Letter to terrorists

[seabass]

Do not know author.

An open letter to all terrorists:

You hit the World Trade Center, but you missed America. You hit the Pentagon, but you missed America. You used helpless American bodies, to take out other American bodies, but like a poor marksman, you STILL
missed America.

Why? Because of something you guys will never understand. America isn't about a building or two, not about financial centers, not about military centers, America isn't about a place, America isn't even about a bunch of bodies. America is about an IDEA. An idea, that you can go someplace
where you can earn as much as you can figure out how to, live for the most part, like you envisioned living, and pursue Happiness. (No guarantees that you'll reach it, but you can sure try!)

Go ahead and whine your terrorist whine, and chant your terrorist litany: "If you can not see my point, then feel my pain." This concept is alien to Americans. We live in a country where we don't have to see your
point. But you're free to have one. We don't have to listen to your speech. But you're free to say one. Don't know where you got the strange idea that everyone has to agree with you.

There's a spirit that tends to take over people who come to this country, looking for opportunity, looking for liberty, looking for freedom. Even if they misuse it.

You guys seem to be incapable of understanding that we don't live in America, America lives in US! American Spirit is what it's called. And killing a few thousand of us, or a few million of us, won't change it.

Most of the time, it's a pretty happy-go-lucky kind of Spirit. Until we're crossed in a cowardly manner, then it becomes an entirely different kind of Spirit.

Wait until you see what we do with that Spirit.

Sleep tight, if you can. We're coming.

[Sartell Angler]

Very well put seabass!! It's people like you that make our world a better place. We'll show these fools who's boss!

[scott-z]

WOW!!! You put into words what many people are feeling and thinking but did not know how to express. Very well said!

[Rick]

Here is a link that will give you much more information about Osama bin Laden.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/binladen/

In my opinion it is clear we need the Civilized Middle Eastern Countries support and I believe we are getting just that.

We must be very careful to not give bin Laden what he is really after here. It appears President Bush is going about this correctly.

Check the links out and let us know what your opinion is?

[Guest]

I have to be falling out of a tree and hinting my head pretty hard to think that in 72hrs someone will turn "little bennie" over, just for a questioning session; and I do feel for those that are here to get away from that world , some of us don't know about, like me; what a handful of satins evils can make us all; lets let our strong government get the right persons without dueing a mistake like we did in Pearl Harbor--put everyone in camps because of there ethic back round; there are those that need to be eliminated,but ten more are willing to take there place; its sad to look at everyone as one of them, as they blended into our country to destroy it; I strongly support our governments passion;;;get the right ones,We hang our flag proudly!!!! my own belief is-- some one that can kill 5,000 people and still walk the face of the earth as a family man should be dust,

[Guest]

I like what President Bush and his folks are doing so far. The only way to stop future attacks looks to be taking out the terrorists wherever we find them, and knocking down the institutions and governments supporting them. That means military force.
If we're waiting for help from the rest of the world, we'd be waiting a long time.

[Guest]

Uffdapete, your article was very well said, as well as a very informational point of view. I wish your home lands well. I have to believe, for my own piece of mind, that we are waiting for mass land support from our allies. If that happens, i believe we will overwhelm them with a land group so large, that justice will prevail with minimal casualties to the U.S and its suporters.
Best wishes,
Kevin D.

[uffdapete]

Below is an email I received recently and outlines some of the dilemmas President Bush faces in dealing with the attack on our country. It is lengthy, but brings out some very interesting points.

'As we reflect upon the tragic events of this week and an appropriate "response," I thought you might like to see this letter from someone who grew up in Afghanistan. I think he offers an interesting perspective on Bin Laden, the Taliban, and Afghanistan.'

"Dear Friends,
Yesterday I heard a lot of talk out "bombing Afghanistan back to the Stone Age." Ronn Owens, on KGO Talk Radio allowed that this would mean killing innocent people, people who had nothing to do with this atrocity, but "we're at war, we have to accept
collateral damage," and he asked, "What else can we do? What is your suggestion?" Minutes later I heard a TV pundit discussing
whether we "have the belly to do what must be done."

And I thought about these issues especially hard because I am from Afghanistan, and even though I've lived here for 35 years I've never lost track of what's been going on over there. So I want to share a few thoughts with anyone who will listen.

I speak as one who hates the Taliban and Osama Bin Laden. There is no doubt in my mind that these people were responsible for the atrocity in New York. I fervently wish to see those monsters punished.

But the Taliban and Ben Laden are not Afghanistan. They're not even the government of Afghanistan. The Taliban are a cult of ignorant psychotics who captured Afghanistan in 1997 and have been holding the country in bondage ever since. Bin Laden is a political criminal with a master plan. When you think Taliban, think Nazis. When you think Bin Laden, think Hitler. And when you think "the people of Afghanistan" think "the Jews in the concentration camps." It's not only that the Afghan people had nothing to do with this atrocity. They were the first victims of the perpetrators. They would love for someone to eliminate the Taliban and clear out the rats nest of international thugs holed up in their country. I guarantee it.

