Posted on 09/12/2001 8:54:35 PM PDT by Bryan
Our Generation's Pearl Harbor
NASA satellite photo of the smoke plume
arisingfrom the wreckage of the World Trade Center.
From the Associated Press:
Grand total 266 dead on the aircraft.
–American Airlines Flight 11: A Boeing 767 en route from Boston to Los Angeles. The plane was carrying 81 passengers, nine flight attendants and two pilots. This plane took off from Boston at 7:59 AM and crashed into the north tower of the World Trade Center at 8:45 AM.
–United Airlines Flight 175: A Boeing 767. The flight was bound from Boston to Los Angeles. It was carrying 56 passengers, two pilots and seven flight attendants. This plane took off at 8:14 AM and crashed into the south tower of the World Trade Center at 9:03 AM.
–American Airlines Flight 77: A Boeing 757 en route from Dulles Airport near Washington to Los Angeles. The plane was carrying 58 passengers, four flight attendants and two pilots. This plane crashed into the Pentagon at 9:40 AM.
–At 9:50 AM the south tower (Two World Trade Center) collapsed.
–United Airlines Flight 93: A Boeing 757, crashed southeast of Pittsburgh while en route from Newark, N.J. to San Francisco at 10:00 AM. The plane was carrying 38 passengers, two pilots and five flight attendants.
–At 10:29 AM the north tower (One World Trade Center) collapsed.
–At 5:25 PM Seven World Trade Center collapsed.
I expect that every American airport will now look and operate like an Israeli airport. Bear in mind that about 50,000 people work in the World Trade Center and this happened in the middle of an ordinary day of business. Fortunately there was about a one-hour delay between the impacts and the collapse of the towers. A lot of the people in the towers probably got out alive.
At least 266 people died on the aircraft. A total of two United aircraft and two American Airlines aircraft have crashed, and all Freepers are encouraged to pray for the families of those killed and injured. Relief efforts, particularly donations of blood, deserve our immediate support.
It is possible that the losses at Pearl Harbor will pale in comparison to this unbelievably dastardly attack. Total killed at Pearl Harbor were about 2,200. Over ten times that many were working in the WTC at the time of the attack.
NBC's Tim Russert reported from Washington that there is "unprecedented anger" in response to this attack, but they "don't know where or how to channel it." I anticipate that we will know very soon, and that our response will be devastating.
Both of the main towers have collapsed. Building Seven (lower right-hand corner of diagram) also collapsed several hours later.
Washington Under Siege
Well, you hit the World Trade Center, but you missed America. You hit the Pentagon, but you missed America. You used helpless American bodies, to take out other American bodies, but like a poor marksman, you STILL missed America.
Why? Because of something you guys will never understand. America isn't about a building or two, not about financial centers, not about military centers, America isn't about a place, America isn't even about a bunch of bodies. America is about an IDEA. An idea, that you can go someplace where you can earn as much as you can figure out how to, live for the most part, like you envisioned living, and pursue Happiness. (No guarantees that you'll reach it, but you can sure try!)
Go ahead and whine your terrorist whine, and chant your terrorist litany: "If you can not see my point, then feel my pain." This concept is alien to Americans. We live in a country where we don't have to see your point. But you're free to have one. We don't have to listen to your speech. But you're free to say one. Don't know where you got the strange idea that everyone has to agree with you. We don't agree with each other in this country, almost as a matter of pride. We're a collection of guys that don't agree, called States. We united our individual states to protect ourselves from tyranny in the world. Another idea, we made up on the spot. You CAN make it up as you go, when it's your country.
If you're free enough.
Yeah, we're fat, sloppy, easy-going goofs most of the time. That's an unfortunate image to project to the world, but it comes of feeling free and easy about the world you live in. It's unfortunate too, because people start to forget that when you attack Americans, they tend to fight like a cornered badger. The first we knew of the War of 1812, was when England burned Washington D.C. to the ground. Didn't turn out like England thought it was going to, and it's not going to turn out like you think, either. Sorry, but you're not the first bully on our shores, just the most recent.
No Marquis of Queensbury rules for Americans, either. We were the FIRST and so far, only country in the world to use nuclear weapons in anger. Horrific idea, nowadays? News for you bucko, it was back then too, but we used it anyway. Only had two of them in the whole world and we used 'em both. Grandpa Jones worked on the Manhattan Project. Told me once, that right up until they threw the switch, the physicists were still arguing over whether the Uranium alone would fission, or whether it would start a fissioning chain reaction that would eat everything. But they threw the switch anyway, because we had a War to win. Does that tell you something about American Resolve?
So who just declared War on us? It would be nice to point to some real estate, like the good old days. Unfortunately, we're probably at war with random camps, in far-flung places. Who think they're safe. Just like the Barbary Pirates did. Better start sleeping with one eye open.
There's a spirit that tends to take over people who come to this country, looking for opportunity, looking for liberty, looking for freedom. Even if they misuse it. The Marielistas that Castro emptied out of his prisons, were overjoyed to find out how much freedom there was. First thing they did when they hit our shores, was run out and buy guns. The ones that didn't end up dead, ended up in prisons. It was a big PITA then (especially in south Florida), but you're only the newest PITA, not the first.
You guys seem to be incapable of understanding that we don't live in America, America lives in US! American Spirit is what it's called. And killing a few thousand of us, or a few million of us, won't change it. Most of the time, it's a pretty happy-go-lucky kind of Spirit. Until we're crossed in a cowardly manner, then it becomes an entirely different kind of Spirit.
Wait until you see what we do with that Spirit, this time. Sleep tight, if you can. We're coming.
Qui desiderat pacem, praeparet bellum.
This is EXACTLY what you think it is
I say we give them something to die about.
This is EXACTLY what you think it is
May that Giant rise up to crush the monsters who committed these Acts of War! Eagles Up!
These are the next ones coming after you, America. Will you let them?
...Never Again...!
I thought long and hard before I decided to include that photo. I believe that the scope of this monstrous crime needed to be illustrated on an individual level. Across the New York Metro area, the Washington Metro area and the entire nation, individual fathers and mothers lost their daughters and sons; children lost their parents; wives lost their husbands.
The only thing that made me hesitate in the end was the question of whether someone would be able to recognize the falling man as a member of their family who was lost. This photo isn't that precisely focused and the clothes are very nondescript.
But it's the way things happened
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