For those who simply want to blindly carpetbomb Afghanistan with nukes, I quote Frank Herbert:

"Atrocity is recognized as such by victim and perpetrator alike, by all who learn about it at whatever remove. Atrocity has no excuses, no mitigating argument. Atrocity never balances or rectifies the past. Atrocity merely arms the future for more atrocity. It is self-perpetuating upon itself--a barbarous form of incest. Whoever commits atrocity also commits those future atrocities thus bred."

I know all of you are very angry and I would be too if this had happened in my country to my people. I do not think there is anything I can say that will make things any better or make the pain any less.

But I do know something about death. We have a lot of it here at home. So I ask you Americans, please remember: not all Arabs are terrorists, not all Palistinians are happy this horrible thing has happened.

This is not the holy war of Allah, this is a terrible and cowardly thing. We were not taught to do this, any Muslim who says this is good or correct does not understand the teachings of Islam.

Some of us pray, even to Allah, whom most Americans do not know by that name, that those who have done this horrible thing will be brought to Justice. In the days that come, please try to remember this.

I can't believe this horrible horrible thing has happend I cry everytime I start to think about it
Why did they do this to our country why did they kill all those innocent people just for the satisfaction of getting the United States I pray for the families of the victims I also pray this to be over soon!

This was posted by Ezathule Woodsinger of Arias'Tama. I thought it would be good to see here.


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TRIBUTE TO THE UNITED STATES
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without implying anything of race/creed/color or religion, I put this out there for any who think the USA got what it deserved. Have a nice day, I know it made mine better :)

This, from a Canadian newspaper, is worth sharing. “America: The Good Neighbor.” Widespread but only partial news coverage was given recently to a remarkable editorial broadcast from Toronto by Gordon Sinclair, a Canadian television commentator. What follows is the full text of His trenchant remarks as printed in the Congressional Record:

"This Canadian thinks it is time to speak up for the Americans as the most generous and possibly the least appreciated people on all the Earth.

Germany, Japan and, to a lesser extent, Britain and Italy were lifted out of the debris of war by the Americans who poured in billions of dollars and forgave other billions in debts. None of these countries today are paying even the interest on its remaining debts to the United States.

When France was in danger of collapsing in 1956, it was the Americans who propped it up, and their reward was to be insulted and swindled on the streets of Paris. I was there. I saw it.

When earthquakes hit distant cities, it is the United States that hurries in to help.

This spring, 59 American communities were flattened by tornadoes. Nobody helped.

The Marshall Plan and the Truman Policy pumped billions of dollars into discouraged countries. Now newspapers in those countries are writing about the decadent, warmongering Americans.

I'd like to see just one of those countries that is gloating over the erosion of the United States dollar build its own airplane. Does any other country in the world have a plane to equal the Boeing Jumbo Jet, the Lockheed Tri-Star, or the Douglas DC10? If so, why don't they fly them? Why do all the International lines except Russia fly American Planes?

Why does no other land on earth even consider putting a man or woman on the moon? You talk about Japanese technocracy, and you get radios. You talk about German technocracy, and you get automobiles. You talk about American technocracy, and you find men on the moon not once, but several times - and safely home again.

You talk about scandals, and the Americans put theirs right In the store window for everybody to look at. Even their draft-dodgers are not pursued and hounded. They are here on our streets, and most of them, unless they are breaking Canadian laws, are getting American dollars from ma and pa at home to spend here.

When the railways of France, Germany and India were breaking down through age, it was the Americans who rebuilt them. When the Pennsylvania Railroad and the New York Central went broke, nobody loaned them an old caboose. Both are still broke.

I can name you 5000 times when the Americans raced to the help of other people in trouble. Can you name me even one time when someone else raced to the Americans in trouble? I don't think there was outside help even during the San Francisco earthquake.

Our neighbors have faced it alone, and I'm one Canadian who is damned tired of hearing them get kicked around. They will come out of this thing with their flag high. And when they do, they are entitled to thumb their nose at the lands that are gloating over their present troubles. I hope Canada is not one of those."

