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#41311 09/12/01 01:54 PM
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this looks like an attack on the two great satanic evils of present-day Islam.

And the satanic evils of present-day Ralph Nader, and Noam Chomsky, and myself. It cannot be Islam itself, but a perversion of Islam, that may be to blame. Remember that the Golden Age of Spain resulted from a coopertion of Islam and Judaism. It was destroyed by a corruption of Christianity. They all spring from the same root. May they all remember that, and become brothers and sisters again.

Inselpeter, I hope that you have friends, a clergyperson, and/or a psychotherapist at hand. The terror of this is something that we on the west coast can only share vicariously, but we do share it.


#41312 09/12/01 02:30 PM
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Dear Helen, Inselpeter, and all. To see it on television was horrifyings. Then the other crashes. Horror upon horror. To have actually seen it must sear the soul.

I once read somewhere : "God preserve man from enduring all that man is capable of enduring." To that I can say only Amen.

Thank you seems so poor a response to our friends over the seas but what else can one say for all the kindness, in such circumstances. Thank you.

On TV just now it was announced that in Boston, Mass., there is a fund being set up at Citizen's Bank for donations to help the people in the disaster.
ABC News just announced that the "dead and missing" at Pentagon is now 200. Not the 800 originally estimated at first. Apparently there was an area under renovation and the aircraft appears to have struck there.
In NYC 260 firefighters and police are dead and/or missing.

I was told that even China sent condolences and support for any action US may take, saying that terrorism is "a cancer that must be cut out." Anyone else hear that?

It's one small solace (gratefully received) to read of the concern and plain decency displayed by posters on this Board over yesterday and today.

Puts all our petty differences here and among our own family, friends and acquaintances in proportion doesn't it?


#41313 09/12/01 02:33 PM
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I'm not sayin'... I'm just sayin'...

“We lost something like 245 Marines in Lebanon, there
was the Mogadishu thing, the Cole, Khobar Towers and
embassies in Africa,” said Professor William Turcotte,
chairman of the national security decision-making
department at the U.S. Naval War College in Newport,
R.I. “We haven’t had a clue as to what to do.... The
fundamental issue we have not addressed: If the harborer of
terrorists — Iran, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan — if they have
said the U.S. is ‘The Great Satan,’ and even without a
smoking gun we know they have encouraged this, do you
attack the country? So far, we have not. Will our mood
change?”


“We will make no distinction between the terrorists
who commit these acts and those who harbor them.”

-G.W. Bush

#41314 09/12/01 03:01 PM
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I do so hope that good sense and common humanity will prevail in America, once the anguish adn anger have abated a little.

An act of retaliatory vindictiveness will lose the USA the synpathy that is currently being poured out by the whole world.

That leaders of nations traditionally hostile to the USA have roundly and promptly condemmned this atrocity is witness to the wisdom of Max's remarks, above.
But it is well to take note that the pupils in my sister-in-law's TEFL class, from Palestine, Vietnam, China and Chile, whilst properly appalled at the needless bloodshed, were not very complimentary about the USA,s foreign policy as applied to their own countries.

This is a time when the hearts of all good thinking people are reaching out to the good, ordinary folk all over the USA, and in NYC especially.

Please, please do not let this beautiful fund of goodwill be sullied by a further act of violence.


#41315 09/12/01 03:08 PM
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If I may: to my knowledge, the United States is not in the habit of acting out blind revenge. The closest that I can think of was in the Persian Gulf War, and then we--mostly--tried to target only the guilty, or the threatening.

I know I'm showing my ignorance, but I am really surprised that people seem to think we're going to do the equivalent of dropping a nuclear bomb somewhere.


#41316 09/12/01 03:13 PM
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jackie, I'm not sayin'... I'm just sayin' (part deux)

THE SCALE of the attacks and the loss of life —
mostly in New York City’s World Trade Center, but also
near Pittsburgh and Washington — ensured that “no option
has been taken off the table,” senior U.S. officials said.
Asked if that included nuclear weapons, one senior official
said: “I said no option is out of the question. That’s
precisely what I mean.”

[from msnbc.com/news]


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Have started new thread for "what's next," in Info/Announce
Perhaps we could move response/remedy discussion there?

A young mother and wife - a customer at my son's business - is a flight attendant for American Airlines. She flies the Flight 11 all the time -the plane that crashed into the WTC towers -- however -- she decided to take this week off to spend some time with family as children are going back to school and since husband works locally they could spend a few days together.
She knows all the crew on the plane. She is devastated.

The co-pilot of Flight 11, Tom MacGuiness, is from Portsmouth, just up the road a few miles.
We are all in shock. People have tied purple ribbons on trees and posts as expression of shared sorrow with his family.



#41318 09/12/01 04:00 PM
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We share your sorrow and send our hearts as Inselpeter asked. Europe has declared Friday as a day of mourning with a 3 minute silence as a gesture of respect and sympathy. Only a gesture but this shows a shared emotion.
If anyone can think of anything practical that those of us further away can do please just ask. We will take a close interest in the "what next" discussions here and elsewhere, because ensuring this does not happen again anywhere is important.
My thoughts and love are for those with a close involvement in the tragedy. May they take strength from friends, colleagues, and the support of strangers.


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Rhuby:

I'm reading your post as a plea for America to turn the other cheek because retaliation would "lose the USA the synpathy (sic) that is currently being poured out by the whole world."

I must disagree. Human individuals may turn the other cheek and ignore a slight or an injury, but a government cannot do so, since it then ceases to be the protector of its citizenry. Our Constitution starts:

"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

We have made a career out of altruism. We have sent billions of dollars all over the world to feed, to clothe, to heal those less fortunate than ourselves. We have opened our arms to immigrants from literally every country in the world. We have thrice (if you include the Cold War) fought world-wide battles to establish a world atmosphere where every individual has the same rights and responsibilities as the person beside him or her. Our inventions and innovations have raised the standard of living to unparalleled heights. Our medical advances have helped raise life expectancy all around the world. We have in the main been even-handed in passing our good fortune on to others.

But we have let ourselves be pushed around once too often. Today as many as 40,000 of our citizens lie dead, incinerated and crushed by an evil hatred for our way of life (and our good fortune). If our country does not take strong, timely, and measured steps to prevent this from happening again, it will have failed to live up to at least four of the main phrases of the Preamble to our Constitution.

To paraphrase the late John Kennedy, Let the word go forth from this moment on YOU FUCK WITH US AT YOUR OWN PERIL.

Terrorism delendum est.

TEd



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To paraphrase the late John Kennedy, Let the word go forth from this moment on YOU FUCK WITH US AT YOUR OWN PERIL.

Or in the words of a Japanese Admiral following Pearl Harbor
"We have awakened a sleeping giant."



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