In 2004, Massachusetts Senator John Kerry, the Democratic Presidential nominee, was trashed by the Bush Administration and Vice President Dick Cheney for his assertion that defeating terrorism was based on law enforcement, rather than constant military intervention!
Kerry said intelligence gathering and law enforcement, in cooperation with other nations, was the way to fight terrorism, rather than create military clashes with other civilizations.
Kerry also said that we should look at terrorism as a nuisance, not as a constant threat to everyone on a daily basis. If we militarize the struggle against terrorism, we will be involved in endless military confrontations, he declared! Instead, we should work to improve relations with the Islamic world!
Instead, we have spent four trillion dollars and lost 49,000 men, dead and wounded combined, in fighting an endless war against terrorism, which cannot be won by military strategy alone, as shown by the failures in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The last decade did not have to be a decade of war, causing our tremendous national debt. We did not need to overreact as we did, and this will always be the condemnation that the Bush Administration deserves!
We live in a world now more unsafe than it was on September 12, 2001, and if we had had President Al Gore or President John Kerry, that would not have been the result, and we would not have to be considering destroying Medicare and Medicaid, and denying children educational needs, and damaging the environment, and the denial of civil liberties that was brought about by the Patriot Act hysteria right after September 11!
So although losing the Presidency, we owe gratitude to Senator John Kerry for his vision and wisdom, not appreciated by his countrymen in 2004!