I have watched this event unfold on TV for 2 days now. and one of the sayings that popped into my head was from Babylon 5. As Sheridan is about to declare the independence of the station from Earth, he calls his Father to say it may be a while before they can talk again, Then his Father asks him What was one of the first lessons I taught you son, To which Sheridan replies "Never start a fight, but be damn sure you finish it."
I don't think the people who did this realise what they have awoken. The reference from WW2 is I think more than appropriate, The sleeping Giant. One of the strengths of the US and one of it's weaknesses, is that it is a land of many peoples. A melting pot of immigrants from all over the world, each with thier own ideas and opinions. This mixture when melted together forms the iron of the US strength, This incident has forced this iron back into the forge, Just as Pearl Harbour did almost 60 years ago, and the result is the STEEL of the American resolve. Where 3 days ago the people of the US might not have agreeed which direction was left today they are Quite sure which way is RIGHT.
And The United States does not stand alone in this time of need. Many, Many countries have publically stated that they will unconditionally support any actions taken by the US in response to this act of war. Even more, many of these countries have pledge Military support to these efforts.
The difficulty is that there is no identifiable target, In WW2 there was Japan, in the Gulf there was Iraq, how do you target an organization that looks like your neighbours. And even if they do manage to get the organization responsible others will pop up and us them as martyr's for the cause. I'm not saying don't go get them, I fully support wasting the mother ******** But realistically this will not be a one air raid solution. This will take the united effort over a long period of time of every country in the world that does not want to live with this blanket of fear over thier heads.

To those that lost family or friends in this tragedy my sympathies go to you. Like everyone I pray that they find a huge pocket in the rubble where everyone who was still in the building waits to be rescued. To those who are resposible for this, The U.S. didn't pick this fight, but you can be damn sure they will be finishing it.

Lleyf Stormwolffe
Shaman of 54 seasons

heh. i flew over to pennsylvania with my wife (we had just gotten married and we came over here to spend some time with her family) about a week and a half ago. we were supposed to fly back to my home state of Washington on sunday the 16th. needless to say, plans have changed. my family back home is worried that i will not be able to get home. i'm worried that some of the friends of my wife's family are no longer alive. all i want is for things to be set right. if it takes a war, so be it. however, if it is going to be war, we better be damn sure what we are doing before any shots get fired. in any case, action needs to be taken.

there is no one word to describe this situation. all i can say is that i send my sympathy to all thoes effected by this. I know that it will effect everyone in the world in one way or another... Hopefully this will not be an apocalyptic era. This is not just effecting the United States. This will effect the entire world. I can not describe the feelings I have right now. I'm somewhere inbetween utter shock, anger, and sadness. I would assume many people feel the way I do. I feel that this is only the begining of something that will completely alter history for all times. God bless you all.

I mourn all who died because of the plane crashes but, I am extreamly pissed off at ANY ONE who says anything bad about the Islamic religion. First of all I have heard so people bad mouthing them and this just makes me extreamly pissed off! It is a religion and their are several teriorists from the middle east that are Islamic but this does not say ANYTHING about the Islamic religion. Think about it people, a bunch of serial killers are christian, do we claim that all chalolics are serial killers? there is NO way to make a group of a couple terorists, of a certain religion, related to that religion.

For the last almost 36 hours now, I, like so many others, have gone through disbelief, shock, sadness, anger, confusion and fear. I've been trying to sort out my thoughts for this time. When I first saw it when my mother woke me up yesterday morning to show it to me, I questioned whether I was actually awake for a split-second. For a while I was totally shocked and didn't know what to think for a while. Then when the streets of Palestine was shown with the celebrating, I was sickened, and enraged. To think someone could be happy about something like this.

