"I don't know where you get your delusions, Laserbrain."
- Princess Leia to Han Solo in The Empire Strikes Back

"Are you saying that I put a abnormal brain into a seven and a half foot long, 54 inch wide.... GORILLA? IS THAT WHAT YOU'RE TELLING ME??!!!!"
- Dr. Fredrick Frankenstein to Igor (while beating him) in Young Frankenstein

September 13, 2001

My father had sent me some essay that a gentlemen named Fred Reed had written about the World Trade Center attack and the United States in general. I believe in giving both sides of the story so here is his portion as well (in purple)

A Few Unorganized Thoughts Regarding The Events in New York
by Fred Reed

(1) We lost. Our moral posturing about our degradation is merely embarrassing. We have been made fools of, expertly and calculatedly, in the greatest military defeat the country has suffered since we fled from Viet Nam. The Moslem world is laughing and dancing in the streets. The rest of the earth, while often sympathetic, sees us as the weak and helpless nation that we are.

The casualty figures aren't in, but 10,000 dead seems reasonable, and we wring our hands and speak of grief therapy. We lost.

(2) We cannot stop it from happening again. Thousands of aircraft constantly use O'Hare, a few minutes flying time from the Sears Tower.

(3) Our politicians and talking heads speak of "a cowardly act of terrorism." It was neither cowardly nor, I think, terrorism. Hijacking an aircraft and driving it into a building isn't cowardly. Would you do it? It requires great courage and dedication -- which our enemies have, and we do not. One may mince words, but to me the attack looked like an act of war. Not having bombing craft of their own, they used ours. When we bombed Hanoi and Hamburg, was that
terrorism?

(4) The attack was beautifully conceived and executed. These guys are good. They were clearly looking to inflict the maximum humiliation on the United States, in the most visible way possible, and they did. The sight of those two towers collapsing will leave nobody's mind. If we do nothing of importance in return, and it is my guess that we won't, the entire earth will see that we are a nation of epicenes. Silly cruise-missile attacks on Afghanistan will just heighten the indignity.

(5) In watching the coverage, I was struck by the tone of passive acquiescence. Not once, in hours of listening, did I hear anyone express anger. No one said, coldly but in deadly seriousness, "People are going to die for this, a whole lot of people." There was talk of tracking down bin Laden and bringing him to justice. "Terrorism experts" spoke of months of investigation to find who was responsible, which means we will do nothing. Blonde bimbos babbled of coping strategies and counseling and how our children needed support. There was no talk of retaliation.

(6) The Israelis, when hit, hit back. They hit back hard. But Israel is run by men. We are run by women. Perhaps two-thirds of the newscasters were blonde drones who spoke of the attack over and over as a tragedy, as though it had been an unusually bad storm -- unfortunate, but inevitable, and now we must get on with our lives. The experts and politicians, nominally male, were effeminate and soft little things. When a feminized society runs up against male enemies -- and bin Laden, whatever else he is, is a man -- it loses. We have.

(7) We haven't conceded that the Moslem world is our enemy, nor that we are at war. We see each defeat and humiliation in isolation, as a unique incident unrelated to anything else. The 241 Marines killed by the truck bomb in Beirut, the extended humiliation of the hostages taken by Iran, the war with Iraq, the bombing of the Cole, the destruction of the embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, the devastation of the Starke, the Saudi barracks, the dropping of airliner after airliner -- these we see as anecdotes, like pileups of cars on a snowy road. They see these things as war. We face an enemy more intelligent than we are.

(8) We think we are a superpower. Actually we are not, except in the useless sense of having nuclear weapons. We could win an air war with almost anyone, yes, or a naval war in mid-Pacific. Few Americans realize how small our forces are today, how demoralized and weakened by social experimentation. If we had to fight a ground war in terrain with cover, a war in which we would take casualties, we would lose.

(9) I have heard some grrr-woofwoofery about how we should invade Afghanistan and teach those ragheads a lesson. Has anyone noticed where Afghanistan is? How would we get there? Across Pakistan, a Moslem country? Or through India? Do we suppose Iran would give us overflight rights to bomb another Moslem country? Or will our supply lines go across Russia through Turkmenistan? Do we imagine that we have the airlift or sealift? What effect do we think bombing might have on Afghanistan, a country that is essentially rubble to begin with?

We backed out of Somalia, a Moslem country, when a couple of GIs got killed and dragged through the streets on TV. Afghans are not pansies. They whipped the Russians. Our sensitive and socially-conscious troops would curl up in balls.

(10) To win against a more powerful enemy, one forces him to fight a kind of war for which he isn't prepared. Iraq lost the Gulf War because it fought exactly the kind of war in which American forces are unbeatable: Hussein played to his weaknesses and our strengths. The Vietnamese did the opposite. They defeated us by fighting a guerrilla war that didn't give us anything to hit. They understood us. We didn't understand them.

The Moslem world is doing the same thing. Because their troops, or terrorists as we call them, are not sponsored by a country, we don't know who to hit.

And now my portion...

The man is obviously a hell of a ventriloquist to be able to speak so well out of his ass.

Essentially, the man writes about Americans the way a plant would write about its understanding of animals.

(1) The Moslem's are laughing. Not for long. He is making an assessment of a war yet to be fought. That is like judging a boxing match from the first punch. It was bad. Not devestating.

(2) We cannot stop it from happening again. - I don't think anyone could. But I'm dead certain that it will be that much more difficult to do it again.

