Posted on 09/15/2001 7:41:06 AM PDT by rightwing2
September 11, 2001—yet another day which will live in infamy. The twin terrorist attacks which destroyed the World Trade Center and struck the Pentagon killing represent an attack against America of formerly unimaginable proportions. This was our generation's Pearl Harbor. However, this attack was even worse than Pearl Harbor because 60 years ago, the Japanese struck only military targets, whereas the Islamic terrorists struck at the Twin Towers in such a way as to cause maximum death and destruction among innocent civilians to a degree not seen since the atomic bombings of Japan in 1945. The cries of US citizens calling for vengeance and by our generals calling for massive reprisals to be conducted against the terrorists even if it means that innocents are killed have reached a crecendo. Though understandable, the calls among our fellow citiznes for the US to strike back and kill terrorists and innocents alike are misguided and would reduce to the level of the cowardly terrorists we aim to destroy. These twin attacks have served to destroy, utterly, the myth of American invulnerability to attack. In truth, America, viewed by most rightly or wrongly as the strongest world power, has more enemies among the councils of nations than friends as we have recently discovered. This attack should be a wake up call to us all that the price of freedom is eternal vigilence.
When the terrorists struck, I was attending an Army meeting at Fort Monroe, VA, which is surrounded by water on all sides and was originally established to guard against an attack on the Capitol. As the meeting began, we watched news reports of the attack on Twin Towers. The meeting then went forward as planned and when the Program Manager, Brigade Combat Team, a Colonel fresh with conferring with the commanding general, came in and informed us that the Pentagon had been struck and that one of the twin towers had collapsed. The news got progressively worse from there as additional buildings comprising the World Trade Center began to collapse as well. I told my compatriots what was by now painfully obvious--that this meant that we were now at war. I watched with both awe and anger as I viewed TV clips showing the towers, which are one of the very symbols of American global dominance, collapsing. One of the Army guys with me from TACOM-Warren called his office and found out that the Army wing of the Pentagon had been hit. We feared the worse.
When I first learned of the attack, I immediately looked at my watch to try to see if there was any significance to the day of the attack since terrorist attacks or often carried out on a highly symbolic day. Later on Thursday, I learned that Sept 11 is the anniversary of the Camp David Peace Accords between Israel and Egypt which paved the way for the Arab states to conclude peace agreements with Israel and live in peaceful coexistance with Israel. No coincidence there.
We were informed that the base was at THREATCON DELTA and that no one would be allowed to leave the base. Military police and other armed guards were seen patrolling the base. Later as the meeting ended we discovered that we could leave the base. I left messages to my wife that I would hitch a ride to the hotel and that she should wait for me there, but she didn’t get the message and was turned away by security at the gate. While we were waiting to leave, I saw two Arleigh Burke class destroyers steaming through Hampton Roads—one heading out to sea, the other heading up the Chesapeake. I grimly speculated that these Aegis warships were being sent to provide needed air defense against further kamikaze attacks by additional terrorist-highjacked passenger aircraft. Military aircraft were to be seen flying above us for the rest of the day both at Fort Monroe and at Norfolk (Langley Air Force base, home to Air Combat Command, was also located nearby). This attack was not without warning as US Army bases tightened up security on September 1st so that no one without a car registered on base could enter—an unprecedented increase in security measures.
I got back to the hotel and remained glued to the TV set for a few hours. We spoke with family members who were concerned since I work near the Pentagon and left word that we were OK. The next day, we headed down the coast where I spotted two aircraft carriers in port at Norfolk, the largest naval base in the world. I then stopped to fulfill a childhood dream of seeing the battleship Wisconsin where it is moored in Portsmouth before returning home. Unfortunately, the Navy had ordered this great historic ship, which is still on the Navy rolls and thus subject to possible reactivation, closed to visitors, but I was still able to get some great pictures.
I returned to the office Thursday fearing the worst thinking that some of our headquarters staff must have been killed or injured. I was gratified to find out that I was mistaken. However, our headquarters suites were burned to the ground following the attack and our general and Deputy Under Secretary of the Army were forced to move their offices here in Rosslyn. One more interesting tidbit... I was surprised to see my boss, John McDonald, whose office burnt to the ground, listed as "accounted for" after being reported missing and "presumed dead" on page A-11 of the September 14th edition of the Washington Times on the casualty list section. He is listed as merely a retired Colonel. In fact, he is serving as the Deputy Under Secretary of the Army. No one in my office was aware that he was ever presumed dead or even missing except very briefly immediately following the vile attack on 11 September.
I found out Thursday that the DCSPER, Lieutenant General Maude was killed and according to an insider who works for the Secretary of the Navy, the Vice Chief of Naval Operations, the second highest ranking Admiral in the US Navy remains missing and is presumed dead as of Thursday. Sadly, the Army bore the brunt of the casualties. There have been 74 total Army KIA reported out of 126 total Pentagon dead. This is an outrage! This terrorist attack succeeded beyond all expectations and the perpetrators must be laid low to pay for their insolence in killing our soldiers, our military leaders and several thousand or more innocent American civilians. We are facing not merely one terrorist group, but an entire international network of terrorists and yes, terrorist states including Iran, Taliban controlled Afghanistan, as well as extremist groups in Egypt, and Saudi Arabia, Iran-backed Hezbolla in Lebanon, and in the PLO controlled West Bank.
