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Politics : Foreign Policy Discussion Thread -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: KLP who wrote (573)	12/17/2002 5:42:54 AM
From: zonder	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 15987

I haven't heard you, or any from Europe really discuss your thoughts on the above [WTC attacks]. You have not? Well, OK, here it goes then. I was walking in front of a Tex-Mex restaurant called "Stars & Bars" when I heard music stop, people run in, and news turned on. I was in time to see the second plane hit the second tower. I was hit by the shock, the grief, the worry (for friends and my brother in the area). I watched people ordered to go back in to those buildings by others who told them there was nothing to worry about and they should continue to work as usual. I could not do anything but tell people around me that those buildings were going down and the people should run out fast - as anyone who has studied steel structures can tell you, they are not built to last fires for long, unless seriously isolated by concrete, which skyscrapers never are because then the structure would be too heavy and would collapse under its own weight. That is too much detail, I guess. Anyway... If you are asking how I felt, I felt the grief I always feel whenever I hear of people suddenly taken from their loved ones, their children, their spouses. I have witnessed a couple of those instances, right after terrorist attacks where I used to live, and while they were not in the thousands of people range, they were just as heartshattering and unbearable to the people I know who lost their children and spouses for no apparent reason. Although I had gone into that restaurant to have a late lunch with friends, I ate for the first time about 14 hours later, when my brother finally managed to call me and say he was OK. Anyway, if you were meaning to suggest that Europeans or myself did not feel for the victims of 9/11 and their loved ones, you are far from the truth. There was enormous solidarity in Europe after 9/11. Just how it dissipated over the course of the past year is widely analyzed and discused in SI. However, the human compassion did not go away. I am (and we are) sorry for the people who perished, and even more so, for their loved ones who stayed behind and grieved. So yes, I agree with CB. If Americans have to protect themselves from murdering thugs, then I hope we do just that. Protect ALL Americans and any foreign guests we might have at the time. You confuse protection of your territory and inhabitants from terrorism with nuking another country because they gas the soldiers you send to invade them. Question: 1) Would you agree to nuking Bagdad with all its civilians if Saddam launches a chemical attack on the US soldiers invading his country, as W. Bush has stated? 2) If so, do you believe this would "protect Americans and foreign guests" in America, or would it do the exact opposite?