Posted on 09/12/2001 9:40:35 AM PDT by PatrioticAmerican
Yesterday's attack is by far not over, the attacks will continue; maybe not today, but tomorrow or next year. The personal losses, alone, have been staggering. The financial losses, the stalling of certain markets, the destruction of dozens of companies, and the killing of thousands of professionals, will have an extreme impact on this nation.
Many people, including myself, lost someone or something in the attacks. But the losses won't stop there. The impact to our country has yet to really be felt. The shock has yet to set in.
We must immediately provide disincentive to these attacks such that no one, no fanatic, will ever dare try again. We were mercilessly attacked once, but Japan is now a friendly nation. We did it once; we can do it again, and we must, for our sake and our country's sake.
We have to stop snuggling with these terrorist nations that sell us their oil, and, instead, produce our own sources of oil. We have the oil; we have simply let the eco-terrorists stop us from drilling for it.
We have become a nation of sissies. We bow to every foreign and domestic terrorist. It is high time we stop being lazy and afraid, and stop leading our lives through fear and ignorance, and, instead, fight back. Our cowardice is killing us, literally.
For those that say we should negotiate, or condemn and hold court, please, by all means, go to these terrorist nations and do so. Well start digging your graves. Negotiations by a number of skilled and determined peacemakers have failed for over thirty years. These outlaw nations do not respect us, or fear us, and only wish and do us harm. The time for negotiations is over.
We cannot tolerate, any further, these attacks simply because we cannot hold a single country or persons responsible. Instead, we should hold all countries that contributed to these attacks responsible and wage war against them. They must be forced to surrender, unconditionally, and without mercy. We have the capability to bring these outlaw nations to their knees, and we must.
It is time to end the terror and fight back. It is time we stand our ground and stand up for America! It is time for something we have resisted to do in the name of peace, a peace we do not enjoy. It is time for war!
Its probably time to train and ARM the cockpit crews of US carriers who agree to the program. Pilots and FOs who do not want the responsibility can be exempted. It was, after all, the folks controlling the aircraft who were the targets on Terrible Tuesday.
During the rash of hijackings of a few decades ago, the feds put armed AIR MARSHALS on many flights. While some correctly argued that a fuselage punctured by a bullet at 35,000 feet MIGHT repeat MIGHT bring the plane down hijackings fell off.
One thing we know for sure about the four craft hijacked on 9/11: They ALL CAME DOWN and THEY ALL DIED!!
And to those who will inevitably and stupidly argue that pilots and FOs just cannot be trusted with the decision about when its time to pull a trigger, better tell the up to 400 folks sitting in the back that the guys up front are judgment-impaired!
Personally, Id prefer to take my chances with a rapid decompression than watch some madman take MY flight into a building or the ground at 500 mph. That was the final experience of 266 fellow humans on 9/11. I KNOW I like they wont survive that!
Its again the old, old story: There arent TOO many weapons out there. Its that the touchy-feely, warm-fuzzy PC crowd now sees to it that ONLY THE WRONG PEOPLE HAVE THEM!
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Its almost a certainty that our reprisal for Terrible Tuesday will be to return portions of the middle east to sand dunes. While Im not saying that such action is NOT fully justified, wed better be prepared for the list of Those Who Hate America to lengthen. For every madman we take out, there will be a dozen in line behind him ready to take his place. That means there will certainly be MORE such attacks HERE!
Which brings me to say that if the NJ/NY Ports Authority rebuilds the WTC on the same scale as the one now spread over much of Manhattan, the new design should incorporate large BULLSEYES on the sides.
Ive spent my career designing steel structures and told my son before the SECOND plane hit the second tower that the FIRST building was toast. There was NO WAY those heat weakened columns would hold. And when the second plane hit the second tower, taking out the columns on one side, I knew IT was history. I cried as the second tower struck crumpled in the direction of the sliced columns and, shortly after, the upper 20 floors of the first tower pan-caked into the lower 90 after THOSE columns buckled.
Im not some anti-techno Luddite: Even BEFORE the events of 9/11, I was growing weary of watching bodies fall from burning high-rise buildings as rescue workers stood helplessly in the street below, poised to clean up the carnage. I wonder how many high-rise dwellers are today looking for farms in Kansas?
The evidence is growing that we need to seriously rethink our compulsion to concentrate populations in taller and taller, easy-to-hit targets which are also built to be efficient chimneys.
The loss of life in the WTC will be staggering. Compare that number to the final body count at the Pentagon. Then think about the differences in those two buildings.
I rest my case!
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