Beating the Axis vs. beating the 'Axis of Evil'

Pearl Harbor was attacked on December 7, 1941, resulting in the deaths of 2,403 US military personnel and 68 civilians. The Japanese invasion force included 6 aircraft carriers, 2 battleships, 2 heavy cruisers, 6 destroyers, a number of submarines, and 441 aircraft. On that day an Democratic American president and Congress joined World War II with nine other countries in the effort to defeat the Axis powers. Victory in Europe Day was May 8, 1945.

Germany's fascist regime had conquered most of Europe and northern Africa, and threatened England and the Soviet Union. From the time we entered the war to the time we had defeated the Nazis was three and a half years. The defeat of the Japanese empire would take another three months. The United States was lauded as the liberator of the free world.

19 fundamentalist Muslims attacked the United States on September 11, 2001, in four hijacked commercial airliners and the death toll was 2,743. The Republican president and Congress authorized military action against Afghanistan on September 14, 2001, and had the support of seventy other nations. Airstrikes began on October 7, 2001. As of May 8, 2005, the leader of the terrorists remains at large, the fundamentalist regime continues to control some areas of the nation, US troops continue to die, and the American president was recently photographed holding hands with a crown prince of the home country of 15 of the 19 attacking terrorists. America's reputation among free nations is that of a dictatorial thug. No action has been taken against three of the four countries cited as members of the enemies of the United States. Britain has since disarmed one of those countries through diplomacy. The other two are now said, respectively, to possess and be actively pursuing nuclear warheads.

I won't even mention the fact that the American president defied his own military advisors and sent in too few troops to meet the danger, the fact that some $9 billion dollars have gone missing at the hands of the US government, or that American corporations have overcharged their own country by tens of millions of dollars-- and subsequently been awarded tens of millions of dollars in 'bonuses' by the government. I won't mention that during World War II, the Democratic president and Congress called for an investigation into war profiteering on the part of American corporations. I won't mention the fact that the current American president is the descendant of an American who contributed money to the very regime we were fighting against in Europe.

I will mention that the United States spent $341 billion during the entirety of WWII. The 'War on Terror' has cost the US more than $300 billion to date. The 2004 national deficit, as expressed in 1996 dollars, is identical to that of 1945.

I can provide citations for all statistics appearing in this post. And they aren't from leftist sources.