Observation of the Week

One thing I have been thinking about for some time now. It is in regards to our former President George W. Bush. He left office 14 days ago. He was reportedly the lowest rated President in terms of job performance polls ever. If you listen to the media in the last few years he was a horrible, silly, joke of a president. It got so bad that even people close to me that are staunch Republicans were cracking jokes about our sitting President.
I for one never gave up on the man and one thing that he accomplished keeps coming to my mind.
It was 2,689 days from 9.11.2001 to the day that President Bush left office, January 20th, 2009. Not once in those 2,689 days since our country was brutally attacked by terrorists was there another terrorist attack on US soil. Not even a small one. Not once. I think that is amazing. Even with increased security and diligence I believe that a determined terrorist could find a way to attack. Why didn't they?
The war in Iraq has become looked at as a huge miscalculation. A mistake. I don't see it that way at all. Even President Bush's detractors railed that Iraq became a "magnet" for Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups. Great. That kept them from coming here.
Can you imagine the uproar and the railing against President Bush if even one suicide bomber had come and detonated themselves on a busy New York City street or subway platform? It didn't happen and I think that says something about the accomplishments of our 43rd President.
Yes, mistakes were made. He was not perfect and maybe there could have been some things done differently. Today I am stating my gratitude to George W. Bush. I do not feel the fear and worry that I felt on 9.11. I feel I live in a relatively safe place. A safe country. Even among multiple other terrorist atrocities that have happened since 9.11, they have not happened here. I thank him for that.
I sincerely hope that I can have the same gratitude for our new president in four years. The day after being inaugurated, President Obama signed an order to close the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay Cuba. The place where we were holding suspected terrorists. He was asked in a recent interview if troops would be coming home by the next SuperBowl. President Obama said that he believed most of them would be home by then. So, I wonder where these released prisoners will go. To fight in the "magnet" for Al Qaeda that is Iraq? Or, will they follow our troops home?