It’s been five years since terrorists flew planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Do you know what country they were from?

Ed Board will give you a hint: it’s not Iraq. And according to a recent Senate Intelligence Committee report, the country had no ties whatsoever to Al-Qaida. In fact, Saddam Hussein tried to arrest Abu Musab al Zarqawi, one of Al-Qaida’s leaders.

The vast majority of the terrorists in the Sept. 11 plot were from Saudi Arabia — the same country we continue (OIL) to do business with despite its lackluster humanitarian record. (It’s not as bad as Iraq is, but it’s bad; its citizens are ruled by an independent and reckless family of princes while the people have virtually no say in their government.)

So we’ve spent the better part of the last few years fighting a war in a country that had no weapons of mass destruction and didn’t aid Al-Qaida.

Are we really safer?

Ed Board says no — but we are more aware.

For better or worse, Americans understand now that the Middle East is a force to be reckoned with and taken seriously. Despite continued stereotypes of backwater, fundamentalist Muslims, we understand that terrorists aren’t just “their” problem. They’ve become ours, too. We should be analyzing our foreign policy, questioning why people feel that committing suicide while killing thousands of other people is their only option to voice political opinions.

Ed Board is not saying that we should cater to terrorists or appease them. But maybe, just maybe, we should consider that if we’ve been so wrong about such important things — like, say, invading another country — who’s to say we aren’t taking the wrong approach to the Middle East?