endorse the evil acts of that day and beyond with their silence.

We waste our soldiers and our money to Iraq in a war that is both pointless and endless. Saddam Hussein was indeed evil incarnate, but neither the time nor the motives were right to deal with him.

We have a president who is a fool, and a majority of senators and representatives who do not have the best interests and safety of their own people at heart. They are, in fact, a greater danger to this nation than terrorists beyond our borders.

When the next 9/11-style attacks come -- and they will -- we have established a response: rush to place blame on the nearest "demon," posture for television, try to "negotiate," apologize because it's our fault we were attacked, use polling results to determine what to do, and forget that there is an enemy out there who must be met on his terms, and must be defeated.

It is not some fanatic in a cave we must fear. Rather, it is our inability to defend ourselves in a sensible way.

So far as I can see, as long as the current crop of American "leaders" are in power, it will always be so.

And that is a pathetic memorial to 2974 people whose lives were snuffed out by inhuman savages on Tuesday, September 11, 2001.