Some say, if that's the case, why don't the Afghans rise up and overthrow the Taliban themselves? The answer is, they're starved,
exhausted, damaged, and incapacitated. A few years ago, the United Nations estimated that there are 500,000 disabled orphans in Afghanistan--a country with no economy, no food. Millions of Afghans are widows of the approximately two million men killed during the war with the Soviets. And the Taliban has been executing these women for being women and have buried some of their opponents alive in mass graves. The soil of Afghanistan is littered with land mines and almost all the farms have been destroyed. The Afghan people have tried to overthrow the
Taliban. They haven't been able to.

We come now to the question of bombing Afghanistan back to the Stone Age. Trouble with that scheme is, it's already been done.
The Soviets took care of it . Make the Afghans suffer? They're already suffering. Level their houses? Done. Turn their schools
into piles of rubble? Done. Eradicate their hospitals? Done. Destroy their infrastructure? There is no infrastructure. Cut them off from medicine and health care? Too late. Someone already did all that.
New bombs would only land in the rubble of earlier bombs. Would they at least get the Taliban? Not likely. In today's Afghanistan, only the Taliban eat, only they have the means to move around. They'd slip away and hide. (They have already, I hear.) Maybe the bombs would get some of those disabled orphans, they don't move too fast, they don't even have wheelchairs. But flying over Kabul and dropping bombs wouldn't really be a strike against the criminals who did this horrific thing. Actually it would be making common cause with the Taliban--by raping once
again the people they've been raping all this time. So what else can be done, then?

Let me now speak with true fear and trembling. The only way to get Bin Laden is to go in there with ground troops. I think that when people speak of "having the belly to do what needs to be done" many of them are thinking in terms of having the belly to kill as many as needed. They are thinking about overcoming moral qualms about killing innocent people. But it's the belly to die not kill that's actually on the table. Americans will die in a land war to get Bin Laden. And not just because some Americans would die fighting their way through Afghanistan to Bin Laden's hideout. It's much bigger than that, folks. To get any troops to Afghanistan, we'd have to go through Pakistan. Would they let us? Not likely. The conquest of Pakistan would have to be first. Will other Muslim nations just stand by? You see where I'm going. The invasion approach is a flirtation with global war between Islam and the West.

And that is Bin Laden's program. That's exactly what he wants and why he did this thing. Read his speeches and statements. It's all right there. AT the moment, of course, "Islam" as such does not exist. There are Muslims and there are Muslim countries, but no such political entity as Islam. Bin Laden believes that if he can get a war started, he can constitute this entity and he'd be running it. He really believes Islam would beat the west. It might seem ridiculous, but he figures if he can polarize the world into Islam and the West, he's got a billion soldiers. If the West wreaks a holocaust in Muslim lands, that's a billion people with nothing left to lose, even better from Bin Laden's point of view. He's probably wrong about winning, in the end the west would probably overcome--whatever that would mean in such a war; but the war would last for years and millions would die, not just theirs but ours. Who has the belly for that? Bin Laden yes, but anyone else?

I don't have a solution. But I do believe that suffering and poverty are the soil in which terrorism grows. Bin Laden and his
cohorts want to bait us into creating more such soil, so they and their kind can flourish. We can't let him do that.

That's my humble opinion."

[Duck-o-holic]

Rick,

Thanks for posting the bin Laden link. I checked it out tonight, and was amazed at the detailed reports on his history and political beliefs. It definitely filled in a lot of the gaps and answered a lot of questions that I knew nothing about.

I agree that our government is doing a great job so far of not reacting TO SOON, and blindly retaliating. One thing I learned from the news is Colin Powells methods of attacking an enemy rely on amending the defenses (America's homefront), gathering the needed intellegence, massing the offense, and THEN attacking with superior numbers and weaponry. Obviously in such a war that we will be fighting, these tactics will need to tweaked and fine tuned, as there is not necessarily a specific country or hard targets to go after. The Russians fought a similar conflict in Afghanistan (as did we in Vietnam) where the enemy was not behind a line, but was instead among the populous-- which unfortunately, now, can even include America!

Duck-o-holic

[Guest]

It has been awhile since I posted anything here, but I have to add to the topic.
I have visited other forums recently, and understandably folks are hurt and angry. Too many people think launching a few ICBM's into Afghanistan is the answer. A guy I work with put it this way, 'I wouldn't bother him if we turned that country into a pile of glass'-desert sand+ high heat from a nuclear blast=glass.If it were as simple as that, Iraq would have been put in that condition back in the early 90's. A tactical nuclear strike against the Afghani people will kill innocent citizens,Islamic or not, and only get a serious response from Russia, and especially China, possibly, and most likely putting us into World War 3. Our President, government, and military are doing the right thing by planning this to be effective,and doing it right, even if it seems our response is slower than we all think that it should be. We have to let other countries who will be/are our allies help us in this region. Israel goes without saying, Russia probably wouldn't mind another shot at Afghanistan, and Pakistan's cooperation with us, so far, may come from the fact that India, being an enemy of Pakistan, is across their western border.The point is there are many other countries with a stake in all this. We will get the results we intend to go for, but it has to be done right,not necessarily quickly.Nice to see folks here at this forum are thinking before reacting.

[Rick]

I have included some more links with current information about Afghanistan and the Taliban.

Afghanistan-Pariah Nation
http://www.msnbc.com/news/AFGHAN_Front.asp

Afghan Intelligence
http://www.msnbc.com/modules/secretempire/afghanistan.asp

Refugee Drought Situation
http://www.msnbc.com/news/630181.asp?0cb=-31724124