Geo wrote:
oh I gotta mention 1 more tihng, it was pretty awsome seeing it actually fall (the world trade center). Destruction is cruel yet at the same time art. who ever planned it is a genius, sheer genius! The person hit the exact buildings to make people afraid, the pentagon and world trade center, The world trade center was where people would meet from around the world and where allot of money was and the pentagon was the main defense/offense building! Brilliant. boy I hope school also stops and shuts down!
UHH NOT EVEN ART, TO BE SAYING THIS IS AMAZING AND AWSOME, IS JUST AS BAD AS TE PEOPLE WHO DID IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!P EOPLE DIED, HOW WOULD YOU LIKE IT IF PEOPLE THOUGHT THAT IT WAS AWSOME, BUT YOU WERE IN THE TOWER FALLING???????????????
There's a difference between being morbid and being homicidal. While Geo's post does certainly have a rather juvenile note in it, fascination with death and destruction is nothing new and has formed a massive influence on Western thought. The destruction of the World Trade centers is every bit as profound a gesture as the construction of the same; it was, in the truest sense of the word, awesome. Modern usage has demoted the word to a mere superlative for "good", but in the original usage, it actually meant just what it sounds like it would mean--something that produced awe. Anyone who could watch the monumental collapse of the towers, so terrifying yet so engrossing, and not feel awed is a person dead to the world around them.
For what it matters, I have feelings that cross the spectrum of what people have expressed.
But I think there are a couple of additional angles here:
First, this cannot be thought of as simply a terrorist strike. A terrorist strike is taking out a bus of 30 women and children. This has probably killed on the order of 20,000 people -- in other words, we have just suffered half as many casualties as we did in all of Korea, and a third the casualties we suffered in Vietnam, in the space of one hour.
This is one of the deadliest single acts of war ever waged.
It is absolutely not something we can ignore.
Then comes the tough part...as Lexy has said, there are huge risks here. We could end up in a big fight with lots of terrorists acts being brought against us, including biological weapons. If these people got their hands on the Smallpox sample that Russia has, that could be devastating on a world-wide scale.
But the other angle is this: The Taliban, unless they immediately hand over Bin Laden upon being provided proof of his guilt (I'll assume for the sake of argument that he's guilty...there's much circumstantial evidence, and few people who would want to and could pull this off, with a history of escalating violence against the US in recent years added into the mix), has effectively declared war on the US.
Of course they won't formally declare war. But they have housed, fed, and financed the person who probably did this, over our severe objections. They knew his business, they supported his business, and directly or indirectly, they allowed this to happen. In effect, this is their war on us.
With casualties likely in the 10s of thousands, we cannot take such a declaration lightly. We cannot ignore it.
But how we proceed without ending up in a much bigger fight, I don't know. I do know, as a long-term dyed in the wool liberal, that I'd be happy to classify the Taliban as an evil agency and bomb the hell out of their entire government structure. The Taliban is not the people of Afghanistan, to be sure. They took over by force, and are subjugating the populace (especially the women) to immense oppression.
The depressing part to me is even if we do manage surgical strikes where we take out exactly the people responsible and no one else, and we don't inflame a larger war with the Middle East....these people have already won.
20,000 people dead. An entire war in a day.