BACK * MAIN INDEX * YOUR 9-11 COMMENTS * Visitor Index

(Pg 2 of 2)

Not all Heroes are people - This was sent via my dog group. Yes a couple of furkids own me and to
all those dog lovers and those who aren't, as the title says: Not all Heroes are people.
Enjoy and God Bless
Arlene
--------- Forwarded message ----------
From: "Tim & Kim Dube" - Makes us so grateful for our furry friends - who so often save our hearts> > > as well as our lives.

ALL HEROES ARE NOT PEOPLE - NEW YORK TIMES 9-19-01

James Crane worked on the 101st floor of Tower 1 of the World Trade Center. He is blind, so he has a golden retriever named Daisy. After the plane hit 20 stories below, James knew that he was doomed, so he let Daisy go, out of an act of love.

With tears in her eyes, she darted away into the darkened hallway. Choking on the fumes of the jet fuel and the smoke, James was just waiting to die. About 30 minutes later, Daisy comes back - along with James' boss, who Daisy just happened to pick up on floor 112. On her first run of the building, Daisy leads James, James' boss, and about 300 more people out of the doomed building.

But she wasn't through yet. She knew there were others who were trapped. So, highly against James' wishes, she ran back in the building. On her second run, she saved 392 lives. Again she went back in. During this run, the building collapses. James hears about this and falls on his knees into tears. Against all known odds, Daisy makes it out alive, but this time she is carried by a firefighter. "She led us right to the people before she got injured." the fireman explained. Her final run saved another 273 lives.

She suffered acute smoke inhalation, severe burns on all four paws, and a broken leg, but she saved 967 lives. Next week, Mayor Guilaini rewards Daisy with the Canine Medal of Honorof New York. Daisy is the first civilian Canine to win such an honor.

* * *

The goals of the terrorist acts we have experienced this week are:-to create fear and demoralize the people of our nation.
1) To destroy our stock market. 2). To make us cower inside our own borders. 3) To get us to stop thwarting their ambitions in other parts of the world.

WE AS AMERICANS MUST NOT GIVE THESE TERRORISTS WHAT THEY WANT.
We must instead: 1) Depend on God to give us strength wisdom and insight. 2). Wisely handle our shares of stock rather than panic-sell them. 3). Plan on giving up NONE of our personal liberties to travel and enjoy life in America. 4). Pray for our government.

The best tribute we can pay those whose lives were snuffed out is to stand strong so DON'T GIVE THEM WHAT THEY WANT - AND ONE AT A TIME- BY THE MILLIONS WE WILL DEFEAT THEM.

Thanks
John in Missouri

* * *

PEGGY NOONAN

Welcome Back, Duke ( http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/pnoonan/?id=95001309)
From the ashes of Sept. 11 arise the manly virtues.

A few weeks ago I wrote a column called "God Is Back," ( http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/pnoonan/?id=95001236) about how, within a day of the events of Sept. 11, my city was awash in religious imagery--prayer cards, statues of saints. It all culminated, in a way, in the discovery of the steel-girder cross that emerged last week from the wreckage--unbent, unbroken, unmelted, perfectly proportioned and duly blessed by a Catholic friar on the request of the rescue workers, who seemed to see meaning in the cross's existence. So do I.

My son, a teenager, finds this hilarious, as does one of my best friends. They have teased me, to my delight, but I have told them, "Boys, this whole story is about good and evil, about the clash of good and evil." If you are of a certain cast of mind, it is of course meaningful that the face of the Evil One seemed to emerge with a roar from the furnace that was Tower One. You have seen the Associated Press photo, and the photos that followed: the evil face roared out of the building with an ugly howl--and then in a snap of the fingers it lost form and force and disappeared. If you are of a certain cast of mind it is of course meaningful that the cross, which to those of its faith is imperishable, did not disappear. It was not crushed by the millions of tons of concrete that crashed down upon it, did not melt in the furnace. It rose from the rubble, still there, intact.

For the ignorant, the superstitious and me (and maybe you), the face of the Evil One was revealed, and died; for the ignorant, the superstitious and me (and maybe you), the cross survived. This is how God speaks to us. He is saying, "I am." He is saying, "I am here." He is saying, "And the force of all the evil of all the world will not bury me."

