All Filipino-Americans as well as the rest of the American electorate should vote for McCain. Why?

Consider the following:

FACT:

Despite US military presence in Iraq, Al-Qaeda remains a serious threat in that country. Read "US military: No. 2 Al-Qaeda Leader in Iraq Killed" by AP reporter, Robert H. Reid.

FACT:

Sen. Obama "opposed from the start" the war in Iraq.

IMPLICATION:

Had the US Congress followed the advice of Obama, one can just imagine what sinister plot Saddam Hussein and Al-Qaeda could have hatched to bring death and destruction on the US. In all likelihood, a series of 9/11s would have taken place with horrible global consequences and Afghanistan would have been lost again a long time ago.

Of course none of these took place due to Pres. Bush's decision to go into Iraq. But this very fact gives Obama an opportunity to shout to high heavens that Pres. Bush's move was a terrible blunder. Obama has the benefit of hindsight. But to argue that the Iraq war was not necessary to contain Hussein and Al-Qaeda because no further 9/11s occurred is to draw a false conclusion. In order to be credible, Obama has to offer a semblance of proof that no further 9/11s would have been possible even if there had been no invasion of Iraq. But this proof will never present itself to Obama because of the ever-present scary activities of Al-Qaeda in Iraq. Again, read Mr. Reid's latest report.

Obama's claim that the US should have left Iraq alone and pursued Al-Qaeda with vigor in Afghanistan instead does not hold water because this organization could have easily relocated in Iraq with the help of Hussein. Proof: even without Hussein and despite the presence of US military forces in Iraq, Al-Qaeda is very much alive in that country.

This brings us to the argument of Obama that the billions of dollars pouring out of the US to support the war in Iraq could have been used to energize the US economy and that Pres. Bush's failed policies brought about the current economic crisis in the US; that McCain is a supporter of these policies and therefore he will adhere to them if he is elected President.

To an objective observer like this blogger, the American people, including Obama and McCain, should be eternally grateful to Pres. Bush for his policies that preserved America's freedom and security. When you munch a doughnut, you don't mind the hole in it because despite the hole this food is nourishing and tasty. Pres. Bush's policies can be likened to a doughnut. To be sure some of these were not as effective as the American people would want them to be; these constitute the "hole" in the doughnut. What is important is the meat of the doughnut -- the freedom and security of the American nation. This "hole" is the price the American people have to pay to retain this freedom, this security.

Pres. Bush is the Commander-in-Chief of the US Armed Forces; how to direct and win a war in which the very survival of the American nation is at stake has been his main preoccupation. If some secondary concerns ,therefore, like a failing housing market escaped his attention, he should be accorded a greater degree of tolerance for such lapses. After all they will not cause the end of the world. But 9/11s will!

Every American should take a moment to examine his conscience and ask this question: Am I being fair to Pres. Bush?

(To be continued.)