We were attack on both of those dates. September 11, 2001 was when the Twin Towers and Pentagon were attacked by Al-Qaeda. The U.S. reacted vehemently for a few months before being sidetracked with Iraq. The other was when Putin’s agents and hackers interfered with and tried to subvert our 2016 election. We have done nothing of any substance to punish Putin and ensure that it never happens again.

We went after Ben Laden and his people until the political hacks surrounding Bush II persuaded him to go into Iraq. The CIA’s agents and Afghans had Ben Laden and his small bunch of Al-Qaeda troops trapped in a complex of caves and tunnels carved into a mountainous section of eastern Afghanistan known as Tora Bora. Rumsfeld had them pull back so his rangers could be heroes. They got beat up and the bad guys escaped to spread their violence.

The other was November 8, 2016 election for President of the United States. Russian President Putin decided to support Trump — a neophyte his KGB training and intelligence said he could sway — against former Secretary of State Clinton. He knew he had no chance of rolling her. Putin had his cyber warfare people hack into her campaign and into as many voting districts as possible. We have been told they never got into any voter rolls, but I think they did.

We now have at least three on-going investigations into what, if any, collusion the Trump campaign had with Putin’s agents. We know the Russians aided the campaign and Trump himself asked for their help, but did it go farther than what we already know? Granted the campaign people were stupid and desperate but did they cross the legal line?

President’s Trump’s personality makes him incapable of admitting he would have lost without Russian help to win the electoral votes. He has repeatedly said Putin had nothing to do with any interference in the election. His own appointees say they did.

Without any substantial retribution against Putin and his ambition to destroy democracies around the world, we must wonder if we will ever have an unfettered election. Oddly enough Putin has found he can get away with murder and invasions with Republicans in charge rather than Democrats. Trump isn’t going to stop Putin and may ask for more involvement to be re-elected.