Hi Anne, Thanks for your thoughtful post. Franklin has had me engaged offlist explaining his case for the world wide conspiracy of billionaires who control everything. I must admit that taking that view is somehow freeing - there's nothing we can do about it because they already control everything. ;-)
> Well, the world was mourning for us, grieving with us. > There was a moment when we could have said, "Enough." > We could have called a summit of all the Arab nations > and Israel. "Please, help us solve this problem." We > could have used the opportunity to begin to forge > alliances. And we could have done so even though we > took military action in Afghanistan. Mind you, I don't > believe we could have implicitly trusted anyone > involved, but we could have taken that first small step > towards inclusion and understanding. We didn't. I wish it could have been this way but we had to take immediate steps to try to defend ourselves. I'm sorry to be cyncial but I think if we went to many of the Arab countries and Israel and asked them to help us, some may have had some sympathy for us, but they have their own self-interests which come first in their countries, too. We have pleaded with countries all around the world to crack down on terrorists and many (Yemen, Pakistan, Morocco, Philippines and a number of others) have helped us in that way. We have warned Israel several times in the past year when we felt they have gone too far and have been trying for months to get them back to the table for a resolution of the Palestinian situation. >From my own self-interested standpoint, I have heard enough about the threats to us for enough years to think it is real. Living in a target area I am constantly reading and watching the news. Al Queda, in conjunction with other terrorist groups, some with Iraqi connections, were apprehended back in 1999 with plans to bomb out L.A. airport, and plans to hijack and blow up several airplanes simultaneously coming to L.A. and S.F. There are a number of known terrorist cells all over the U.S. and several in California. Some of the 9/11 hijackers took flying lessons in San Diego. One of the guys just killed in Yemen was a U.S. citizen who was born in Cal and lived here until recently. He is tied to the 9/11 hijackers and the bombing of the USS Cole. Since 9/11 I have witnessed innumerable nights of military helicopters doing exercises and scanning downtown L.A., in addition to numerous nights of bomb squad, SWAT team, police and fire personnel conducting exercises. Maybe this is all just some big fiction orchestrated by the shadow government, but it's certainly hard for me to easily take that view. > And now most of the world hates us. It was an opportunity missed. Many in the world do not hate us and the ones who do have always hated us anyway to the point where I don't think anything we could do could make them love us. It is in their own self-interest to hate us. Kakki
