Americans Murdered at Work

http://asia.dailynews.yahoo.com/headlines/world/afp/article.html?=asia/headlines/010912/world/afp/_Bullseye___say_Egyptians_as_they_celebrate_anti-US_attacks.html

Yes, I've seen both of the headlines above and many more. The joy of the Palestinians at our national tragedy should not drive a wrong-headed investigation and decision-making process. I've handled much e-mail from many of you today and I'm afraid that I have been of little assistance. You were all looking for something I cannot give. Some wanted reassurance, some answers about what happened, and even more wanted to know our response to these wanton acts of murder.

All of those spiritual things are best taken up with your God. The answers to the secular questions will be revealed shortly. I have been in constant contact with my God today but no divine guidance has been forthcoming. I still don't know, for certain, who was responsible for this series of horrible murders of Americans in their workplaces. I don't know where this plot was hatched or which country provided political cover to the plotters. As a military man, I can tell you that this intricate and elaborate scheme that involved hi-jacking four US airliners in a short period of time from three different airports while they had their fuel tanks filled to the maximum was not thrown together in an afternoon over Turkish coffee at Caliph's Belly Dancing Salon. This was an enormously complex operation that was planned and executed by professionals. What I still can't get a handle on is how anyone could find the people who possessed the mental capacity to plan and carry out this operation and still convince them to do something as stupid as killing themselves in the process of executing their plan. I guess the old saying about the line between madness and genius being a thin one is true after all.

I don't want to see the search for the truth in this matter derailed by an immediate leap to the assumption that Osama Bin Laden is the culprit simply because we all want him to be because of other things we BELIEVE he did - American embassies in Africa, Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia, the USS Cole et al. What if he's not responsible for these massacres, we knock him off and allow the real cowards who put this plan into motion to go free to kill again. Now, if we determine that he's the guy, I'll volunteer to be the one to put one right between his eyes and two more in the base of his skull. My God could deal with that, but let's be certain. Money will buy that certainty. We've had a $5 Million dollar bounty on him for over three years. It has produced no results. How about if we try a $20 Million dollar bounty, an immediate American citizenship for the informant and all of his/her relatives and a ranch in Montana? I believe that would cause someone to give him up. Of course, that type of reward would result in most people giving up their brothers, so we must still use caution.

Before I move on to my recommendation for an appropriate remedy for this horror, I want to make three quick points. After watching everything reported by the media today, I am struck by the ability of normal Americans to become heroes when faced with extraordinary circumstances. The extraordinary actions of New York's fire and police personnel probably saved hundreds, if not thousands, of lives at the World Trade Center at the cost of hundreds of these "first responders" lives when they were themselves caught in the collapse of the buildings. The stories told by those saved by the first emergency personnel to arrive on the scene of the tragedy speaks volumes about the heroics of the men and women who were themselves lost. As I write this, there are over 400 New York firemen and over 50 police officers still missing in the rubble of the World Trade Center. Please join me in a prayer that they will be found safe in the rubble.

At first blush, it seems that the biggest hero on this day filled with heroes was the pilot and/or passengers of the plane that nosed into the earth in Pennsylvania. We will not be able to determine exactly what happened inside of that plane's cockpit unless the black boxes are dug out of that smoldering crater in the Pennsylvania countryside, but it appears that the pilot, when faced with having his plane used as an instrument of death, nosed it over into a death spiral that took himself and his attackers out in a blaze of smoke and fury. He should not be forgotten in this story.

Last night I circulated a call for a reduction in the number of money gobblers hidden in the Pentagon. Friends who have worked in the Pentagon and have tried to get a handle on what these office "pogues" actually DO at the Pentagon report that when you enter an office inhabited by five $70,000 per year contract workers who were formerly $40,000 per year civil service employees, they report that their jobs are to audit the activities of the people in the office next door to their right. That office "to the right" is inhabited by five more $70,000 per year contract workers who were formerly $40,000 per year civil service employees and they report that their job is to audit the activities of the people in the office next door to their right. A continued search of "offices to the right" only finds more of the same. Nobody is actually DOING anything that could be considered productive.

