God Bless America
Terrorist Attack on the United States of America
We will all face death at some point in our lives. But imagine, if you will, the hopelessness and fear of the passengers and crew of the four jets as they realized that they were to be included in a suicide mission. Imagine the terror and desperation of the people inside the World Trade Center Towers as they became aware of what was happening and tried to escape in any way they could, some leaping from the Towers� windows. Imagine the thoughts of their loved ones going through their minds and the agony of knowing that they wouldn�t be able to say good-bye to them and knowing they were going to leave them behind to grieve.
This is a day of great sorrow.
To the thousands of innocent people who have been injured or who have lost their lives on this day and to the family, friends and loved ones of these victims, we offer our thoughts, sympathy and prayers.
And to the Republic for which it Stands
One Nation under God, Indivisible, with Liberty and Justice for All.
9/24/2001
Look for the small red bullets in the left margin for new material.
Love and Prayers,
Jamie
I therefore believe it is my duty to my Country to love it; to support its Constitution; to obey its laws; to respect its flag, and to defend it againest all enemies."
The American's Creed was a result of a nationwide contest for writing a National Creed, which would be a brief summary of the American political faith founded upon things fundamental in American history and tradition. The contest was the idea of Henry Sterling Chapin, Commissioner of Education of New York State. Over three thousand entries were received, and William Tyler Page was declared to be the winner. James H. Preston, the mayor of Baltimore, presented an award to Page in the House of Representatives Office Building on April 3, 1918. The Speaker of the House of Representatives and the Commissioner of Education of the State of New York accepted the Creed for the United States, and the proceedings relating to the award were printed in the Congressional Record of April 13, 1918. It was a time when patriotic sentiments were very much in vogue. The United States had been a participant in World War I only a little over a year at the time the Creed was adopted.
at the Gettysburg Battlefield
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting-place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead who struggled here have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us--that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion--that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.
Ronn Owens, on KGO Talk Radio today, allowed that this would mean killing innocent people, people who had nothing to do with this atrocity, but "we're at war, we have to accept collateral damage. What else can we do?"
Minutes later I heard some TV pundit discussing whether we "have the belly to do what must be done."
And I thought about the issues being raised especially hard because I am from Afghanistan, and even though I've lived here for 35 years I've never lost track of what's going on there. So I want to tell anyone who will listen how it all looks from where I'm standing.
I speak as one who hates the Taliban and Osama Bin Laden. There is no doubt in my mind that these people were responsible for the atrocity in New York.
I agree that something must be done about those monsters.
But the Taliban and Ben Laden are not Afghanistan. They're not even the government of Afghanistan. The Taliban are a cult of ignorant psychotics who took over Afghanistan in 1997. Bin Laden is a political criminal with a plan. When you think Taliban, think Nazis. When you think Bin Laden,think Hitler. And when you think "the people of Afghanistan" think "the Jews in the concentration camps."
It's not only that the Afghan people had nothing to do with this atrocity. They were the first victims of the perpetrators. They would exult if someone would come in there, take out the Taliban and clear out the rats nest of international thugs holed up in their country.
Some say, why don't the Afghans rise up and overthrow the Taliban? The answer is, they're starved, exhausted, hurt, incapacitated, suffering. A few years ago, the United Nations estimated that there are 500,000 disabled orphans in Afghanistan -- a country with no economy, no food. There are millions of widows. And the Taliban has been burying these widows alive in mass graves. The soil is littered with land mines, the farms were all destroyed by the Soviets. These are a few of the reasons why the Afghan people have not overthrown the Taliban.
We come now to the question of bombing Afghanistan back to the Stone Age. Trouble is, that's been done. The Soviets took care of it already.
Make the Afghans suffer? They're already suffering.
Level their houses? Done.
Turn their schools into piles of rubble? Done.
Eradicate their hospitals? Done.
Destroy their infrastructure? Cut them off from medicine and health care? Too late. Someone already did all that.
New bombs would only stir the rubble of earlier bombs.
Would they at least get the Taliban? Not likely. In today's Afghanistan, only the Taliban eat, only they have the means to move around. They'd slip away and hide. Maybe the bombs would get some of those disabled orphans, they don't move too
fast, they don't even have wheelchairs. But flying over Kabul and dropping bombs wouldn't really be a strike against the criminals who did this horrific thing. Actually it would only be making common cause with the Taliban -- by raping once again the people they've been raping all this time.
So what else is there? What can be done, then?
