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Was he the only middle-easterner in the class? What did the other ones do?

This kid may be somewhat correct. AMERICA THE NATION (as distinct from the poor innocent individuals who died on 911) may have deserved what it got. Perhaps the strike on the WTC was in retaliation for the slaughter of American Indians, or the firebombing of Dresden, or the vaporization of Nagasaki. I doubt it, but it's true that America and Americans have done some pretty nasty things over the last centuries. Maybe we, the survivors of 911, deserve the pain and suffering we are feeling now. This does NOT mean that the slain deserved to be killed, only that our nation has done some bad things for which we might deserve punishment. All that is irrelevant now, however. If America deserved what it got, then how much more true is it that whoever did this, and whoever made it possible, also deserves what it gets? Whatever we or our ancestors have done, whoever arranged, aided, supported, or saluted the killing of innocents in the WTC deserves death and everlasting damnation. They must die, and we must kill them. Those are two separate concepts. If they somehow manage to escape us by dying before we get to them, then our mission is incomplete. We must figure out another way to punish their memories. Perhaps we will have to kill their survivors. Maybe we should turn their lands into glass. That decision, however, can wait. The first step is (as suggested all over FR) to declare WAR. If we are to do what needs to be done, let us be clear at the outset. Let us not confuse our warriors, our civilians, the rest of the world, or our children, with the possibility of uncertainty about our enemies and aims. Fifty years from now, let no one be able to say that whatever we did was hypocritical because, like terrorists, we struck without formal warning. The actions we are about to undertake will certainly include some mistakes; let there be no question that those mistakes occurred in war, and are not part of the peacetime that came before or that is to follow. Our soldiers will commit acts for which their peacetime selves would have consigned their souls to damnation. Let us agree to absolve, in advance, those men who return from battle, of at least the unavoidable atrocities of war. They might need that absolution. Declare war, then, Congress. And may God have mercy on your souls for such a declaration. And, if I may … I also ask God to have mercy on my soul for what I have just written.

This kid may be somewhat correct. AMERICA THE NATION (as distinct from the poor innocent individuals who died on 911) may have deserved what it got. Perhaps the strike on the WTC was in retaliation for the slaughter of American Indians, or the firebombing of Dresden, or the vaporization of Nagasaki. I doubt it, but it's true that America and Americans have done some pretty nasty things over the last centuries. Maybe we, the survivors of 911, deserve the pain and suffering we are feeling now. This does NOT mean that the slain deserved to be killed, only that our nation has done some bad things for which we might deserve punishment.

All that is irrelevant now, however. If America deserved what it got, then how much more true is it that whoever did this, and whoever made it possible, also deserves what it gets? Whatever we or our ancestors have done, whoever arranged, aided, supported, or saluted the killing of innocents in the WTC deserves death and everlasting damnation. They must die, and we must kill them.

Those are two separate concepts. If they somehow manage to escape us by dying before we get to them, then our mission is incomplete. We must figure out another way to punish their memories. Perhaps we will have to kill their survivors. Maybe we should turn their lands into glass. That decision, however, can wait.

The first step is (as suggested all over FR) to declare WAR. If we are to do what needs to be done, let us be clear at the outset. Let us not confuse our warriors, our civilians, the rest of the world, or our children, with the possibility of uncertainty about our enemies and aims. Fifty years from now, let no one be able to say that whatever we did was hypocritical because, like terrorists, we struck without formal warning. The actions we are about to undertake will certainly include some mistakes; let there be no question that those mistakes occurred in war, and are not part of the peacetime that came before or that is to follow. Our soldiers will commit acts for which their peacetime selves would have consigned their souls to damnation. Let us agree to absolve, in advance, those men who return from battle, of at least the unavoidable atrocities of war. They might need that absolution.

Declare war, then, Congress. And may God have mercy on your souls for such a declaration. And, if I may … I also ask God to have mercy on my soul for what I have just written.