Later was confused, when I saw that there were actually people in the world, even on this very message board, that were saying "Well, what do you expect? America does this and that. They deserve it." Confused and again enraged, it made me ponder my country's way of doing things, "why are there so many that think we purposefully kill innocent people." Also, I felt fear. What if this turned into World War III? What if the unlikely but still slightly possible draft came again? What if I and many other men my age were sent over there to fight the battles? What if my friends already serving in the Army and National Guard are mobilized and sent there to fight?

Then upon talking to my parents and friends about it, and doing some reading on the internet and in newspapers, I've realized that I never should have doubted my country.

People say we bomb innocent countries for no reason whatsoever; we would never ever bomb a country that didn't deserve it. People say we kill innocent people to try and prove a point; in countries where the people are so barbaric as to fight in urban areas near civilians, and actually keep women and children near thinking we won't fire back at them, you can expect collateral damage. This is not a country putting the World Trade Center in front of a military base hoping they won't attack us because the WTC was in the way, this is pure murder. Someone said we bombed Yugoslavia for no reason; they were killing their own people. There are such great evils and attacks on the freedom of others in these countries, the US is not going to sit back and let them fight it out.

Countries have national disasters like floods, earthquakes, hurricanes, who is first on their doorstep to help out? The United States. When the US has a disaster like the that, who comes to help us? We are always left to fix our own problems. After WWII, France had been devastated by the battles fought there, only a tyrannous country would leave it battle-scarred and poor. America rebuilt the countries, loaning out millions upon billions of dollars.

The US has become the guardian of the world, simply because we're the only country capable of having that role. Any country, any person, that thinks that this is something we brought on ourselves, is just as evil and ungrateful as those that are responsible. If you think that America should just change theirs policies, and chalk this one up as a loss and move on, take a minute to think about what you're saying.

A small hypothetical: France wouldn't let us fly through their airspace during the Persian Gulf situation. Let's say for instance that this attack actually crippled America, and we couldn't defend ourselves, and we were invaded and overtaken by this terrorist force. Let's say they decided to invade France next. What are they going to do without America to defend them? Are you going to talk down a militant extremist force that won't sleep until your citizens are dead and your country belongs to them? You're not, it isn't possible to do. These aren't people to negotiate with. (note: France is just an example here, almost any other country could fit in this hypothetical, I'm not lashing out at France or any French person)

Some think we brought it on ourselves; the only thing we've been doing in these countries is thwarting evil plans to commit genocide, invade countries, violate freedoms. We don't bomb World Trade Centers. We don't kill innocent people that aren't put there as a human shield by the cowardly forces of that portion of the world. I do not apologize for anything the US has done, and I hope no one in this country does. This isn't simply an 'egotistic Westerner' talking, this is a citizen of a country that's been stabbed in the back by a truly "faceless coward" and will not watch as others say we deserved it.

Stop choosing to see one side of the events, and stop thinking that we commit acts of terrorism rather than fight for freedom. I'm not saying that the people that are innocent that die in battles in those countries shouldn't be mourned, they're innocent people, but when cowardly terrorist groups choose to hide behind them and get angry when the people die, we are no longer the ones responsible for their deaths.

This attack wasn't aimed at a military target, as Pearl Harbor was and as our attacks on those third world countries was. This was not a military target in which we threw civilians in the way to protect our government figures. It was pure and simple, cold-blooded murder, and an attack on everything that was good and just in this planet. Not just America, but the whole free world. And whoever is responsible, deserves to feel the wrath of this country and others.

They have called down the thunder, and now they will reap the whirlwind. But first, people are dying and mourning this unimaginable loss. Stop pouring salt in the wound by claiming we brought such an evil attack on ourselves, and if you don't have any kind words for these people in the darkest days of their lives, please keep your mouths shut.

