*Most* Christian leaders, probably around 95-99 percent TOTALLY agree we should go to war, that this was an act of pure and horrid evil, and that retaliation is absolutely necessary.

I don't agree that nuking them is a good option either. I think it has to be an all out strike, not some puny missles. But if we go nuclear we risk all those OTHER countries who have nuclear capabilities deciding since America does it it's okay. Nuking also makes us become one of them. I'm not saying we shouldn't retaliate, and hard. In fact, I'm ALL FOR IT. But if we just blast out their whole country without careful thought and precision, we might as well take the cowardly stance and fly a bunch of 747's into THEIR tallest buildings.

Thinking irrationally won't help either. Acting in anger generally results in suffering. If we lash out and attack the enemy now, we'll miss all the other terrorist targets that need to be irradicated as well. Our movements need to be cold, calculated, and precise. Call that idealist if you like, but I don't think it is.

[ 09-15-2001 08:21 PM: Message edited 1 time, lastly by Mara1Jade ]

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A quick, hard and decisive hit is the only way we can reach these idiots' hearts. We have to think the way they do, beyond them, to utterly shock and disempower them. Face the fact that there are going to be casualties of war, accept that, and preemptively go squash those who are against us, and who harbor these roaches. They don't really think we will. They think we will stick to conventional responses. I just happen to believe we must be totally unconventional instead. I believe we have the right to be a little irrational right now.

Seems to me that in our conflicts in the past, there is always a pivotal point where hindsight has us looking back saying, "If only we hit harder, continued on, did more..." I'm just saying let's learn from this, use past hindsight, and DO MORE from the onset in this.

Come to think of it, we do have worse weapons than nuclear ones we can utilize... but heh-- sure seems to me the nukes will make the biggest psychological impact. (Not to mention physical one. )

And finally, in the end, it really doesn't matter to me what you guys think. I believe what I believe. The Christian ethic is weak. It shows us as being weak. We have to set it aside and attack with the same cowardice they have attacked us, or it simply won't be recognized. If I had the lil Red Button, I'd push it right now, and with a smile on my face.

This is but one reason why I really don't believe in religion (that is my own opinion, folks)-- it just leads to all this heartache and pain and suffering. You believe as you wish, do as you do. I have let go of these particular apron-strings long ago.

[ 09-15-2001 11:04 PM: Message edited 1 time, lastly by Graysith ]

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You can't judge one country by the acts of others. If America were judged by some of the stuff we do in our country we'd be just as evil as them. We kill each other every day in America...but we still are a proud country. No one judges us on those crazy few who kill others...

Just like with in our country their are different people from the norm and its the same in Afganistan.

Nukes should not be a first resort option. ALL of our lives will be affected if nukes come into play or other stronger weapons. Nuclear warfare is meant as a last resort.

I'm sure if you went over to Afganistan or someother 3rd world country you'd be suprised at how many people want it to change and many wish for the American Government to come in and take over.

Nuking would kill so many innocents and I think after you get over the intial loss of what happened this last week in our country you'll start thinking like your old self again.

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"Can't you hear my motored heart? Your the one that started it!"

-Foo Fighters "Generator"

Cogito ergo sum

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Laurre...could you please try to abstain from calling the Christian Ethic weak? They are a lot of people's beleif and there is nothing wrong with showing forgiveness. I don't think we should in this case but you make it sound as if Christians are weak minded all the time or something.

Its not very nice....

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"Can't you hear my motored heart? Your the one that started it!"

-Foo Fighters "Generator"

Cogito ergo sum

I feel no heartache in what I believe. I have no doubts that what I believe supports that we should most certainly strike back. And I DON'T appreciate the tone of the message that we are all clinging to "apron-strings."

If you are going to argue that people, government included, might not strike back hard enough because of concern for loss of innocent life, that's fine. And quite frankly, I understand the argument and agree that it might be an issue later on. But don't assume that all Christians are sitting in this country like wimps thinking we shouldn't strike back and that we aren't very aware that it will result in a huge amount of causualty. I'm not that stupid. We aren't that stupid.

Furthermore, I think you missed my whole message in my previous post outlining that this act was certainly sheer evil, and these people are evil. I think they deserve to be punished, "smoked out of their holes" and done away with. The Christian world as a whole agrees with this thought.

I know, I'm rambling. But you must understand I hold my religion very dear, and I don't appreciate it being blasted.

OK, move on people...

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MY BELIEFS. MY OPINIONS.

Never have I tried to change yours. I have defended my own.

Now everyone, sit back and think what you have felt to what I have said. Religion, nukes and all. OVER BELIEFS WHICH WE ALL OUGHT TO HAVE THE STRENGTH TO KEEP STRICTLY PERSONAL IN THE FACE OF WHAT OTHERS SAY THEY BELIEVE.

THIS is how wars are started.

I rest my case.

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That's all, can we move on, more important things are happening.

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Ok, moving on now.

Anybody hear that the Pakastan are supposed to try to get the Taliban to turn Bin Lade over? Yeah, right. That'll happen...