You'll all remember the most famous of these Presidential appointees/contract workers - Linda Tripp. She was a career civil servant at the White House. Under Clinton, she got a shot at a Presidential appointment as a $70,000 per year contract worker at the Pentagon. When Gore was not elected, she had to resign along with all of the other Presidential appointees at the Pentagon and elsewhere in government. Carole and I are still getting "beg" letters from her wanting us to send her $1,000 and write President Bush to give her a job. Get real!

The money being paid to these back office money grubbers would provide a HUGE stake to be used in paying for human intelligence capabilities like the money that Senator Richard Shelby (R-AL) has been asking for over the past four years. A failure of human intelligence gathering capacity is what caused us to be blind-sided today. Senator Shelby has been right all along. His political opposites have whined about the US no longer having any enemies, the Cold War is over and we have a "peace dividend," we're not going to pay spies to work for IBM, General Electric and Chevron and other crappy excuses to save money to build an all-weather airport within a block of their homes to be used on their weekly trips to their home political districts. Which do you prefer? Each Congressman and Senator having his own airport or intelligence agents in the field to keep us from having a repeat performance of today's bloodbath?

Now, what do we do when we determine who the cowards are who murdered the most Americans on American soil since the Battle of Antietam during the Civil War? We're going to care for the wounded, bury the dead, carefully analyze the facts in order to find those responsible and the country that housed them while they cooked up their murderous scheme. Then, a nation will have to die! Not just the terrorists and the leaders of the nation, but every man, woman, child, chicken, horse and mosquito that lives there. There will simply be one empty seat at the next UN gathering. That is the only way we can dissuade other nations from ever again supporting those sworn to kill our citizens by allowing the terrorists to act with impunity from their soil. The term support must even extend to the act of tossing a few million bucks into the kitty these thugs use in their deadly dance with Democracy. If they know that they face certain and rapid extinction of their civilization, I'll venture a guess that even France would be more diligent about keeping terrorists off its soil.

Does that suggestion sound blood thirsty to you? Why don't you check with the families of the 5,000+ souls who lost their lives today at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon or on one of the hi-jacked planes. Nobody gave a tinker's damn about their feelings or their "civil rights."

____________________________________________________________________
The author is a Purple Heart veteran of an 18 month combat tour in Vietnam as a paratrooper with the 101st Airborne Division and a Green Beret with the 5th Special Forces Group. When he returned home, he entered police work and rose through the ranks from uniformed patrol officer with the City of Birmingham to finally serve as a Special Agent with the U.S. Treasury Department. He holds a BS in Accounting and Finance, an MA in Military History, and has completed his post graduate academic work toward his doctorate at the University of Alabama and The George Washington University in Washington, DC. He now resides on the Alabama Gulf Coast in Foley, AL, and can be reached at: lshoultz@gulftel.com.

The "idiot writer" is the guy who posted the piece, and who is apparently a long-time Freeper.

From the looks of his resume, I'll bet he could whop your behind and still have plenty left over for the WTC perps.

Actually the piece is quite coherent and touches on the one of the main problems: the bureaucracy and its leechlike hold on this country, though I disagree with his assessment of Linda Tripp (she was exiled to the Pentagon because of Bill's PopTart, and the author would probably be pleasantly surprised by her competence, if he ever had the occasion to work with her).

One of the big stories of this thing will be Clinton's "human rights" gutting of the CIA's intelligence sources.

And what does attacking Linda Tripp and others as "money grubbers" have to do with the mass murder in New York? So killing hundreds at the Pentagon is okay because it is just a big circle jerk eh?

Say what you want, I stick to my original assessment. I doubt many here would agree with you, long time freeper or not. I've been here awhile myself.

I will apologize for being as direct as I was... I doubt the writer is truly an idiot. I don't think this type of post is appropriate right now. The "money grubbers" did not prevent us from paying for real intelligence. There is plenty of waste in all aspects of our government. The CIA's people assets were gutted 20 years ago. This writer simply sounds like he/she has an axe to grind against people in the Pentagon.

At least one hundred of these "money gubbers" died a couple of days ago. Knocking them now is hard honorable.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.