A Dose Of Truth About The Twin Towers And The Price Of Pansyhood

• We lost. Our moral posturing about our degradation is merely embarrassing. We have been made fools of, expertly and calculatedly, in the greatest military defeat the country has suffered since we fled from Viet Nam. The Moslem world is laughing and dancing in the streets. The rest of the earth, while often sympathetic, sees us as the weak and helpless nation that we are.

The casualty figures aren't in, but 10,000 dead seems reasonable, and we wring our hands and speak of grief therapy.

• We cannot stop it from happening again. Thousands of aircraft constantly use O'Hare, a few minutes flying time from the Sears Tower.

• Our politicians and talking heads speak of "a cowardly act of terrorism." It was neither cowardly nor, I think, terrorism. Hijacking an aircraft and driving it into a building isn't cowardly. Would you do it? It requires great courage and dedication — which our enemies have, and we do not. One may mince words, but to me the attack looked like an act of war. Not having bombing craft of their own, they used ours. When we bombed Hanoi and Hamburg, was that terrorism?

• The attack was beautifully conceived and executed. These guys are good. They were clearly looking to inflict the maximum humiliation on the United States, in the most visible way possible, and they did. The sight of those two towers collapsing will leave nobody's mind. If we do nothing of importance in return, and it is my guess that we won't, the entire earth will see that we are a nation of epicenes. Silly cruise-missile attacks on Afghanistan will just heighten the indignity.

• In watching the coverage, I was struck by the tone of passive acquiescence. Not once, in hours of listening, did I hear anyone express anger. No one said, coldly but in deadly seriousness, "People are going to die for this, a whole lot of people." There was talk of tracking down bin Laden and bringing him to justice. "Terrorism experts" spoke of months of investigation to find who was responsible, which means we will do nothing. Blonde bimbos babbled of coping strategies and counseling and how our children needed support. There was no talk of retaliation.

• The Israelis, when hit, hit back. They hit back hard. But Israel is run by men. We are run by women. Perhaps two-thirds of the newscasters were blonde drones who spoke of the attack over and over as a tragedy, as though it had been an unusually bad storm — unfortunate, but inevitable, and now we must get on with our lives. The experts and politicians, nominally male, were effeminate and soft little things. When a feminized society runs up against male enemies — and bin Laden, whatever else he is, is a man — it loses. We have.

• We haven't conceded that the Moslem world is our enemy, nor that we are at war. We see each defeat and humiliation in isolation, as a unique incident unrelated to anything else. The 241 Marines killed by the truck bomb in Beirut, the extended humiliation of the hostages taken by Iran, the war with Iraq, the bombing of the Cole, the destruction of the embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, the devastation of the Starke, the Saudi barracks, the dropping of airliner after airliner — these we see as anecdotes, like pileups of cars on a snowy road. They see these things as war.

• We think we are a superpower. Actually we are not, except in the useless sense of having nuclear weapons. We could win an air war with almost anyone, yes, or a naval war in mid-Pacific. Few Americans realize how small our forces are today, how demoralized and weakened by social experimentation. If we had to fight a ground war in terrain with cover, a war in which we would take casualties, we would lose.

• I have heard some grrr-woofwoofery about how we should invade Afghanistan and teach those ragheads a lesson. Has anyone noticed where Afghanistan is? How would we get there? Across Pakistan, a Moslem country? Or through India? Do we suppose Iran would give us overflight rights to bomb another Moslem country? Or will our supply lines go across Russia through Turkmenistan? Do we imagine that we have the airlift or sealift? What effect do we think bombing might have on Afghanistan, a country that is essentially rubble to begin with?

We backed out of Somalia, a Moslem country, when a couple of GIs got killed and dragged through the streets on TV. Afghans are not pansies. They whipped the Russians. Our sensitive and socially-conscious troops would curl up in balls.

• To win against a more powerful enemy, one forces him to fight a kind of war for which he isn't prepared. Iraq lost the Gulf War because it fought exactly the kind of war in which American forces are unbeatable: Hussein played to his weaknesses and our strengths. The Vietnamese did the opposite. They defeated us by fighting a guerrilla war that didn't give us anything to hit. They understood us. We didn't understand them.

The Moslem world is doing the same thing. Because their troops, or terrorists as we call them, are not sponsored by a country, we don't know who to hit. Note that Yasser Arafat, bin Laden, and the Taliban are all denying any part in the destruction of New York. At best, we might, with our creaky intelligence apparatus, find bin Laden and kill him. It's not worth doing: Not only would he have defeated America as nobody ever has, but he would then be a martyr. Face it: The Arabs are smarter than we are.