[ 09-16-2001 10:38 AM: Message edited 1 time, lastly by Mara1Jade ]

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I hope the black box from the one plane can produce enough usable tape to prove it and to show him for all he is worth, which isn't much.

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*pauses for further consideration*

Has anyone stopped to consider that there might just be too many links, and quite TOO OBVIOUS ones, between this event and bin Laden? Does anyone really believe that a multi-millionaire truly does have the resources to perpetrate this hideous act?

One has to understand the eastern mindset, too. Granted, there is fanaticism... but there is also an honor. I would think that if truly and uniquely guilty, they would have kept their mouths shut. They would have talked all around it, run, but not lied. I can't see an out and out lie. I may be wrong, but I've had many Muslim friends in my life. This is what I sense, fanaticism be damned.

Heh... bin Laden might have DREAMED about accomplishing this... but I too am leaning more and more toward the fact that there are bigger fish lurking beneath these dark and noisome waters (to a certain "someone": there goes the poet in me) who are instead pulling the strings. Someone to whom bin Laden himself is a puppet. (Thus his extraordinary fear; the reason he only communicated via hand carried messages with one trusted brother...)

I dare to speculate (SPECULATE, PEOPLE!!!) further. Someone who, perhaps, sees the implemantation of a new Global Market, a new Global regime, a new Global "religion" aka belief system (yes, I said that), a "New World Order as its ultimate goal. What better way to eliminate the two top religious powerhouses than to instigate the Holy War to end all Holy Wars?

Someone sneaky, underhanded, patient and dire... a great and terrible organization, perhaps... sitting there in the dark like a spider, pulling the strings of the web.

Yes, this smacks of *gasps* "CONSPIRACY THEORY!!!"-- but it's not like there haven't ever been any of those before....

Anyway, we should still go after bin Laden for what he has done to us in the past (we seem to have "forgotten" those incidents, at least until this terrible action reminded us again of them and our apparent complacency) as well as we still need to go after the states who harbor terrorism.

I just now wonder who is the true foundation beneath those acts of terror....

And now a further pause for a Public Retraction:

OK, so I was over-speaking in my earlier statements. Nuking is the wrong thing to do. I know I was speaking out of utter outrage and anger, complicated by the then-sensed but not recognized fact that there just might not be any one real culprit to focus that upon, and so the only way to "cleanse" us of this blight is by overkill, knowing we'd get "him" or "it" in the mess of it all somehow. Heh.

Dr. Joyce Brothers was being interviewed yesterday, and she said that in the face of disaster, people react three ways:

1. They run around like headless chickens, accomplishing nothing.
2. They hunker into frozen immobility, like a deer caught in headlights, or retreat into the comfort of "immobile normalcy."
3. They instinctively ACT.

I know I am of the third category. When the Great Flood of 1993 hit us here in Iowa, I was right out there doing physical stuff. I was one of many out razing the interior of houses by hand which were deemed salvagable. This meant gutting them entirely on the inside, so they could be redone. It wasn't easy, and in many cases it wasn't safe. But that's what I did. (Almost fell through into a still-flooded basement when the floor gave way beneath the chair I was standing on; a cross-beam stopped the chair long enough for me to hop off. SHEESH)

ANYWAY, I am now pacing in yet more anger, confined because every instinct in me wants to go to NYC to physically HELP. And I can't. So I get madder and madder... and that anger kinda overcame logic in one big ol blast combined with overwhelming patriotism and justifiable anger...

OK, nuff said, moving on now.

[ 09-16-2001 04:17 PM: Message edited 1 time, lastly by Graysith ]

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The thing about bin Laden et al being puppets of someone bigger. That has occurred to me actually. Heck, it sounds really close to what I've been wondering all along.

And Sadaam shoulda been killed deader than even dead years ago. If they decide to take him while they are there, I'd back them 100 percent.

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*evil Sithish smile, fangs bared*

I have the PERFECT thing to do to these guys. Strap them to a nuke, blast it directly into space--ie, on a direct solar trajectory--and THEN let 'er rip....

(I'm gonna nuke 'em one way or another, I swear...)

I think I have come down from that razor's edge of heated, blind anger... but to something worse. Or better, perhaps; depends on how you look at it. Now I'm into cold, calculated and absolutely determined quiet rage and vengeance. Now I truly understand the meaning of that statement: "Vengeance is a dish best served cold."

Lemme at 'im! *snarls again*

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And believe me, we WILL get rid of them. Victory will not come cheap. These terrorists are so secretive, so deeply entrenched that only ground war will root them out. So be it. Americans have gotten too soft, in my opinion, and now we're going to have to remember where we came from. This nation was born out of righteous revolution, and we're all the children of that revolution. It's time for us to start acting like it now.

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I got a story. A girl in my math class' mom is a real estate agent, and these 4 arab guys came in the other day wanting to rent a house. The lease had a certain date when it ended or something, and those men changed it to July 4th, and she told them they can't change it, and they acted like they wouldn't need it any longer than that. Her mom called the FBI.

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