This is not "sending a message" this is TOTAL WAR

me

[Odyssey-x]

I keep hearing people saying that the purpose of the terrorist attacks was to send a message. They are completely befuddled that noone took responsibility. That they would go through that much preparation and investment and then not take credit.

The point is is this is not sending a message. Sending a message is crashing a plane with 200 people or sending a cruise missle to bomb an asprin factory. This is TOTAL WAR.

There are upwards of 20,000 people dead and that's not a bunch of Jerry Springer audience members, these are ceos of major corporations, highly educated people who run the financial center and operations of the united states. They don't care if nobody ever finds out who they were because there purpose was not to instill fear but to destroy the economic and military power of the United States through these massive attacks.

This is why I expect to there to be more and more of these attacks. This is not diplomacy this is not intimidation, this is destruction for the sake of our destruction.

[Clinton's a rapist]

Concur. Get a coalition going. Get them to sign off on a single, devastating wave of reprisals. Neutron bombs on Bin Laden, Taliban and Saddam's bunker, all in one night. Total annihilation.

[newwahoo]

Bump. If the message was that important why not hit the Empire State Building? Any New Yorker can tell you that it is much more of a symbol of the city and the country than the WTC was (still can't believe its gone). Why hit the WTC? Simply because a lot more people work there. It was done for the body count.

[NoControllingLegalAuthority]

This was the worst terrorism attack in history. The retaliation must be of a tenfold level beyond our loss. It should be so devastating a retaliation, perhaps nuclear, that no human would dare try anything like it again.

[vox1138]

I'm afraid you're right. There is a major sociological conflict going on, and it involves the world. This doesn't stop at the terrorists or Afghanistan. This is an old civilization fighting a new civilization that's about to undergo major upgrades. The defenders of the ancient ways are afraid that they will be so greatly surpassed in the next wave of scientific and technological change that they will be bent on taking millions of lives before they are rendered insignificant, impotent, and obselete. They are afraid of what we represent: an ongoing process of innovation and improvement that significantly advances humanity's way of life, leading the world behind it. They fear tomorrow, a strange time called the future, and that's what we represent.

[bluefish]

I too have been thinking that "Sending a Message" is an inappropriate response. The appropriate response is one that insures there are no recipients for any message left.

Hmmmm... If a message is sent to a nuclear wasteland and no terrorist is alive to hear it, does the message make a point?

[karlamayne]

Bin Laden? Sadaam? Isn't the real culprit in Australia?

[riley1992]

You are exactly right. They could have hit the Statue of Liberty or the Washington Monument if they wanted to 'send a message'. This was done for no other reason than to murder our people.