SIGN THE NATIONAL PETITION - Urge the Congress to Declare War

was to pull the bedsheets over our collective heads

Oh, heavens no. We're Americans, and we have every right to intrude in any place of the whole world that doesn't want us there.

That's precisely what national sovereignty and "government by consent of the governed" is all about, is it not?

And by all means, we absolutely cannot, repeat cannot, let protecting our own borders and enforcing our own immigration laws interfere with chasing down will-of-the-wisp terrorist organizations in Afghanistan, and butchering thousands or even millions in the process.

Even though they used money from other countries, passports from other countries, and got right past our own border patrol even though they were on our own INS "watch list."

And the oil. That's ours for the taking too. We're Americans, and we want it, dammit!

we have every right to intrude in any place of the whole world that doesn't want us there

By God if they killed 20,000 of our citizens on our soil ... you're damn right we do!

They should have figured that out before they either hatched the plan to come over here and kill our citizens, or before they harbored those who do.

It's going to be hard, it's going to be bloody (my bet is we're not nearly done seeing that blood over here) and it's going to require a LOT of sacrifice. Liberty ALWAYS has required those things ... the installment plan just caught up with us.

Your solution to that problem is to hunker in the bunker, and say, please Mr. Man don't beat on us

Your solution is to act like a street gangster doing a drive-by in another gang's turf, spraying bullets wildly and bragging that even if you didn't hit the other gangster, at least you got some of his "homies" or his family.

You still haven't addressed my statements about the money and the passports coming from non-Afghan countries. This thing does not begin or end in Afghanistan. There are some players there, and there are some who are not there. If you can find out who is and who isn't involved, then get them by all means. But we can't, which means we could be ignoring some more imminent threats while we go on a wild goose chase in the Hindu Kush.

I've been following the scene in Afghanistan since soon after the Soviets invaded in 1979. There were many pro-Western field commanders who could have had some influence there. They were not fanatics and they have relatives living in this country.

But our CIA and State Department left matters to the Pakistani ISI, and once the Soviets were out of there, we gave ourselves a little victory party and then dropped the entire country like a hot rock. That created so much anarchy that even a movement like the Taliban was considered an improvement over the complete chaos in that country.

Now I repeat, it is unlikely that Bin Ladin directed this specific attack. He is a poster boy. Get it? A poster boy. But if we want to string people up for the mess that place is in, we can start right in Washington DC.

There are probably still some ex field commanders with some support who could run things better if they got a chance. But there's quite a lot of resentment toward the US, who used that people to get some payback for Viet Nam from the Soviets, then blew billions on Russia without giving a dime to help their former allies.

This mess didn't happen by accident. Those people were once solidly on our side, and we shitted on them. And now we're getting ready to wipe them all out as a further display of our ingratitude.

By God if they killed 20,000 of our citizens on our soil ... you're damn right we do!

"They" did not. I repeat, no one had an Afghan passport. No one got Afghan funds. The country has been locked down for a year, and under intense scrutiny even before that.

I think you need to find out who exactly "they" are before you go off half-cocked and kill everyone whose looks you don't like.

McVeigh killed 168 people. We didn't bomb his home town or kill his parents, did we. Oh, but he wasn't one of "them" so it's cool.

Well, if your analogy is correct, then, when after a criminal robs a bank, then take refuge in his friend’s house, that if the owner of the house refuses entry to the police that the police are behaving like a gang when they go in there to get the robber.

No, we did not shoot McVeigh's family or friends. We did not burn down his home town. But they cooperated with authorities. If they had not, they would have been arrested, and rightfully so. If they had resisted, they would have been killed or captured, and righfully so.

A crime was committed. An extraordinary crime requiring extraordinary response. The perpetrators are guilty. The planners are equally guilty. But so are those that hosted the perpetrators and planners if they knew that their guests were planning such an activity and especially afterwards, if they refuse to turn over the criminals. Refusing to do so makes them accessories to the crime -- accessories after the fact. In the eyes of the law, accessories are just as guilty as those who flew the planes into the buildings.

If the Taliban do the right thing, turn over bin Laden and his merry men -- there is no need to declare war on Afghanistan. If the Taliban are incapable of arresting bin Laden and his organization, then they need to get out of the way and let us do it. If they are unwilling to do that, well, then they are accessories after the fact, and my sympathies stop right there.

Yeah, innocent Afghans will suffer. But that is the choice of their government. And I have news for you -- 99 and 44/100th of the Japanese citizens in WWII had nothing to do with bombing Pearl Harbor. They were innocent citizens. But they were put in harm’s way by their government, and suffered accordingly. So, too, with the Afghans, the Pakistanis, the Iraqis -- or anyone else whose government participated in this attack, and refuses to cooperate with the United States.

But they cooperated with authorities. If they had not, they would have been arrested, and rightfully so. If they had resisted, they would have been killed or captured, and righfully so.

Except I hear no plans to introduce ground troops, and no attempts to get intelligence of where the criminals are. So if there's a town that doesn't cooperate, then it gets fried. Oh, I do see a precedent. Waco, Texas.

Yeah, innocent Afghans will suffer. But that is the choice of their government

"Government?" What government? According to the US the "government" is somewhere up north. The country was in a state of anarchy, the US did nothing to help pro-Western people set up a moderate government, even though they were yelling at us to help them. But we didn't want to upset our new friends the Russians. Now it's the Afghans' fault for not having a government.

And once again, although there is an arrest warant out for Bin Ladin, the people who had the means to do the WTC attack actually are thousands of miles away.

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