I believe this quite literally. But then I am experiencing Sept. 11 not as a political event but as a spiritual event.

And, of course, a cultural one, which gets me to my topic.

It is not only that God is back, but that men are back. A certain style of manliness is once again being honored and celebrated in our country since Sept. 11. You might say it suddenly emerged from the rubble of the past quarter century, and emerged when a certain kind of man came forth to get our great country out of the fix it was in.

I am speaking of masculine men, men who push things and pull things and haul things and build things, men who charge up the stairs in a hundred pounds of gear and tell everyone else where to go to be safe. Men who are welders, who do construction, men who are cops and firemen. They are all of them, one way or another, the men who put the fire out, the men who are digging the rubble out, and the men who will build whatever takes its place.

And their style is back in style. We are experiencing a new respect for their old-fashioned masculinity, a new respect for physical courage, for strength and for the willingness to use both for the good of others.

You didn't have to be a fireman to be one of the manly men of Sept. 11. Those businessmen on flight 93, which was supposed to hit Washington, the businessmen who didn't live by their hands or their backs but who found out what was happening to their country, said goodbye to the people they loved, snapped the cell phone shut and said, "Let's roll." Those were tough men, the ones who forced that plane down in Pennsylvania. They were tough, brave guys.

Let me tell you when I first realized what I'm saying. On Friday, Sept. 14, I went with friends down to the staging area on the West Side Highway where all the trucks filled with guys coming off a 12-hour shift at ground zero would pass by. They were tough, rough men, the grunts of the city--construction workers and electrical workers and cops and emergency medical worker and firemen.

I joined a group that was just standing there as the truck convoys went by. And all we did was cheer. We all wanted to do some kind of volunteer work but there was nothing left to do, so we stood and cheered those who were doing. The trucks would go by and we'd cheer and wave and shout "God bless you!" and "We love you!" We waved flags and signs, clapped and threw kisses, and we meant it: We loved these men. And as the workers would go by--they would wave to us from their trucks and buses, and smile and nod--I realized that a lot of them were men who hadn't been applauded since the day they danced to their song with their bride at the wedding.

And suddenly I looked around me at all of us who were cheering. And saw who we were. Investment bankers! Orthodontists! Magazine editors! In my group, a lawyer, a columnist and a writer. We had been the kings and queens of the city, respected professional in a city that respects its professional class. And this night we were nobody. We were so useless, all we could do was applaud the somebodies, the workers who, unlike us, had not been applauded much in their lives.

And now they were saving our city.

I turned to my friend and said, "I have seen the grunts of New York become kings and queens of the City." I was so moved and, oddly I guess, grateful. Because they'd always been the people who ran the place, who kept it going, they'd just never been given their due. But now--"And the last shall be first"--we were making up for it.

It may seem that I am really talking about class--the professional classes have a new appreciation for the working class men of Lodi, N.J., or Astoria, Queens. But what I'm attempting to talk about is actual manliness, which often seems tied up with class issues, as they say, but isn't always by any means the same thing.

Here's what I'm trying to say: Once about 10 years ago there was a story--you might have read it in your local tabloid, or a supermarket tabloid like the National Enquirer--about an American man and woman who were on their honeymoon in Australia or New Zealand. They were swimming in the ocean, the water chest-high. From nowhere came a shark. The shark went straight for the woman, opened its jaws. Do you know what the man did? He punched the shark in the head. He punched it and punched it again. He did not do brilliant commentary on the shark, he did not share his sensitive feelings about the shark, he did not make wry observations about the shark, he punched the shark in the head. So the shark let go of his wife and went straight for him. And it killed him. The wife survived to tell the story of what her husband had done. He had tried to deck the shark. I told my friends: That's what a wonderful man is, a man who will try to deck the shark.

I don't know what the guy did for a living, but he had a very old-fashioned sense of what it is to be a man, and I think that sense is coming back into style because of who saved us on Sept. 11, and that is very good for our country.

Why? Well, manliness wins wars. Strength and guts plus brains and spirit wins wars. But also, you know what follows manliness? The gentleman. The return of manliness will bring a return of gentlemanliness, for a simple reason: masculine men are almost by definition gentlemen. Example: If you're a woman and you go to a faculty meeting at an Ivy League University you'll have to fight with a male intellectual for a chair, but I assure you that if you go to a Knights of Columbus Hall, the men inside (cops, firemen, insurance agents) will rise to offer you a seat. Because they are manly men, and gentlemen.