Let me now speak with true fear and trembling. The only way to get Bin Laden is to go in there with ground troops. When people speak of "having the belly to do what needs to be done" they're thinking in terms of having the belly to kill as many as
needed. Having the belly to overcome any moral qualms about killing innocent people. Let's pull our heads out of the sand.
What's actually on the table is Americans dying. And not just because some Americans would die fighting their way through Afghanistan to Bin Laden's hideout. It's much bigger than that folks. Because to get any troops to Afghanistan, we'd have to go through Pakistan. Would they let us?
Not likely.
The conquest of Pakistan would have to be first. Will other Muslim nations just stand by? You see where I'm going. We're flirting with a world war between Islam and the West.
And guess what: that's Bin Laden's program. That's exactly what he wants. That's why he did this. Read his speeches and statements. It's all right there. He really believes Islam would beat the west. It might seem ridiculous, but he figures if he can polarize the world into Islam and the West, he's got a billion soldiers. If the west wreaks a holocaust in those lands, that's a billion people with nothing left to lose, that's even better from Bin Laden's point of view. He's probably wrong, in the end the West would win, whatever that would mean, but the war would last for years and millions would die, not just theirs but ours. Who has the belly for that?
Bin Laden does.
Anyone else?
Tamim Ansary
it would be the last time
that i'd see you fall asleep,
I would tuck you in more tightly
and pray your soul to keep.
If i knew
it would be the last time
that i see you walk out the door,
i would give you a hug and kiss
and call you back for one or two more.
If i knew
it would be the last time
i would be there to share your day,
knowing there would be no more,
i couldn't let this one just slip away.
"For surely," we say, "there's tomorrow"
to make up for an oversight,
and we always get a second chance
to make everything right.
There will always be another day to say our
"I love you's,"
and certainly there's another chance
to say "Is there anything I can do?"
But, just in case
i might be wrong, and today is all i get,
i'd like to say how much i love you,
and i hope you will never forget that
tomorrow is not promised to anyone,
young or old alike,
and - today may be the last chance
we get to hold a loved one tight...
.....So, if you are waiting for tomorrow,
why not do it today!
For - if tomorrow never comes,
you will surely regret the day...
...that day you did not take that extra time
for a big smile, a warm hug, or a kiss (and,
why not all three)..
So - hold your loved ones close today,
whisper in their ear,
..tell them how much you love them
and that you will always hold them dear.
take time..take the time to say, "I'm sorry,"
"please forgive me," "thank you" or .. it's okay."
And - if tomorrow never comes,
..you will have no regrets.......about this day.
Sandra Hender
from Toronto by Gordon Sinclair, a Canadian television commentator. What follows is the full text of his trenchant remarks as printed in the Congressional Record:
"This Canadian thinks it is time to speak up for the Americans as the most generous and possibly
the least appreciated people on all the earth.
Germany, Japan and, to a lesser extent, Britain and Italy were lifted out of the debris of war by the
Americans who poured in billions of dollars and forgave other billions in debts. None of these
countries is today paying even the interest on its remaining debts to the United States.
When France was in danger of collapsing in 1956, it was the Americans who propped it up, and their reward was to be insulted and swindled on the streets of Paris. I was there. I saw it.
When earthquakes hit distant cities, it is the United States that hurries in to help. This spring,
59 American communities were flattened by tornadoes. Nobody helped.
The Marshall Plan and the Truman Policy pumped billions of dollars into discouraged countries.
Now newspapers in those countries are writing about the decadent, warmongering Americans.
I'd like to see just one of those countries that is gloating over the erosion of the United States
dollar build its own airplane. Does any other country in the world have a plane to equal the
Boeing Jumbo Jet, the Lockheed Tri-Star, or the Douglas DC10? If so, why don't they fly
them? Why do all the International lines except Russia fly American Planes?
Why does no other land on earth even consider putting a man or woman on the moon? You talk
about Japanese technocracy, and you get radios. You talk about German technocracy, and you get automobiles. You talk about American technocracy, and you find men on the moon - not once, but several times - and safely home again.
You talk about scandals, and the Americans put theirs right in the store window for everybody to look at. Even their draft-dodgers are not pursued and hounded. They are here on our streets, and most of them, unless they are breaking Canadian laws, are getting American dollars from ma and pa at home to spend here.
When the railways of France, Germany and India were breaking down through age, it was the Americans who rebuilt them. When the Pennsylvania Railroad and the New York Central went broke, nobody loaned them an old caboose. Both are still broke.
I can name you 5000 times when the Americans raced to the help of other people in trouble. Can you name me even one time when someone else raced to the Americans in trouble? I don't think there was outside help even during the San Francisco earthquake.
