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Politics : America Under Siege: The End of Innocence -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Neeka who wrote (759)	9/12/2001 7:33:57 PM
From: Robert Graham	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 27666

It is a personal decision on the part of the pilot how to handle their situation. And I respect that. They are trying to protect themselves as much as their passengers. I can respect that too. This is human nature. In that end, I do not see them as having done anything actually "bad". Of course not! And I even suspect it will be found out that some pilots tried to be...no, they really were heroes in the final moments of their lives. It is a person's character I am focusing on. The kind of character that is rarely found in an individual. And I mean all individuals, not just pilots or our government officials, where ever one can point the finger. The character that permits selfless acts of generosity. I tell you one thing. Once taking the responsibility for potentially hundreds if not thousands of lives, I would of fought to the very end. I would of done anything I had to to secure the livelihood of those people, anything at all. They would of had to pry my cold, lifeless fingers from the wheel before surrendering control. But I realize I am in the minority here in thinking this way. I find many in leadership positions do not understand the responsibility that goes with their position. I have found this to be all too often the case. But lets take a moment here to consider the simply outrageous. Suppose for our conversation that all people were capable of bold and selfless acts. Where fear motivates them to reach out and make a difference in another person's life, instead of pulling their focus inward to render themselves impotent in this regard. Which at its extreme can actually have the effect of predisposing themselves to failure in their own lives. What kind of world do you think this would be like? Is it even possible to consider such a possibility? Can YOU consider such a possibility? What if such a person was at this defining moment in their lives? A person like that friend of mine I posted about earlier who was mugged at knife point. What if the entire crew of the plane were such people? What if all the adults in the place were such people? What if they could act as a group in this regard? They would turn out to be national if not world-wide heroes, instead of just another statistic, part of one of the greatest tragedies to have occurred in the history of the United States. Unfortunately we see this quality in people in the aftermath of a tragedy, and rarely when it is beginning to unfold. IMO terrorism would simply not be possible in such a place made up of this type of individual. For any person around them has the potential of recognizing and preventing the terrorist from succeeding. Just as faceless as a threat to the terrorist as terrorism is to the victim. I guess what surprises me the most is how apparently easy it was for the terrorist to make this happen, with several jets, being able to take the time to direct the planes down near the ground and into buildings containing thousands of people in one of the largest cities in the world. I am sure this happened with many standing helplessly by who were in the position to make that difference. I suspect fear was the culprit, a very normal human emotion. However, IMO terrorism will disappear only when we as a People mature in this regard. Until then, learn to expect terrorism to repeat itself. :-( In summary, I think there is part of the blame for all of us to share in this tragedy. We are all connected in ways that we cannot possibly imagine. We all have eggs on our faces in the respect of how we have been acting collectively as a larger group of people, permitting much to happen in this world of ours. Terrorism is just one facet of this problem. Lets learn from this, OK? Bob Graham