It is hard to be a man. I am certain of it; to be a man in this world is not easy. I know you are thinking, But it's not easy to be a woman, and you are so right. But women get to complain and make others feel bad about their plight. Men have to suck it up. Good men suck it up and remain good-natured, constructive and helpful; less-good men become the kind of men who are spoofed on "The Man Show"--babe-watching, dope-smoking nihilists. (Nihilism is not manly, it is the last refuge of sissies.)

I should discuss how manliness and its brother, gentlemanliness, went out of style. I know, because I was there. In fact, I may have done it. I remember exactly when: It was in the mid-'70s, and I was in my mid-20s, and a big, nice, middle-aged man got up from his seat to help me haul a big piece of luggage into the overhead luggage space on a plane. I was a feminist, and knew our rules and rants. "I can do it myself," I snapped.

It was important that he know women are strong. It was even more important, it turns out, that I know I was a jackass, but I didn't. I embarrassed a nice man who was attempting to help a lady. I wasn't lady enough to let him. I bet he never offered to help a lady again. I bet he became an intellectual, or a writer, and not a good man like a fireman or a businessman who says, "Let's roll."

But perhaps it wasn't just me. I was there in America, as a child, when John Wayne was a hero, and a symbol of American manliness. He was strong, and silent. And I was there in America when they killed John Wayne by a thousand cuts. A lot of people killed him--not only feminists but peaceniks, leftists, intellectuals, others. You could even say it was Woody Allen who did it, through laughter and an endearing admission of his own nervousness and fear. He made nervousness and fearfulness the admired style. He made not being able to deck the shark, but doing the funniest commentary on not decking the shark, seem . . . cool.

But when we killed John Wayne, you know who we were left with. We were left with John Wayne's friendly-antagonist sidekick in the old John Ford movies, Barry Fitzgerald. The small, nervous, gossiping neighborhood commentator Barry Fitzgerald, who wanted to talk about everything and do nothing.

This was not progress. It was not improvement.

I missed John Wayne.

But now I think . . . he's back. I think he returned on Sept. 11. I think he ran up the stairs, threw the kid over his back like a sack of potatoes, came back down and shoveled rubble. I think he's in Afghanistan now, saying, with his slow swagger and simmering silence, "Yer in a whole lotta trouble now, Osama-boy."

I think he's back in style. And none too soon.

Welcome back, Duke.

And once again: Thank you, men of Sept. 11.

Ms. Noonan is a contributing editor of The Wall Street Journal. Her new book, "When Character Was King: A Story of Ronald Reagan," will be published by Viking Penguin this fall. Her column appears Fridays.

* * *

Marines raise Trade Center memorial flag over Kandahar airport

Associated Press / Dec. 18, 2001 14:15:00

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - A giant U.S. flag that flew over New York's ground zero and was scrawled with the names of victims of the Sept. 11 terror attacks was raised Tuesday by Marines at their base at Kandahar airport. The flag was given to the Marines by the New York Police Department in the hopes that it would be flown over Afghanistan, said Col. Andrew W. Frick of Task Force 58.

After a single blast on a police whistle, a four-man color guard raised the flag on a makeshift pole in the glass-scattered courtyard of the main terminal building at the airport outside the southern city of Kandahar. About 30 Marines and sailors, along representatives of coalition forces, stood at attention.

"They took 23 great cops. Pay back time," read one unsigned note among the numerous messages written in the red and white stripes of the flag by relatives of victims, fellow policemen and others. In the white stars of the flag's blue field were written the names of the police officers who died in the World Trade Center attack, as well as those of 17 sailors killed in an October 2000 suicide bombing against the Navy ship USS Cole in Yemen.

Both attacks have been blamed on Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaida terror network, the main targets in the U.S. campaign in Afghanistan. "God bless the NYPD, FDNY, US armed forces. Good luck and make us proud," said one message scrawled by P.O. Morietti, of the New York's 43rd police precinct, in the flag's stripes.

