Posted on 09/09/2002 11:39:13 PM PDT by Utah Girl
The immediate, general reaction as the facts of what happened on Sept. 11 became known was one of utter astonishment. Most people in the United States and more generally in the Western world find it impossible to understand the motives and purposes that drove the perpetrators of these crimes, those who sent them and those who applauded them with song and dance in the streets. We understand people who are willing to die -- even to face certain death -- for a cause in which they believe. The kamikaze pilots of Japan are an obvious example. But that was in wartime, and directed against military objectives. Many of our own people, in wartime, willingly sacrifice their lives for their country. Even in peacetime, on that same Sept. 11, firefighters and rescue teams risked, and many gave, their lives. But that was to save other people, not to kill them. That we understand. Why would anyone be willing to sacrifice his own life to accomplish the random slaughter of other people selected merely by the place where they happen to be, irrespective of age, sex, nationality and religion? An earlier example of the same indiscriminate slaughter was the attack by suicide truck-bombers on two American embassies in East Africa in August 1998, where, to make a point and to kill 12 American diplomats, the terrorists were willing to sacrifice 19 suicide "martyrs" and slaughter more than 200 Africans, many of them Muslims, who merely happened to be in the neighborhood at the wrong moment. This callous indifference to the suffering of others, even of their own people, is a common feature not of Islam as a religion but of these terrorist movements and of the regimes that use them.
The motive, clearly, is hatred, and from then until now the question is being asked, with growing urgency and bewilderment: "Why do they hate us so?" Some go further and ask the very American question: "What have we done to offend them?"
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
In a way this is true... so long as by 'broader perspective,' you mean 'mythical.'
Don't be so sure, Bernie.
If on Wednesday, another plane flew into a building, with 3 of the 4 terrorists being Saudi Arabian nationals, would we conquer and subjegate Saudi Arabia?
I would like to be a fly on the wall, at the ranch at Crawford, for Bush's chat with the princes.
My hope is that Bush is warning them: "...just one more incident, and we shall be forced to disolve Saudi Arabia, making it a permanent colony, for our national defense."
In such a case, OPEC would lose the ability to control prices, and the US would be the number one producer, followed by Russia as number two.
On the evening of 9/11/01, I came to the conclusion that for too many years, America has tried ever so hard to be liked by the world. From that moment forward, I firmly believe that I don't care if the rest of the world ever likes us again, as long as they fear us so much that they would choose to dispose of their own scum before that scum could provoke us.
The world will always hate the US. The only answer is to start acting like the hyperpower that we are and protecting our interests. If someone disagrees, nuke them out of existence. (we'd only have to do it once)
God Save America (Please)
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