Viva USA ..............
I am not sure how many friends I lost up there. At this stage it no longer matters. Their deaths were meaningless and futile, no amount of revenge will change that. Revenge or retaliation are equally meaningless unless the result of this day is such carnage as will give pause to even the most fanatical terrorist - not for revenge, not even for justice but simply as a warning.
This is as good a forum as any for the reasoned explanation of the not so quiet anger over here - our president may have mouthed the expected platitudes but if he expects to be re-elected, now is the time for a disproportionate response. Americans have had it with being the target of every jealous savage on the planet. The mood here ( and the vast majority of voters in this country don't watch CNN, read the New York Times or work without getting their hands dirty ) is bloody.
There is no point in assigning blame, in examining security measures. They were inadequate and would likely have proven inadequate no matter how stringent.
This is not a time for a judicial response. It is not necessary to try anyone, to convict anyone or to or allow a defense of the indefensible. Once assured of the identity of the guilty, it is simply necessary to ensure that they are incapable of repeating yesterday's atrocities. If doing so necessitates reducing entire populations to a level where they have no technological capability beyond flint, then in the name of our children, not our dead, it must be done.
Any who cry that to do so would reduce us to the level of the terrorists must be ignored - it must be shown to the world that the cost of attacking the United States is unthinkable. This is a defining moment indeed - this nation, no one else being willing or able to do so, must now dictate to the world what is acceptable behavior and what the consequences are of unacceptable behavior. Or else this nation must retreat behind a wall from which it will emerge only to find it's primacy long forgotten.
The last time America was attacked, it cost us a war and twenty five years of occupation to turn races of savages into docile allies who will never again contemplate aggression on America or anyone else.
This country has the capability today, which it did not have in 1941, to enter the Middle East and pacify it for the generations it will take to erase the conflict. If we lack the political and moral will to do so, we will have only ourselves to blame when such attacks happen again.
b
In order to bring the Germans and Japanese back into the fold of civilized nations, we were willing to slaughter millions of them. It is not true to state that these are different times and that now the enemy is hidden. The enemy is known and if a populace supports that enemy, then self preservation dictates that such populace has become the enemy and is therefore a legitimate target.
The time has come for our leaders to declare to the world that they have no interest in building an alliance, no time for the world to rally around us.
The time has come for our leaders to say to the world, 'Stand behind us, for all who stand in front of us are marked for destruction.'
Bill Branum