To The Citizens Of The United States Of America,
My fellow Americans, I am writing to you to help comfort those in their time of need. I was shocked yet terrified as the events in New York City and Washington DC as they unfolded before my eyes on the radio then on television. I am a computer technician made teacher in a charter school in San Antonio Tx and decided to show this to my students as it unfolded. My heart and my sorrow extends to all that lost loved ones in the attack against this land of ours. I personally have lost at least 12 close friends and others are still missing or in an unknown status. I am grief stricken along with many others in America and my only consolation will be that my Government, the United States Government is intact and is seeking out those involved.
As stated on December 8,1941, by President Roosevelt ,"Yesterday, Dec. 7, 1941 - a date which will live in infamy - the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan". My Fellow Americans I now say this Today September 11, 2001 is a day that will also live on in infamy for today this great land was violated by those we should fear most. We were violated by the terristic actions led by a coward that hides behind the death of thousands. My American brothers and sisters I ask that you stand behind me and support our government and help in any means possible to help the country bury it's dead, to rebuild our country's pride, and to bring to justice the individuals involved in this horrific act. I for one, am ready if we are to head to war, and ready to defend our freedom at the highest of cost. I want the American People to band together and turn this action into the wake up call we needed that we are not safe from terrorism in our home land. I want the American People to stand united and support this great government of ours.
To the people who lost family and friends I extend my heart and words as encouragement. Do not let the loved ones die in vain, do not forget the memories of these people, and live your lives in their honor. I wish that you can trust in your faith whether it be a philosophical faith or religious faith that we will have peace and that Peace will Prevail.

Christopher J. Easley
Network admin/ Math Teacher for the School of excellence in Education , San Antonio,Tx
chris_easley@hotmail.com <mailto:chris_easley@hotmail.com>
My heart goes out ot all

Chris Easley aka silentcerri of ayonae ro...GNome POWER

At a fundamental level, I do not believe there is any reason to take a life.

However, as a rational person, I know my beliefs are not shared by everyone. And, there comes a time when you must choose to take a life to save more lives. The time has come.

Those who planned, supported and aided the attack on my country should, and I believe will, feel the entire might of the most powerful nation on earth. You are luckier than most of your victims you will have time and knowledge of who to fear and to make peace with your God and your loved ones. But your taking of life will end.

I will not preach, though I would like to. So many have died, and so many more shall. Religion is not to blame, countries are not to blame, governments are not to blame, different peoples and races are not to blame. What should be blamed is the narrow mindedness of all peoples. And so, that is what should be fixed. No one knows who is the perpetrator of the atrocity in New York. Yet fingers have been pointed. Calls for blood have been shouted across the nation. And I ask, "Will it bring them back?" We, the recently attacked and shaken say, destroy the Afghans, the Arabs, the Muslims, and why? It is the same as saying, "Let's go kill some people for our cause!", yet that is exactly what has happened. Do not preach about God smiting the wicked, for then you become one of them. Though it is soul renching, praise *God* for sparing those who were spared, and ask for the forgivness of the guilty. And, jump on the United States to obliterate a nation, instead, ask them to use that force to force all other nations to gather in the name of peace, so that all may be united against those who would try to tear it asunder. I just visited a school today and heard the most horrific things from the children there: "They shouldn't be giving us textbooks, they should be giving us
f!@#$%^ guns. I say we just nuke the h@#$ out of the middle east. We should blow those d@#$ f!@#$%^
arabs of the face of the planet." I was horrified to hear this. I worry about the safety of the world as I'm sure many do. Yes, I weep for America, I love this land, I was born here and it is all I've ever known, but I will not condone the destruction of another people. The only valid reason they can come up with to do such a thing is that they are trying to send a message. Well, send that message through a heavy peace treaty, and then worry about those who break it. But, before you take sides and yell and rant, PLEASE, think, think about everything, think long and hard, and just keep thinking, and see what you come up with.

I wish to point out that again, I am not trying to preach, I am an American citizen born and raised, and I am only trying to get people to think about everything that has happened from every possible angle.

I pray for the souls of all those lost in Tuesday's events, including those Everquestarians lost; I know everyone will be sorely missed.

Remember, look from every angle, ask, listen, explore, love, cry, forgive, yell, calm, speak, smile, frown, feel, and think. Please, never attack.

Thank you.