Our neighbors have faced it alone, and I'm one Canadian who is damned tired of hearing them get kicked around. They will come out of this thing with their flag high. And when they do, they are entitled to thumb their nose at the lands that are gloating over their present troubles. I hope Canada
is not one of those."
"Stand proud, America!"
Sent: Wednesday, September 12, 2001 1:28 PM
Subject: Our thoughts are with you
To our dear friends,
We have been watching in horror and disbelief, the dreadful acts of terrorism that have been delivered upon America. Words seem so inadequate at a time like this.
We can only hazard a guess at the pain and anguish being felt by the American people.
Please know that our thoughts are with you and we pray that you and your loved ones are safe.
God bless and protect you all.
Kerry Parmenter
Planet Pet Downunder
Sydney-Australia
_______________________________________________________________________________
From: Jamie
To: Kerry
Sent: Thursday, September 13, 2001 8:40 AM
Subject: Re: Our thoughts are with you
Dear Kerry,
Thank you *so* much for your kind words and caring heart. I live in North Carolina, which is quite a distance from New York and Washington, but I, like all Americans, am feeling the emotions that something like this can evoke--fear, sadness, disorientation, disbelief, shock, etc. I, like everyone else, got up yesterday morning, got ready for work, drove into work with my Diet Coke and listening to music, and it was a normal routine day like so many days before. Then, everything was shattered.
And I feel so helpless. I have cried a lot of tears over the last 30+ hours for all those poor people who were injured and who lost their lives, and for their family, friends and loved ones, and their *children*. How do those left behind explain this to the children? Those *innocent* people who did nothing but be in the wrong place at the wrong time. And I can't help them.
I know what you mean about words seeming so inadequate. It is almost impossible to put into words what I, as an American and a caring person who values all life, feel right now. And what everyone else here feels.
The thought of war terrifies me, but what other choice is there? We *have* to respond to this. We simply *have* to. What will happen if we go to war? I've looked at my kitties over the past day and a half, and I wonder will happen to them? How can I keep them safe?
You are so very kind to write. I will say a prayer for you tonight.
Sincerely,
Jamie
_______________________________________________________________________________
Dear Jamie,
I am so pleased that you are all safe.
I understand and agree with each and every sentiment you have expressed.
The thought of War must be abhorrent and frightening to anyone that values life.
But, I believe in this case, it is because we value life that we must accept the inevitable.
No one on the face of this planet has the right to take the life of another or cause such unconscionable pain and suffering.
Unfortunately, I honestly believe the only way to stop these terrorists is to remove them.
To turn the other cheek or try to reason with people such as these, would only be seen as a sign of weakness, and encourage them to continue.
Their very ideals threaten not only our physical safety but our dignity & freedom.
Jamie, I fear worse is still to come.
And then...May God help us ALL!
I am always here if you need to chat, unfortunately that is all I can offer along with my love and prayers for your continued safety.
I remain your friend,
Kerry
Planet Pet Downunder
Sydney-Australia
I have a new page dedicated to the people who lost their lives in America
yesterday. Please add your message in the condolence book
and give your support to the American people and nation.
Please go to:
http://GODBLESSUSA.homestead.com/index.html
Kathleen
Edna Yates
and
Francis W. Cappella
We are moved by the alarming news and crisis that our country is facing. This, the greatest nation, founded in the belief that"In God We Trust" & the "Land of the Free". Please have mercy on those suffering, hurting and in fear, and give wisdom & strength to those who are assisting. May the forces of evil be broken by your power and may we humble before thee, our strength and refuge.
Give wisdom to our President & all our leaders and bring your comforting peace through the power of your Holy Spirit. Help us here to reach to those that have been affected by this tragedy.
In the name of our Lord and Savior, Christ Jesus. AMEN
Crimson battles fought on through the night
Only one can claim his honor
He speaks for the angels;
His weapon His Might
The challenge, the fight his desire
He is the Warrior; the angel in armor;
Brought by the power, the power of truth
He is feared by the evil and loathed by the loser
He will reclaim what is ours
For lost souls for our youth.
No staggered highways;
Littered with self-righteous leaders;
Diseased by power
And greed combined;
The giant stands quiet
Shrouded with reverence
To protect his kingdom
To renounce malign
And when the bloodshed has
Ended and the sky scorched
With grey; from the clearing of smoke
Into the twilight of day;
He returns to his country
Where tears have been shed
The families mourn, as their loved ones are dead
Their fight for the righteous has been won it�s told
As we watch our gift of Freedom unfold.
