Wasted opportunity

I have been pretty depressed all day because of the UN spectacle, but then I thought: whatever verbal abuse is directed at Bush, he deserves it, in that he really created those monsters. He wasted an incredible opportunity that was obvious to anybody with half a brain: after 9/11 he could have united the country toward the goal of energy independence. He could have easily put a 50% tax on gasoline when it was still cheap, and use the revenue to promote the development of alternative energy sources and oil exploration in the US. Instead, he allowed those that hate us and want us dead to get rich and more powerful on the windfall of high oil prices. After five years, we would have been far along the road to freeing ourselves from the deadly addiction that feeds our mortal enemies. With their economies collapsing, their people would have a better chance of achieving some degree of freedom themselves, without us wasting enormous amounts of our money and the lives of our magnificent soldiers in the hellhole of Iraq.