My older brother is working on his Phd. in Chemistry at CUNY. He wasn't likely to be in the downtown area, so I just hoped he hadn't been dumb enough to go rubberneck and waited for him to get hold of us. I got an email from him and he talked to my mom later that day. Aside from having to walk from midtown all the way to his apartment in the Bronx, he was OK.

I am in Oregon and watched everything happen before I went to work Tuesday.

I don't think anyone had any idea that the buildings would collapse. I know how big, no, how frigging huge those things are and knowing how little damage the truck-bomb did I figured that at most the insurance companies would decide to shorten the towers, months later, after everything settled down. My roommate was watching the news and saw the first one go down. I went into his room and as the camera pulled back, I could see a whole floor on Tower 2 go slowly black. Then another, and another. Then it started shedding material for no apparent reason. I don't know if it was people or steel or what, and then it too settled.

My roommate Mike and I are both technically oriented people, our families have done construction, architecture, fabrication, farming, etc. I build race car roll cages and have a day job in a semiconductor fab. He runs an auto repair shop. We had just assumed that the exoskeleton would have had no problem staying up. It was the 15 tons of jet fuel, I guess.

We had no idea they'd go down. We just sat there glued to the tube with deer-in-the-headlights looks going "ooh... they fell down..."

As technogeeks, my friends and I critique movie special effects, make jokes about nuking Iraq and Serbia, and speculate academically about every catastrophe that comes along.

Terrorism, like every other kind of warfare, has technical advances. This event is a leap, an innovation, and my purely creative side was like "wow, impressive. Tom Clancy should be proud."

I kept getting flashes, though, as my humanity came through.

I know nothing about New York and I asked Mike, "Mike, where on the island is CUNY?" Where's my brother John? God, I hope he's not stupid enough to go rubberneck. Tuesday morning, he's got to be at the school, midtown, far enough away. Oh God, there's got to be 10k got squashed. Those bastards, those cocksucking fundementalists. (...)

Over and over, back and forth, Peter Jennings and my rage.

My cleanroom job is a weekend shift and I do my roll-cage building during the week at Mike's auto shop but I couldn't do anything. I just drove around, listened to the news, went home.

I logged on and sent my brother email. I figured he'd email out when he could, or call my mom in Ohio. I watched the news.

I've been afraid of something bad happening ever since Sharon went and started this current Intifada with his little rah-rah rally at the Wall. I realize that this is not going to be a popular view, but I feel that the entity that has had the greatest ability to solve the Middle-East difficulties is Israel. Instead of using that power, they have a bunch of racist, theocratic idiots that won't let go and allow their country to do the right thing.

I was so angry when Rabin was killed. It isn't fair. Psychopaths get what they want by killing innocent people. Their groupies in the larger society get to puff their chest and take over. When Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. were killed, it left our progressive movements twisting in the wind and getting lost in lame politiking for 25 years. What would have happened if someone managed to get Jesse Helms, Newt Gingrich, etc.? Hmmm. Well, maybe we don't need assassinations to make the Republicans act like a bunch of disorganized losers.

My point is that Israel needs to be part of the solution and start doing more of the right things -- some right things being: don't push the Palestinians out. Encourage civilization in the Palestinian community. Don't kill people when it isn't necessary.

The fundementalist mullahs/rabbis that want all Israelis/Palestinians to die do not speak for Civilization. They do not speak for the secular Jews that envisioned an Israeli homeland. They do not speak for the Muslim women who have become educated against the odds. They do not speak for the victims of Auschweitz or the Afgans who have died resisting the Taliban, fighting for their right to have a civilization instead of a glorified Berber encampment. They do not speak for the Iranian majority that thinks of themselves as Persians, a people with a rich history as a tolerant CIVILIZATION, who are tired of the theocrats and the poverty and who keep voting, overwhelmingly, over and over, for a SECULAR prime minister. They do not speak for the Palestinians that work for a living, that have sent their children to joint schooling with Israeli children. They sure as hell don't speak for me and if I am ever have the happy experience of getting harangued by a Christian theocrat, I will take pleasure in kicking his ***.

