Posted by Perry on September 12, 2001 at 20:45:01:

In Reply to: Sad Day posted by Sandman on September 11, 2001 at 12:43:33:

How to sum up my mixed feelings.

On one hand - this was totally predictable. It was only a matter of when (there were two previous attempts at the World Trade Center - the first was broken up before the bomb was set, the second one had the bomb in the wrong place to collaps the tower).

On the other hand, that does not change the tradegy of the situation, nor the loss of loved ones, lives, and security.

In the end. I fall down to an argument that I developed many years ago, unfashionable that it has always been with many people. There are those who refuse to live by the rules of civilized society, to the point that they hazzard other people - out of choice. They should be permanantly removed from society, and for this purpose only I support the death penalty (but have argued that a really good burden of proof - of multiple crimes is usually needed to trigger the ultimate penalty. There are two many people who somehow got on death row from "one" conviction that did not have really good evidence).

In the case of terorism - the goverments that finanace it, and harbor the perpatrators are just as guilty as the terroist themselves. These are the reasons why the Marines have stories about Tripoli, and Montazuma. When nations pay the price of their actions - they typically clean up their act, and control their worst elements.

There will always be a few individual madmen about, for which little can be done except have a good defense (down to the personal level) - but this was not the act of an individual.

I do not look forward to war. War is messy, and always results in civilian and freindly casulties. However, the consequences of not having a war at times is far worse than war itself.

For the last 40 years it has been fashionable to have "undeclared" wars arround the world (the persion gulf was the rare exception). I think we should get back into the business of declaring war when appropriate (and their are many international legal benifits from doing so).

I think that once the US figures out who is behind this (and it may not be Ben Latin), and which contries finacnce and harbor the people. That the US should provide a 24 hour window for that country to make reparations, appologies, and turn the people over, or that we declare war on them.

Concerning other people of the world who have "celebrated" the attack. I find it hard to famthom how they keep claiming that they want peace (of course, dead people are at peace). Nor do I see a real great reason for the US to expend much effort helping them.

Last, I caution people not to classify entire groups or religions. Often it is the extreem elements that cause problems (and Christanity is not clean on this either). The fact is that most people are decent people.

How do we sort out the zelots is the question.

Perry

Follow Ups:

• Re: Sad Day Alamo Joe 06:37 9/13/01 (1)
  • Re: Sad Day Frank 07:55 9/13/01 (0)
• Re: Sad Day Frank 06:03 9/13/01 (4)
  • Re: Sad Day Jim in Dallas 10:57 9/13/01 (3)
    • Re: Sad Day Frank 14:57 9/13/01 (0)
    • Re: Sad Day Jim in Dallas 13:28 9/13/01 (1)
      • Re: Sad Day ChuckS 15:10 9/13/01 (0)

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