Posted on 09/14/2001 10:17:20 PM PDT by 1Peter2:16
It's my job to have something to say.
They pay me to provide words that help make sense of that which troubles the American soul. But in this moment of airless shock when hot tears sting disbelieving eyes, the only thing I can find to say, the only words that seem to fit, must be addressed to the unknown author of this suffering.
You monster. You beast. You unspeakable bastard.
What lesson did you hope to teach us by your coward's attack on our World Trade Center, our Pentagon, us? What was it you hoped we would learn? Whatever it was, please know that you failed.
Did you want us to respect your cause? You just damned your cause.
Did you want to make us fear? You just steeled our resolve.
Did you want to tear us apart? You just brought us together.
Let me tell you about my people. We are a vast and quarrelsome family, a family rent by racial, social, political and class division, but a family nonetheless. We're frivolous, yes, capable of expending tremendous emotional energy on pop cultural minutiae -- a singer's revealing dress, a ball team's misfortune, a cartoon mouse. We're wealthy, too, spoiled by the ready availability of trinkets and material goods, and maybe because of that, we walk through life with a certain sense of blithe entitlement. We are fundamentally decent, though -- peace-loving and compassionate. We struggle to know the right thing and to do it. And we are, the overwhelming majority of us, people of faith, believers in a just and loving God.
Some people -- you, perhaps -- think that any or all of this makes us weak. You're mistaken. We are not weak. Indeed, we are strong in ways that cannot be measured by arsenals.
IN PAIN
Yes, we're in pain now. We are in mourning and we are in shock. We're still grappling with the unreality of the awful thing you did, still working to make ourselves understand that this isn't a special effect from some Hollywood blockbuster, isn't the plot development from a Tom Clancy novel. Both in terms of the awful scope of their ambition and the probable final death toll, your attacks are likely to go down as the worst acts of terrorism in the history of the United States and, probably, the history of the world. You've bloodied us as we have never been bloodied before.
But there's a gulf of difference between making us bloody and making us fall. This is the lesson Japan was taught to its bitter sorrow the last time anyone hit us this hard, the last time anyone brought us such abrupt and monumental pain. When roused, we are righteous in our outrage, terrible in our force. When provoked by this level of barbarism, we will bear any suffering, pay any cost, go to any length, in the pursuit of justice.
I tell you this without fear of contradiction. I know my people, as you, I think, do not. What I know reassures me. It also causes me to tremble with dread of the future.
In the days to come, there will be recrimination and accusation, fingers pointing to determine whose failure allowed this to happen and what can be done to prevent it from happening again. There will be heightened security, misguided talk of revoking basic freedoms. We'll go forward from this moment sobered, chastened, sad. But determined, too. Unimaginably determined.
THE STEEL IN US
You see, the steel in us is not always readily apparent. That aspect of our character is seldom understood by people who don't know us well. On this day, the family's bickering is put on hold.
As Americans we will weep, as Americans we will mourn, and as Americans, we will rise in defense of all that we cherish.
So I ask again: What was it you hoped to teach us? It occurs to me that maybe you just wanted us to know the depths of your hatred. If that's the case, consider the message received. And take this message in exchange: You don't know my people. You don't know what we're capable of. You don't know what you just started.
But you're about to learn.
That's how we are different from the Islamic people, the Arabs. They are oil rich, they can be found in Las Vegas and in the stripper bars with their gaudy jewelry. They love material goods and trinkets even more then we do but what they don't have that we do have is the decency and goodness.
I just turned off CNN, which had a (former) General Westley (sp) Clark(e) on, making statements re not offending our NATO allies and asking other countries to put political and economic pressures on the terrorists so that (all this would stop) and the terrorists would wind-up seeing the error of their thinking.
I'm just about sick to my stomach with bleeding-heart liberal thinking!
Ya' know, if you punch somebody in the nose and he beats the hell out of you, you'll either not do it again, or you'll think long and hard on it before you do!
DAMMIT, WE'RE AN ANGRY 500 POUND GORILLA!
It's time to start acting like one!
When I was young, the expression was "kick ass and take names", and by God, that's what we need to do!
Screw diplomacy and trying to fight a war by being hamstrung by the government - anytime that was ever tried we just wound-up getting our troops killed with no finality to the war...
If I could take 25 years off of my age I'd sign up to go over there and kill the *astards myself.
I've been thinking this very thing for days. People think we're soft, that we've all had an easy life, they don't understand how hard we work to have that easy life. They don't understand the bloodlines that we come from. People who left all they had behind to come to a new world that offered opportunity for anyone willing to work. While our enemies wallowed in their poverty and cast jealous eyes in our direction, our people left that place to come here and start a new life, with a belief in God and themselves, they built this country out of nothing but hard work and a love of liberty.
Yes, we take it for granted, we forget from time to time just how precious that liberty is, but we've just been reminded.
We are not dealing with rational people here. They can only see the wrongs which were done to them, never troubling to realize they themselves have created mischief far in excess of their numbers and totally disproportionate to the original dislocation of egos and nose joints.
The vast majority of the practitioners of the Muslim faith are peaceable and honorable human beings, as ethical and considerate of others as their Hindu or Judeaic or Christian brethren. But a small fringe group, who has studied the Koran like a legal document, has found meanings in the words that were never inscribed by the original authors of the text. And in their reinterpretation of the letter of Islam holy writ, has found justification for the most horrible and twisted perversion of retribution that could be imagined.
Oh, they studied their target well. A simple car bomb in the basement of the World Trade Center did cause some trepidation, but seemingly no lasting damage was left by that act in 1993. How best to cause the structures to call? A carefully placed and sufficiently large kinetic blow to the structure could cause a vast amount of damage, How to place that damaging blow? A jet airliner with nearly full fuel tanks carries enough weight to deliver just such a devastating strike, and has the added advantages of also acting as a huge flamethrower, which would weaken and collapse the internal supporting framework of the building. Best of all, these incendiary devices were available at practically every airfield in the United States, it was only a matter of taking control of one and using it as a delivery vehicle.
In an objective way, the plan was both simple and rather elegant. Steal plane, crash into tower. Tower collapses, killing thousands, while everybody's attention is focused on the unfolding drama, and it shall strike fear into the hearts of the infidel American devils.
One little flaw. While it is true that Americans looked on in shock and awe, the first collective reaction was a boiling rage. The entire population of the United States was, by the end of the day, just thoroughly p*ssed off with whoever the perpetrators of this monstrous act would be.
Within moments, thousands, then millions, came to the conclusion that there was a prime suspect, and within hours, as more and more facts were collected and analyzed, it became apparent that a very small but previously very active group bore the onus for this act. The FBI in this country undertook the job of sorting out the known and seemingly unrelated details, and collected bits and pieces from all over the world, drawing a picture of the methods and planning that went into this "surgical strike", and the mastermind behind the action was quite apparent, Osama bin Ladin, the well-known bad actor in international terrorism.
The world was not essentially changed that day, only the way we think of the world. Nobody will unbreak that egg, or put that genii back in the bottle.
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