We should work together with the Israelis and other allies in pursuing direct action and active measures against these terrorist states and groups and together with them attack them all simultaneously in one massive attack. With the complicity of Islamic Jihad, now a member of the Yassir Arafat’s ‘unity’ government coalition of the Palestine Authority and the claimed responsibility of Palestinian Front for National Liberation for the attacks, the US should give Prime Minister Sharon the green light to strike back against the Palestinian terrorists and crush the PLO led unity coalition, which consists of Fatah, Hamas terrorists and Islamic Jihad terrorists. The West Bank and Gaza must be invaded by the Israeli Defense Force for this purpose with the full support of the United States.
Islamic Jihad declared war against the United States in 1998. Now, it is time for the US to “declare war” against terrorists. Although assasination of political leaders is now and has always been immoral, the assasination of terrorist leaders as is being done by the Israelis is not. Terrorists give no mercy and deserve no mercy because they respect no international laws or mores and declare the killing of innocents to be the primary means of acheiving their dubious objectives. However, in retaliating against terrorist groups and states we must be careful not to copy the methods and actions of the terrorists by deliberately targetting innocent civilians in Arab countries.
If Bin Laden is responsible, the US should send in troops and tanks through Pakistan and invade Afghanistan. If possible we should secure the support of President Putin of the Russian Federation in the war against the Taliban. These actions should result in the crushing of the Taliban government and enable the Northern Alliance, supported by both the US and Russia to gain the upperhand.
Ironically, we might remember that Bin Laden, like his Taliban allies are creations of a Reagan-era State Department and CIA policy which during the 1980s paradoxically supported the most anti-Western groups of mujahadeen with the most modern small arms, grenade launchers, and anti-aircraft missiles available to use against the Soviet invaders, while supplying the few viable pro-Western mujahadeen groups with decrepit 80-year old Springfield bolt action rifles. The consequence of this of course was that the most virulently anti-Western militant groups gained the upperhand against these few pro-US mujahadeen groups, which have all since been disbanded due to our lack of support and our massive funding, training, and arming of their extreme, terrorist, anti-US rivals.
I spoke at length with a fellow coworker at the Dept of the Army. She is an ethnic Afghan who moved here 16 years ago when she was 10. Her uncle was the third ranking leader of one of the few pro-Western mujahadeen groups that fought the Soviet invaders in the 1980s. Because of her appearance and her Afghan heritage she was discriminated against and singled out when driving to work late last week. This was understandable, but wrong.
The CIA trained Osama Bin Laden in explosives, bomb making and provided him with millions of dollars, thousands of AK-47 assault rifles and state-of-the-art Stinger missiles as revealed by Sen. Orrin Hatch on Wednesday. During the war against the Soviets, Bin Laden put his millions of CIA supplied US dollars and leadership training to good use and assembled a small army consisting of 18,000-20,000 radical anti-Western mujahadeen holy warriors. Today, he is highly regarded and referred to as "an Army commander" by the Taliban government of Afghanistan, which is recognized only by Pakistan and supported by Communist China with whom they, perhaps not coincidentally, signed an economic and trade agreement the same day as the terrorist attacks against the US--a payoff perhaps from our ChiCom friends for carrying out the bombings against the US?
The tragic terrorist attack against the US is part of a worldwide offensive coordinated with the more extreme Palestinian groups such as Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and one other who carried out two or more major suicide bombings against Israeli targets on "Bloody Sunday" on September 9, 2001. In addition, we learned that the Taliban assasinated the leader of the US and Russian backed opposition Northern alliance, which is fighting to overthrow it earlier this week, which explains why Kabul came under fierce rocket attack by Northern Alliance forces on Tuesday night.
Don't be fooled by the expressions of sympathy and support offered up by our enemies like Mohammar Qadaffi in Libya, Khatami in Iran, Yassir Arafat, a veteran terrorist leader himself, and President Jiang of China. These enemy leaders could not be happier for our loss and their people are celebrating and dancing in the streets at the blow, which was struck against "the Great Satan." Of all the nations of the world, only Iraq expressed support for the terrorist attack which is quite understandable since we have been in a one-sided war against Iraq for the last 10 or so years and they have been powerless to strike back or do anything about it whatsoever.
Ultimately, Bill Clinton and his foolhardy foreign policy is the most to blame for destroying our national security and causing much of the Third Word to hate and despise us, not entirely unjustifiably as imperialist aggressors. We must renounce the immoral policy of past Clinton-led aggressions against Sudan where we destroyed the largest life-saving pharmaceutical plant in North Africa, resulting in the deaths of thousands of innocent Sudanese children suffering from starvation and disease as we should renounce our endless punitive war against Iraq and our aggression against Yugoslavia—countries that never did attack us until after they were first attacked.
The US must admit that its policy of continuous aggression and weekly bombings of Iraq must come to an immediate halt since Iraq has apparently never committed a terrorist attack against the US. It is this very failed policy that has resulted in the extreme hatred against the US that culminated in this attack. This is the price of empire—an empire that the Founding Fathers would never have countenenced. We must return to our foundations as a constitutional republic if we are to avert tragedies like this in the future. We must bring our troops home from all UN "peacekeeping" missions, which serve no US interest and where they often serve as an occupying army despised by those that they occupy and are at risk of terrorist attack. We must strengthen our security and defenses against terrorist attack, which begins with securing our northern and southern borders with additional border and Army troops, measures which have been largely avoided until now. Let us stand together with our President, George W. Bush, in supporting his efforts to eliminate these terrorists from the face of the earth.
In my car, driving to work. I heard about it on a top hits station, and I assumed it was some kind of joke. Two planes in both towers, yeah right. But I have family who worked in and around the WTC so I called someone from my cell and asked them to watch the news and verify this. It was true.
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