"In memory of James Rickes, NYPD + NYFD. Never punked out," said another message. Another, signed by Mark Poster, said "God bless and protect you while you avenge our fallenbrothers. We didn't ask for this fight, but we will finish it now."

Two weeks after the terror attacks, the flag was draped across a building near the World Trade Center. Later, it was taken to an emergency services office in Manhattan, where it became a memorial cloth. There, a parent wrote, "I will always miss my son Rodney."

Last month, a Marine spokesman in New York said the flag was being sent to Afghanistan "to bring a little piece of lower Manhattan, of Ground Zero, to Marines who have never been here."

It was flown to the USS Bataan, a Navy warship in the northern Arabian Sea, and then went with the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit from Camp Lejeune, N.C., which seized this
abandoned international airport Friday. "For our purposes, it is symbolic," said Frick about the flag-raising. He said the flag will later be returned to the New York City police.

On Monday, in Afghanistan's capital, Kabul, U.S. troops raised the same flag that was lowered at the U.S. Embassy almost 13 years ago, as a U.S. envoy pledged American involvement in Afghanistan's struggle to rebuild.

Frick said the Marines were close, but not quite finished, with the job Americans wanted them to do in Afghanistan in the war against terrorism. "Our job is not done until we track down the leadership" of the Taliban and al-Qaida organizations, he said

(Sent in by Peter Tramm)

* * *

Those Who Seized the Moment

After listening, once again, to your sound bite today (Thanksgiving Day) of Phil Donahue (sp? like who cares?) I then turned to the LA Times to see photo's of Mark "Never back down" Bingham, Tod "Let's roll" Beamer, Cee Cee Lyles, flight attendant "a former cop" and Sandra Bradshaw, who boiled water to throw as a weapon; so alive and fresh in their pictures.

I couldn't help but picture "Hand Ring'n Phil" crouching down behind a seat pleading to these heroes to " Simmer down and just try and understand these folks, they're only poor downtrodden repressed waifs. Let's have a nice long talk" - after all it's all our fault anyway".

Sweet old Phil isn't exactly the kind of guy(?) I'd want in my living room, much less next to me in a foxhole anywhere.So on this holiday I give Thanks that he's not in charge of anything.

Robert

* * *

The Real Story of Flight 93 **
The terrorists had years to plan their hijacking. The passengers had just minutes to respond. But a band of patriots came together to defy death and save a symbol of freedom. What happened on that flight--and inside the cockpit

http://www.msnbc.com/modules/exports/ct_email.asp?/news/662607.asp

* * *

Invade the oil fields of Iraq and pump the oil and sell it to the oil companies in this country, use the proceeds to reimburse all parties concerned in the WTC disaster, stay there until all damages are reimbursed, set up a 100 mile perimeter around the fields and create a no fly zone over it. This is oil money, it is used to sponsor these bast---s anyway, take it, with no remorse. Also make a crater out of any nation that sponsors or harbors terrorists.


Tom

* * *

Hello fellow Americans,

As sadness pulls at my heart and anger boils through my veins, the only thing I would like to say is that I believe that Senator John McCain said it best..."May God have mercy...because We won't!"

As a blessed citizen having grown up during peace time, the rage that burns over my is impossible to describe. As I look at my one year old son I must say that this horrible attack should be seen as nothing more than horrible and the only actions that we the people can do is to suck it up, stand tall and search our souls for that peace of our grandfathers that made this country great and bring it back to the surface.

Just like our ancestors, what makes an American an American will shine through these early days of war. May we all put away our trite differences and hyphens and unite against this great threat.
God Bless You and all of America,

James from Harrison, Arkansas

* * *

Terror vs. Freedom

On September 11, 2001 freedom was attacked by terror and the United States must respond with a swift and awful resolve. War in any case is a crime, but it is a necessary response. The resolve of the Palestinians is that of giving up their own lives to destroy with the greatest happiness hundreds of American lives. We represent a threat to their God, their Country and their Heroes. We block them from achieving their holy land. We protect our economic interests at any cost. Yet, we are the United States of America and we shall not be rocked by planes tunneling through the bodies of our people, we shall not be discouraged from order and reason, replacing it with confusion and horror as the Palestinians have done in their own countries. We must put aside our hatred of war and our desire of peace in order to achieve the necessary premises for each, freedom and order.