• We are militarily weak because we have done what we usually do: If no enemy is immediately in sight, we cut our forces to the bone, stop most R&D, and focus chiefly on sensitivity training about homosexuals. When we need a military, we don't have one. Then we are unutterably surprised.

• The only way we could save any dignity and respect in the world be to hit back so hard as to make teeth rattle around the world. A good approach would be to have NSA fabricate intercepts proving that Libya was responsible, mobilize nationally, invade, and make Libya permanently a US colony. Most Arab countries are militarily helpless, and that is the only kind our forces could defeat. Doing this, doing anything other than whimpering, would require that ancient military virtue known as "balls." Does Katie Couric have them?

The bodies are still warm and this ilk begins to show up here. What a liberal apologist! The handwringers! Apparently this jerk is enamoured of the terrorists whom he holds in such high esteem. What a shame that he couldn't have been in the WTC, or on one of the airliners where he could have had a first-hand, closer view of the "beautifully" executed operation he admires so much.

Notice I didn't mention him being in the Pentagon? People of his type don't move in military circles. They hide behind their computers and trite email aliases.

In watching the coverage, I was struck by the tone of passive acquiescence. Not once, in hours of listening, did I hear anyone express anger. No one said, coldly but in deadly seriousness, "People are going to die for this, a whole lot of people." There was talk of tracking down bin Laden and bringing him to justice. "Terrorism experts" spoke of months of investigation to find who was responsible, which means we will do nothing. Blonde bimbos babbled of coping strategies and counseling and how our children needed support. There was no talk of retaliation.

The Israelis, when hit, hit back. They hit back hard. But Israel is run by men. We are run by women. Perhaps two-thirds of the newscasters were blonde drones who spoke of the attack over and over as a tragedy, as though it had been an unusually bad storm — unfortunate, but inevitable, and now we must get on with our lives.

Agreed! So True.

Our politicians and talking heads speak of "a cowardly act of terrorism." It was neither cowardly nor, I think, terrorism. Hijacking an aircraft and driving it into a building isn't cowardly. Would you do it? It requires great courage and dedication — which our enemies have, and we do not. One may mince words, but to me the attack looked like an act of war. Not having bombing craft of their own, they used ours. When we bombed Hanoi and Hamburg, was that terrorism?

Disagree. Killing unsuspecting innoncent people is cowardice in every dictionary in the world, in any language.

A good approach would be to have NSA fabricate intercepts proving that Libya was responsible, mobilize nationally, invade, and make Libya permanently a US colony.

At first I thought, "What an unbelievably stupid suggestion." Then I looked at the name. Fred Reed. Figures. Calling Fred Reed 'stupid' is redundant.

He's right about this ememy's dedication, descipline and willingness to act. All of which seems somehow unfathomable to to most Americans.

If and when we can put ourselves into the enemy's mind, and then summon up the courage - and the stomach - to do what must be done, only then will we prevail.

But we haven't done that since the American Revolution, so I'm not holding my breath.

Fred Reed is a military correspondent of many decades. He fought in Viet Nam, and has covered the military intimately ever since.

His analysis of our military is accurate, esp. regarding its feminization. So too is his analysis of the effectiveness and - yes - bravery of the hijackers and their attack.

Where I part company with Fred is with the idea that effective policing on behalf of our elitist corporate state (which is busy sucking the lifeblood out of your wallet in the 1990s Wall Street pyramid scheme, in case you hadn't noticed) would prevent the sort of results ineffective policing has delivered. Wouldn't matter - in time, the same thing would have happened. Always does to those who go poking their nose in every mess in the world, while seeking to profit from it.

These namsy pamsy liberals have no idea what we are up against. Western culture has difficulty understanding why this occurred. We need not waste time looking at ourselves and wondering what we can do to appease these terrorists so that they will stop it in the future.

This occurred because of a certain sect of religious fanatics have perverted Islam, a beautiful religion, into a death cult. These fanatics must be killed now. We know who many of them are. Israel knows who many of them are. Israel has tried to assissinate some but the world cries foul. I'm sorry to tell the world that Israel was right. These death cultist jihadists have no value on human life. They will kill themselves to advance their cause. This life means nothing to them. They live for the afterlife, and think their afterlife will be better if they kill you in the process of dying. We have no choice but to kill them before they murder us and others again.

