I have posted that my official opinion is to agree with Calliander. I think I need to amend that. Well, I really don't know enough of what is going on to have an opinion. Here's the beauty of this great country and of insult, I don't have to be based in reality to form an opinion. That's been demonstrated on insult. (Take that as you will.) Anyhow, though I am not in favor of war, I am HIGHLY in favor of America standing strong as it always has. I have no desire to watch the fall of America in my life time. I don't really have the desire to watch a war in my life time. (Well, I guess there was the Gulf War, but how many Americans died in that?)
We were attacked during peace time and far too many innocent people were killed. It would be nice if we could just go about our mourning and know that this will never happen again. It would be nice if we didn't become blood thirsty and have to go out and avenge these deaths. It would be nice if we could just have faith that these fuckers will get what is coming to them. It would be nice, but it doesn't seem like it's realistic. If these cowards can steal our plans, kill our people, ram into big buildings and kill more people, who knows what other horrendous acts they are capable of. I guess if we don't stand up and put a stop to this bullshit, they'll do something else, maybe something worse.
Though I don't think it's right to kill their innocent people that had nothing to do with this, I think if we don't, we're in big trouble! It's vaguely like rules your parents make that you are supposed to obey. Say curfew is 1:00 (as it was for me when I was in HS). You stroll in at 2:00 with total disregard and no valid excuse. Your parents don't punish you, don't even say anything about it, then what would make you come home on curfew next time? (Other than respect?) Say your parents said, I'm going to punish you big time mister, but then did nothing? Again, what would make you obey curfew next time? Nothing. If your parents took away your car for a week or something, then you'd be on time next time.
Obviously, killing 20,000 people isn't really like missing curfew and there is no valid excuse. All I'm trying to say is that if we do nothing, they have no reason not to attack us again. We have to put our foot down and curb this bullshit before it gets any worse.
A man that worked at the OIT office at UMass was killed on the second plane. They wrote an article about him. His picture and a little memorial has been constructed for him in the lobby of the building where he worked. There are galleries of pictures online of the people that died. These were real people, just like you and me. It could have been any one of us had we just been in the wrong place at the wrong time. I mean Pappy just went to Belgium recently. What if that had been a plane they hijacked? These were people in the middle of their lives thinking they had all the time in the world ahead of them. Then some asshole with a cause that I'll never understand comes and puts an end to their lives. It could have been any one of us.
So no, of course I'm not for war -- it's a time of death, death of innocents. But I am for America and I am for defending the country that I love and call home. I am for protecting our freedom, including our freedom to go to work or go on vacation or whatever and feel pretty safe that we'll still be alive at the end of the day.
1212 Out.