On a crisp September morning, America stood silent, watching as two iconic New York City buildings crumbled to the floor. At that moment we knew, each and every one of us, that something needed to be done.

Fast forward seven years, and we are in a whole new America. We are an America at war. We are an America in economic disaster. And we are an America enduring the most controversial Presidential Election in recent history. But more than all of that, we are an America divided.

In the days following the September 11 attacks, America stood strong together. At that time we had to act on the intelligence we had, and at that time our intelligence said that Al Qaeda was in Iraq and that Weapons of Mass Destruction were being prepped for possible use against us.

We reacted in the best way possible, and we went to war. It turned out that the intelligence indicated the WMDs may have been flawed, and speculation has commenced that Al Qaeda may have not been in Ira before we were.

But none of that matters anymore. You can say all day that we shouldn’t have gone, that Iraq was a mistake, that we shouldn’t be there. But the truth of the matter is, we are there, and we cannot act carelessly.

If we were to commence in immediate pullout we would have disaster, both here and abroad. We have gone into a country (a move I still support) and taken out its only form of leadership, a ruthless dictator who deserved to die.

We have, in the process, created chaos, as roadside explosions and religion-induced suicide bombers are as common as baseball and apple pie is here. We can’t just say “Our intelligence was flawed when we destroyed your country, but screw you guys, we’re out of here”

All that would do is leave Iraq to the terrorists, allowing them a safe place to build their regimes and conduct another 9/11 style attack on us. We cannot afford this mistake, yet that is exactly what the Democrats want to do.

The Democratic Party seems to stand for terrorism these days. This became more evident yesterday, when the FISA Bill expired. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act was created to allow the Government to listen to high risk communications which have a good chance of being terror-involved.

When it passed a while back, the Democrats cried foul. They said it was an invasion of privacy and a move to take away the rights of American Citizens. How about my right to be protected? That is more important to me than the right of not having the Government know when I am going to my Grandma’s house for a family reunion.

They are right that we have rights which we need protected, but they are lacking a sense of priority. Personally, I don’t care if George Bush listens to every phone call I make himself, if it can help prevent a terrorist attack.

These people need to be more logical. The Government is not going to listen to every conversation about a dinner date, a break up, or the local bake sale. They don’t care if you are taking little Johnny to the park for a play date, or ordering that thing you saw on TV.

They care about protecting us so we can do those things. Because if we can’t use every tool possible to prevent an attack, then Johnny won’t see his friend ever again. No one will know that you make the best cup cakes in a hundred mile radius. Because you can’t do anything if you are the victim of another attack.