The religious fundementalists in the Middle East speak only for defective brain chemistry. Whether or not bin Laden did this or not, the video I've seen of him makes it clear to me that this is a spoiled rich brat who happens to be a psychopath and has used his dwindling inheritence to indulge his desire to kill people. He is no different than the Israeli troops that aim their rubber bullets at teenagers heads just because they can.. It's just a matter of a difference of resources.

This crap has gone one for too many years. I support an all out war on terrorists and their training camps. I think we should give the Taliban an opportunity to cooperate fully, but if they resist, we should eliminate them. I think we should hit the camps in Sudan and Algeria. If the government of Sudan doesn't cooperate, we should eliminate them.

I think we need to tie up our loose end in Iraq.

If we end up dealing with very hardened targets, underground targets, we have a couple of options. Destroy the surface, land, and secure the area. Listen for movement and digging. Use penetrator bombs. Listen for movement and digging. Use penetrator bombs. Repeat until no movement or digging is detected.

Where possible, we should think hard about using nukes, just to make a point. I do not advocate hitting populated areas, but if there is a camp out in the middle of nowhere, we could take the opportunity to do a nice, clean airburst.

If we don't feel like digging out bin Laden's Afgan installation, we could use nuclear excavation. The research and science has already been done. I'm sure there're some old farts at Livermore that have all the necessary documentation in a filing cabinet somewhere.

I think it might be appropriate to use exactly four warheads.

As far as Israel goes... If I was in charge, which I'm not, and I figure I'm in the minority opinion on this, but iffen it was me, I would make it clear to the right-wing cocksuckers in Israel that this is NOT an occasion for them to jump up and dance around with the idea that we are going to let them go in and cleanse the occupied lands. My eyes clench shut with pain every time I hear a psychopathic ******* that happens to be Jewish talk about how all Palestinians are terrorists, blah blah blah. I know a Palestinian rather well. He and his family are hard working good people that just want to be able to work, own houses, have cars, etc. -- to live in a civilization, in other words.

I have the same reaction to the Protestants in Northern Ireland. I am sickened by the idea that the Orange Order has a tradition of marching through Catholic areas celebrating the centuries old defeat of Catholics. It reminds me of the ******* KKK. I think that like Israel, the Queen, the supposed head of the Anglican religion, has an obligation to do something to get her faction to behave. The fact that she doesn't pisses me off. I don't know why the British tolerate the existence of a monarchy that accepts the benefits of royalty without making herself friggin' USEFUL.

Speaking of worthless racist organizations like the Orange Order and the KKK, has anyone noticed that the KKK and their ilk have been shoved aside by civilization in this country? These things CAN be made better. The Civil Rights Movement is something about this country that makes me proud. Was anyone else pleasantly amazed that South Africa lost Apartheid without everyone getting killed? Good things can happen. It takes humane action by the people with the power to make things right. White America gave up Jim Crow, slowly. The South African Apartheid government willingly gave up power. After taking control, Mandela didn't use black rage and numbers to wipe out the whites.

The Japanese, after their unconditional surrender, after being firebombed and nuked, expected the Americans to come in, take over, and kill everyone. This fact has been forgotten, but a common theme to comments by Japaneses that lived through the occupation was that they were surprised when MacArthur (sp?) turned out to be a pretty magnanimous, decent ruler. Remember the Marshall Plan? This is a good thing that happened. We restrained ourselves and didn't continue into victorious genocide. That was a critical advance in civilization, I think.

This advance needs to happen in Israel.

So... war it is, but we are not the idiots currently in charge in Israel, Jews that advocate genocide. We are too big a nation to indulge in that specific a hypocrisy. Smack the terrorists. Help the territories. Stop playing kissy-face with the Israeli right-wing. Do the right thing.

Give blood. Be safe.

An' smash dem froggies!

Skyblat
Troll of the 15th Spirit
Bristlebane