The enemy is terror. It comes at children without regard, at woman and men as equals. It cares not for its own life for it knows its life to be inconsequential compared to its movement. For the first time America faces a movement instead of a country, but we must crush the armies and governments of the countries that harbor this movement, to squeeze out the movement from within our borders and show the world that the United States of America is truly the warrior of independence, the leader of liberty and the citizen of self-rule.

The people of this country must demand our government to act and act swiftly. We must demand that the governments, cultures and armies that harbor this movement of terror be destroyed from the inside out. We must take control of a world that has gone into chaos because they lack our order, they lack our freedom and they lack our democracy. In order to have peace we must rid ourselves of chaos, we must rid ourselves of terror and unfortunately, we must rid ourselves of the Palestinian State (Government, Army and Culture).

The United States of America has united as one country again, and now, we must unite the world. Let us stand up as a planet against chaos, a planet against disorder and a planet against terror. Destroy Palestinian State. Do it now.

Steven T - On strike against self-immolation.

* * *

OUR HERITAGE as AMERICANS: Responsibility for our own Defense

Hopefully, through this World-Trade Center and Pentagon tragedy, American Citizens again see the real-world importance of their individual responsibility to arm and protect themselves. Even though we have the worlds best armed forces to protect us from outside invaders and a civil justice system with a police force to protect us from robbers of our goods and lives on the inside, it's unrealistic and irresponsible to rely on them for one's entire defense. Ultimately, each person must shoulder responsibility for their own welfare.

Thank God our country is free enough that even one's avowed enemies, intent on annihilating one's existence, can freely walk the streets here and complain; however, when they cross freedoms lawful line and forcefully point their weapons in your face, will you fair better at reasoning with them than the passengers of any of the 4 hi-jacked planes?

Guns and other freedom-protecting devices must be readily available to decent citizens, because decent citizens choose reason and freedom and evil citizens choose force and slavery. Reason tells us that when people disavow free-choice (i.e. choosing to initiate force against you as a tyrant, instead of reasoning in hope of persuading you as a respected free citizen), then the only way for the good to survive is to meet the force of evil with overwhelming forces of good. A strong defense corporally and individually is required to remain free.

Like an optimist on a blind date, gun control advocates too often assume for you that everyone you meet will be benevolent. Our Founding Fathers knew better and created the First and Second Amendments. They uniquely stood tall for the world's smallest minority group - THE INDIVIDUAL! What a heritage - American!

Everett

Nokesville, Virginia

* * *

Air Safety

I would like to see you put the Aircraft designers on the spot and ask them why we can not get High-Jack Proof Airplanes. In light of the 09/11/01 Hijacking spree, isn't about time we design these aircraft to be Hijack Proof? Why is there a door from the cockpit to the passenger cabin? Could we make an exterior entrance to the Cockpit, so Hijackers can not reach the cockpit at all? So the pilots can not open the door under threats against the crew. Then Bullet Proof the Wall between the cabin and the cockpit, so the pilot can not be shot through the bulkheads.

This way, taking the passenger cabin will result in an emergency landing and a SWAT team being called. Not the control of a flying bomb being turned over to determined nuts. Why can't they set a computer program on the aircraft to engage the Autopilot with a very sophisticated ground command? During a Hijacking, the computer will send the plane to a preset (unpopulated) coordinate to circle. That way no one on the plane can change the settings. Only a special release code sent from the ground can return control of the plane. This will prevent pilots from Hijacking their own planes.

Isn't it about time we remove all carry on luggage bins and design Bomb Proofed Luggage Holds under the passenger cabins, that can be emptied / dropped in flight. So when the terrorist claims to have a bomb, the pilot can dump the risk in some deserted lake or field.

Why don't they get creative? Damn it! 10's of thousands are now dead. Lets say never again. It's time for the aviation engineers to shine. Design the Hijack Proof plane. Be American Engineers. Be American Heroes!

Steve from Phoenix, AZ.

* * *

 

Released: September 12, 2001

Fifty Years of Appeasement Led to Black Tuesday
By Leonard Peikoff

Fifty years of increasing American appeasement in the Mideast have led to fifty years of increasing contempt in the Muslim world for the U.S. The inevitable climax was the tens of thousands of deaths on September 11, 2001-the blackest day in our history, so far. The Palestinians, among others, responded by dancing in the streets and handing out candy.