(3) Mr. Reed speaks of the Arab suicide bombers as being brave and that he wouldn't do something like that. Sure, he would. If he were a brainwashed religious zealot. Does this also make the Heaven's gate suicides a matter of bravery or foolishness. They were taken in by a charismatic leader as well. They died for Allah. I say they died bewildered and misled. Also, how brave is someone who can kill an unarmed civilian at 6,000 feet in highly combustible container. Doesn't sound brave, it sounds insane and stupid to me. Bin Laden is training 11 year olds to be terrorists. Does that also mean that the heartlessly cruel media driven slacker generation that basically kill to see people die are the product of Arab training. No. Those children that follow Bin Laden are brainwashed. Plain and simple.

(4) The American People will not allow this to go unpunished. Bin Laden would be lucky to be bombed into oblivion rather than confront a Bronx soldier with a baseball bat and a creative imagination.

(5) He speaks of no one in the US speaking coldly and seriously, that "People are going to die for this, lots of people." Of course, we aren't going to say that. No one civilized would. However, this man did not listen to Dick Chaney speak that we would hunt them like the "savages that they are" or George W. Bush say, "Wanted: Dead or Alive". Has any other president ever said anything like that? Our President HAS said that we will have a long sustained war and it will not be like the Gulf War or an attack with a cruise missile.

(6) Hey, quick trivia question: How many women have been elected to the office of President? Answer: None. Idiot.

He speaks of bimbos and effeminate men as newscasters. Perhaps Mr. Reed would feel it best that the male newscasters should do a periodic crotch scratch to make certain that the target audience of pro football fans would be more confident. Or maybe we should have our female newscasters dress in black from head to toe and only leave their eyes exposed as
it dictates in the Koran. (Edith, get me a beer.) The fact that we have female newscasters is a slap in the face to any Arab Nation. He also does not mention the fact that in Israel the women fight along side the men in combat.

Personally, I, too believe that our children are coddled a bit too much and that is one thing that may change as a result of this confrontation. That does not mean that young people today are not strong. I go to the gym six days a week and see men that could easily break me in half.

(7) Another quick trivia question: What did the US do the last time it was attacked on it's soil? Answer: Retaliated with extreme predjudice. Remember Pearl Harbor 1941? All of the incidents that Mr. Reed mentioned were not the results of direct attacks on US soil. Now, it's personal.

(8) We are a superpower. Period.

(9) How would we attack Afghanistan? This war, unlike Viet Nam, is winnable. The disadvantages we had in Nam are not considerations in Afghanistan. We have the cooperation of the Pakistani government and the lay of the land will not be difficult to overcome. We had neither in Viet Nam. According to Sun Szu, to win a war you must know the lay of the land. Bin Laden is a man without a country. What he does have according to Sun Szu is "formlessness". With the US satelite survelience systems, there really won't be a problem finding him. He is basing this war on 1970's technology. Today's marines with today's technology can not be stopped.

(10) We have fought a dessert war before. We will win. The new war is the fight against terrorism. We will do this by making Bin Laden an example. Remember, we killed our own American Terrorist, Timothy MacVeigh and had no remorse.

The only thing that I will give him is that it was a very well planned sneak attack. But that is all it was. The reason that we did not have the kind of defense that this idiot would want us to have is that we never would suspect an enemy of acting in such a stupid thoughtless way.

The United States is the richest, most technologically advanced, and strongest nation in the world. The difference between the US and the Arabs is that we have a conscience.

Bin Laden is a terrorist. His function was to create terror. Idiots like Fred Reed are (obviously) using Arab propaganda to create terror. Mr. Reed has started to swallow what Bin Laden is shoveling.

He speaks of the unprepared attack upon US soil. He does not speak of the attacks that were foiled. He speaks of the Arabs being smart, but they are also so stupid as to let their identities be discovered through a blatantly stupid trail. Part of an operation like this (if you are going to have your leader deny it) is to be covert. Not to start fights in the Boston Airport parking lot, shortly before the attack to make yourself more memorable.

If we were weak, we should be in terror. Simply, we are not. In that event, Bin Laden, as a terrorist, has failed. There is a difference between being more prepared, responding to a wake up call and living in fear. This didn't make New Yorkers afraid - It just makes them angry. Monday morning, the majority of New Yorkers were back at work. The fact that they could even walk through the carnage says something about where the capital of the "home of the brave" is. I, myself, made certain that I would go to Six Flags last weekend, because if I did not Bin Laden would have won. And I was in New York at the time of the attack (12 blocks from it to be percise). I feared more the crime element of New York, than an Arab terrorist armed with a box cutter.

And that's another thing, out of the five hijacked air craft only 3 were successful. That's 60%. Two hit the World Trade Center, One hit the Pentagon. Did the Arabs mean to strike an open field in Pittsburgh or did civilians, bravely, rush the poorly armed terrorists? No one ever speaks about the failed attempt at Los Angeles, either.

He speaks of great Arab leaders who have played their strengths and enemies weaknesses and mentions Saddam Hussein. Saddam Hussein lost. Miserably. General Norman Schwartzcof(sp?) after the Gulf War said he was not a good military leader at all. Hussein had no battle plan he had SCUD missiles, which were shot down. He brings up the ONLY war that the US had lost. No one could have won that war, not on that land. We also did not have the way of the people. It was impossible and we should not have been there.

George Bush in a very classic traditional American sense is waging war against terrorism, very much the same way that Wyatt Earp waged war against the Cowboy syndicate. If he finds a Bin Laden follower, they will be dead.

Bin Laden seems to have had a revelation that the strategies of Sun Szu are revolutionary in miliary planning. In reality, Bin Laden is a spoiled little rich kid who picks on smaller kids until he makes the mistake of picking on the big kid that does not get into fights. When the big kid gets angry, he runs and hides behind his mommy.

He IS a coward.
He IS deluded.
And he IS evil.