For some Freepers, perhaps it's all just an affront to America's national dignity and a jumping-off point for a lecture in geopolitics. I lost friends and very nearly lost family. It's more personal for me.
So when Reed flippantly refers to the victims of the atrocity, I have to call attention to the fact that he's a gutless a__hole.
Here are the three facts that Reed has gotten horribly wrong:
(1) The victims of September 11 were not all slobs who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Hundreds of the dead DELIBERATELY placed themselves in harm's way to rescue others - they were some of the bravest and most honorable Americans who have ever lived. Reed can't comprehend this, because he's the kind of guy who'd put on a dress to be in the first lifeboat.
(2) Our assault on al-Qaeda in Afghanistan was not fruitless - I'd like to see a pansy like Reed explain his warped read to the family of Mike Spann. Naysayers like Reed were the first to claim that we'd be fighting the Taliban government for years before giving up - we defeated them in a matter of months from half a world away.
(3) Expressing our sorrow for our dead and mourning their loss is thoroughly human and thoroughly civilized. It's what separates us from the Muslim animals we're fighting. If Muslims want to interpret that as a sign of weakness, I don't much care - I'll let Reed try to impress his hero Bin Laden with his boorish callousness.
Yes, our borders are still Swiss cheese, our new regulations are stupid and fail to address the real problem, our educational infrastructure is still in the hands of psychobabbling Communists and we should be prosecuting the war more ruthlessly. Many commentators have expatiated on these glaring problems far more eloquently than Reed has. And they didn't need to insult the memory of the dead or the prowess of our fighting men to do it.