Fifty years ago, Truman and Eisenhower ceded to the Arabs the West's property rights in oil-although that oil properly belonged to those in the West whose science and technology made its discovery and use possible.

This capitulation was not practical, but philosophical. The Arab dictators were denouncing the wealthy egoistic West. They were crying that the masses of their poor needed our sacrifice; that oil, like all property, is owned collectively, by virtue of birth; and that they knew all this by means of ineffable or otherworldly emotion. Our Presidents had no answer. Implicitly, they were ashamed of the Declaration of Independence. They did not dare to answer aloud that Americans, rightfully, were motivated by the selfish desire to pursue personal happiness in a rich, secular, individualist society.

The Arabs embodied in extreme form every idea-selfless duty, anti-materialism, faith or feeling above science, the supremacy of the group-which our universities and churches, and our own political Establishment, had long been preaching as the essence of virtue. When two groups, our leadership and theirs, accept the same basic ideas, the most consistent wins.

After property came liberty. The Iranian dictator Khomeini threatened with death a British author-and with destruction his American publisher-if they exercised their right to free speech. He explained that the book in question offended the religion of his people. The Bush Administration looked the other way.

After liberty came American life itself-as in Iran's support of the massacre of our soldiers in Saudi Arabia, and the Afghanistan-based assault on our embassies in East Africa. Again, the American response was unbridled appeasement: a Realpolitikisch desire not to "jeopardize relations" with the aggressor country, covered up by a purely rhetorical vow to punish the guilty, along with an occasional pretend bombing. By now, the world knows that we are indeed a paper tiger.

We have not only appeased terrorists, we have actively created them. The Reagan Administration-holding that Islamic fundamentalists were our ideological allies in the fight against the atheistic Soviets-poured money and expertise into Afghanistan to create an ever-growing band of terrorists recruited from all over the Mideast. Most of these terrorists knew what to do with their American training; their goal was not to save Afghanistan.

The final guarantee of American impotence is the bipartisan proclamation that a terrorist is an individual alone responsible for his actions, and that "we must try each before a court of law." This is tantamount, while under a Nazi aerial bombardment, to seeking out and trying the pilots involved while ignoring Hitler and Germany.

Terrorists exist only through the sanction and support of the governments behind them. Their lethal behavior is that of the regimes that make them possible. Their killings are not crimes, but acts of war. The only proper response to such acts is war in self-defense.

We do not need more evidence to "pinpoint" the perpetrators of any one of these atrocities, including the latest and most egregious-we already have total certainty with regard to the governments primarily responsible for the repeated slaughter of Americans in recent years. We must now use our unsurpassed military to destroy all branches of the Iranian and Afghani governments, regardless of the suffering and death this will bring to the many innocents caught in the line of fire. We must wipe out the terrorist training camps or sanctuaries, and eliminate any retaliatory military capability-and thereby terrorize and paralyze all the tyrannies watching, who will now know what is in store for them if they choose in any form to attack the U.S. That will be the end of the terrorists.

Our missiles and occupation troops, however, will be effective only if they are preceded by our President's morally righteous statement that we intend hereafter to defend by every means possible each American's right to his property, his liberty, and his secure enjoyment of life here on earth.

To those who oppose war, I ask: If not now, when? How many more corpses are necessary before this country should take action?
The choice today is mass death in the United States or mass death in the terrorist nations. President Bush must decide whether it is his duty to save Americans or the governments who seek to kill them.

* * *

WTC

Where was our national security when we needed them?
If you and I are not doing our job, we stand a good chance of getting fired. Again, i ask, why was not our national defense people doing their job that we pay them to do?

* * *

How come nobody is parading the fact that the lack of security provided by our Government has spent the last 8 years having it's funding cut and people not qualified running them.

JFreeman
Monroe, MI

* * *

Have been contacting all the newtwork news stations that have made remarks offensive about our President and his courage. Good to know there are many out paying attention to what these people are spouting. Have been watching Fox network. Appreciate coverage. Do not have cable. Have seen today many people wearing Red, White and Blue. Proud to be a Prayful American.