You don't offer peace to someone who offers you Jihad, you offer them Jihad! You don't cut and run in the face of Jihad, that will only bring you more Jihad. You fight to the death (Jihad). Our western culture has trouble understanding the real meaning of Jihad. Study Jihad, read about Jihad, find out what these Jihadists want for the world (complete Islamic death cult dominion over the entire world). You will see clearly that there is NO CHOICE but to give them the Jihad right back at them.

We see each defeat and humiliation in isolation, as a unique incident unrelated to anything else.

Yep.

We face an enemy more intelligent than we are.

Nope.

If we had to fight a ground war in terrain with cover, a war in which we would take casualties, we would lose.

Nope.

To win against a more powerful enemy, one forces him to fight a kind of war for which he isn't prepared.

Okay.

We are militarily weak because we have done what we usually do: If no enemy is immediately in sight, we cut our forces to the bone, stop most R&D, and focus chiefly on sensitivity training about homosexuals.

Yep.

The only way we could save any dignity and respect in the world be to hit back so hard as to make teeth rattle around the world.

Whole-heartedly agree.

Fred Reed is a bit too in awe of Muslim terrorists for my taste, and his pessimism is extreme but within the piece there are a few good points. Our general detatchment from the mideast and terrorism abroad is obvious, and the treatment of past bombings against Americans and American property is one of horror, stern statements and nothing more than some three-year 'investigation' which no one any longer even cares about. Reed is correct in his view of how we generally have treated the mideast and especially, Muslim extremists. We have tried to ignore them. Doesn't work any more, does it?

Reed also has the female prespective that tends to dominate the netwook news about right. The unwillingness to see the problem as a whole and look at each terrorists acts as 'an incident'. Report it, grieve, clean up, move on. I don't think that will work as well, this time.

Reed made some good points about the difficulties of retalitation in the mideast, but I think he overstates the problems and actually insults the miltary in his zeal to make a point. Still, as I said, some truth here.

Barbra Striesand. B.S. The attack was NOT a military defeat. The military was not involved. To claim it was a military defeat is to miss the target.

Yes . .. it hurts our nation. Yes . . it was a defeat of our Intelligence gathering communities, stripped bare by years of treasonous actions of Clinton and various DemocRAT enablers like John Glenn, who help cover up the Chinese theft of nuclear secrets.

Our nation will need a resolve to strike back, hard, and frequently!!

Reed comes across as real sour!!! He has many good truths . . .. but it is premature to take some of the positions he takes.

I hope our nation will realize that this is a partisan issue . . .. and the Democrats have been traitors to our Constitution. What Clinton did in the White House, including getting B.J.s while planning troop deployments and using the military to blow up aspirin factories to deflect attention from the Monica testimonies, etc. . . . is as clear cut a case of misuse of power as there ever was!!! And any Democrat kool-aid defender of Clinton probably worships at the feet of Karl Marx and Joesph Stalin!

Mike

"The bodies are still warm and this ilk begins to show up here. What a liberal apologist! The handwringers! Apparently this jerk is enamoured of the terrorists whom he holds in such high esteem" You have completely MISSED the point of the article. Fred wants a devestating, repeated, non-proportional, retaliation. Not some cruise missle BS by our girly warriors that won't make the least difference. Get a clue.

Here's the link for this liberal pantywaist's bio.You ought to challenge him mano a mano.

The crazed hatred which enables a person to cross an ocean, hijack an airliner with a knife, and fly it into a building will easily overpower the cultural attitudes of the average U.S. citizen, who curls up in a fetal position at the sight of a loaded firearm. Outside this forum, I have yet to hear a single person suggest that at least one member of a flight crew should pack some heat.

We will only be able to prevail against our enemies (terrorists and tyrants) if we demonstrate the will and the ability to take personal responsibility for our own protection.

Fred is exactly right. Most people will end up regarding this horrible, murderous deed which demands merciless retaliation as some sort of arbitrary natural disaster. Tourists will continue to visit Egypt; domestic energy sources will go untouched in favor of lining the pockets of Arab despots; the foreign aid spigots will continue to flow; statist Republicans and bleeding-heart Democrats and charitable groups will urge our continued "engagement" in every Old World and Third World hellhole around; our borders will remain open to the dregs of the planet; and Americans will continue to send billions of tax dollars to the government which it will spend on protecting itself, while refusing to invest a dime of their own money on firearms and training in their use. And, God help us, I fear the ultimate result will be some ridiculous criminal proceeding with (naturally) court-appointed lawyers for the defendants for the year-long trial and subsequent decade of appeals.

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