L.Rowe Iowa

* * *

ATTENTION: WANNA HELP? GOTTA FLAG? SHARE IT!!! SHARING IS CARING..................

I had an extra one and gave it to my neighbor. How about you? I'm thinking there must be plenty of flags( any size will do) that could be donated by an array of different businesses, sports complexes and the like. Wouldn't this be a great way to show our unity, patriotism, love, and respect for one another and for our country? Is it, or is it not about capitalism? Was anyone thinking of charging $10. for a parade flag? I hope not. But, if so, please think again.

Sandy from Sarasota, FL.

* * *

Prepare

Pray for the world. The next war has begun. My generation has never seen a devestating attack on our country from a foreign adversary such as this. We must steel ourselves for what comes next.

These terrorists walk among us and have for years. They look like our other Arabic friends and brothers that we embrace as Americans. Pray that we will not treat them as we treated the Japanese that lived among us as Americans.

We did not experience Japanese terrorism in the United States beyond Pearl Harbor and look how they were treated. I can guarantee you that once we begin retaliating in the Arab world for what happened in New York, there will be terrible terrorist acts here in the United States. I am afraid a lot of us think that once we bomb, it will be over and distanced from us.

I pray that America will not lock up and terrorize the Arabic Americans. People say that we will not do this kind of thing. I pray we will not have to find out, but the first time a school bus is hijacked by a psychotic follower of Omasa bin Ladin, I am afraid of what will happen in our cities to Arabic Americans.

Prepare yourselves fellow Americans. This is going to be a war where blood is shed on our land. That we have not seen in this country since the civil war.

Crystal

* * *

We do we have to wait for something to happen, before we do anything???

It has always baffled me, we Americans are the biggest reactive society on the face of the earth. Why do we wait? Why don't we take steps before hand to ensure tragedies don't', won't or can't happen to us. Well, here it is, right in our face, why did it take so many lives to bring to the forefront, that we had a problem with our home security? We knew years ago, we had a serious problem, yet everyone thought these people were just crying "Wolf".

Well, here it is, in your face! I'm so tired of the bleeding hearts of this country getting all the coverage, making sure their concerns are heard, loud and clear. Yet I believe in my heart, there is a silent majority in this country, who should now speak loud and clear, that wish things were different. We need to look very hard at the way we do business, and make the changes necessary to make things right, and _____ the goodie two shoes individuals. Lets toughen up, go out and do what we need to do as America, and to hell with the rest of what the world thinks. Lets not wait anymore, or mark my words, what happened in New York is only the beginning.

* * *

I am a conservative who feels that some of the victims' families of the 9-11 attack have a moral and economic beef with the federal program of financial compensation.

As I understand it, those who are older get penalized. Those with pensions and 4o1k plans get penalized. Those with life insurance get penalized. ...Essentially middle and upper middle class folks who worked and saved will get penalized. Many may have big mortgages, property tax bills, college bills, etc..

At the same time, the welfare mom from the Bronx, with four kids, whose biological father may have been a dishwaser will get a windfall.

I thought the purpose of the federal compensation was to try to make people financially whole. As it stands now, it is another excuse to redistribute wealth from the haves to the have-nots. This is wrong.

Joe

* * *

British Point of View : 911 - Tony Parsons / Daily Mirror September 11, 2002

Remember, remember, September 11 - One of the greatest atrocities in human history was committed againstAmerica.

No, do more than remember. Never forget. Tony Parsons Daily Mirror September 11, 2002

One year ago, the world witnessed a unique kind of broadcasting -- the mass murder of thousands, live on television. As a lesson in the pitiless cruelty of the human race, September 11 was up there with Pol Pot's Mountain of Skulls in Cambodia, or the skeletal bodies stacked like garbage in the Nazi concentration camps.

An unspeakable act so cruel, so calculated and so utterly merciless that surely the world could agree on one thing - nobody deserves this fate. Surely there could be consensus: The victims were truly innocent, the perpetrators truly evil. But to the world's eternal shame, 9/11 is increasingly seen as America's
comeuppance. Incredibly, anti-Americanism has increased over the last year. There has always been a simmering resentment to the USA in this country; too loud, too rich, too full of themselves, and so much happier than Europeans - but it has become an epidemic. And it seems incredible to me. More than that, it turns my stomach.

America is this country's greatest friend and our staunchest ally. We are bonded to the US by culture, language and blood. A little over half a century ago, around half a million Americans died for our freedoms, as well as their own. Have we forgotten so soon? And exactly a year ago, thousands of ordinary men, women and children - not just Americans, but from dozens of countries, were butchered by a small group of religious fanatics. Are we so quick to betray them?

What touched the heart about those who died in the Twin Towers and on the planes, was that we recognized them. Young fathers and mothers, somebody's son and somebody's daughter, husbands, wives, and children, some unborn. And these people brought it on themselves? Their nation is to blame for their meticulously planned slaughter?

These days you don't have to be some dust-encrusted nut job in Kabul or Karachi or Finsbury Park to see America as the Great Satan. The anti-American alliance is made up of self-loathing liberals who blame the Americans for every ill in the Third World, and conservatives suffering from power-envy, bitter that the world's only superpower can do what it likes without having to ask permission.

The truth is that America has behaved with enormous restraint since September 11. Remember, remember - Remember the gut-wrenching tapes of weeping men phoning their wives to say, "I love you," before they were burned alive. Remember those people leaping to their deaths from the top of burning skyscrapers. Remember the hundreds of firemen buried alive. Remember the smiling face of that beautiful little girl who was on one of the planes with her mum.

Remember, remember - And realize that America has never retaliated for 9/11 in anything like the way it could have. So a few al-Qaeda tourists got locked without a trial in Camp X-ray? Pass the Kleenex... So some Afghan wedding receptions were shot up after they merrily fired
their semi-automatics in a sky full of American planes? A shame, but maybe next time they should stick to confetti.

AMERICA could have turned a large chunk of the world into a parking lot. That it didn't is a sign of strength. American voices are already being raised against attacking Iraq - that's what a democracy is for. How many in the Islamic world will have a minute's silence for the slaughtered innocents of 9/11? How many Islamic leaders will have the guts to say that the mass murder of 9/11 was an abomination?

When the news of 9/11 broke on the West Bank, those freedom-loving Palestinians were dancing in the street. America watched all of that - and didn't push the button. We should thank the stars that America is the most powerful nation in the world. I still find it incredible that 9/11 did not provoke all-out war. Not a "war on terrorism." A real war.

The fundamentalist dudes are talking about "opening the gates of hell," if America attacks Iraq. Well, America could have opened the gates of hell like you wouldn't believe. The US is the most militarily powerful nation that ever strode the face of the earth. The campaign in Afghanistan may have been less than perfect and the planned war on Iraq may be misconceived.

But don't blame America for not bringing peace and light to these wretched countries. How many democracies are there in the Middle East, or in the Muslim world? You can count them on the fingers of one hand - assuming you haven't had any chopped off for minor shoplifting.

I love America, yet America is hated. I guess that makes me Bush's poodle. But I would rather be a dog in New York City than a Prince in Riyadh. Above all, America is hated because it is what every country wants to be - rich, free, strong, open, optimistic. Not ground down by the past, or religion, or some caste system. America is the best friend this country ever had and we should start remembering that.

Or do you really think the USA is the root of all evil? Tell it to the loved ones of the men and women who leaped to their death from the burning towers. Tell it to the nursing mothers whose husbands died on one of the hijacked planes, or were ripped apart in a collapsing skyscraper. And tell it to the hundreds of young widows whose husbands worked for the New York Fire Department.

To our shame, George Bush gets a worse press than Saddam Hussein. Once we were told that Saddam gassed the Kurds, tortured his own people and set up rape-camps in Kuwait. Now we are told he likes Quality Street. Save me the orange center, Oh Mighty One!

Remember, remember, September 11 - One of the greatest atrocities in human history was committed against America. No, do more than remember. Never forget.

* * *

BACK TO: The World Trade Center Pg 1

MORE * A SHORT HISTORY OF TERRORISM * PHOTOS * PETER JENNINGS

RushOnline.com Index * Visitor Debate Index Cartoons * Hall of Fame * War On Terror * Topic Index AutoRentals.com * CarAccidents.com * TruckRentals.com * UsedTrucks.com