[geoschmo]

I'll take that beer Dogscoff. And I'll buy you one too. I have read back over my words, and they were too emptionally charged, and that is why I appologized.

It may in fact be that America owes the world an apology for making this mess by enabling these people to get to where they are today. And if that is the case we are reaping what we have sown.

We may in fact owe the world an apology for delaying our entry into the two World Wars until American blood was shed.

I heard an interview with Sen. Joe Biden Last night, who incidentally is my new hero, where he spoke very eloquently to this fact. I have to paraphrase cause I don't recall all the words, but basically it was to the effect that the American people didn't move when the entire British Army was floating in the Channel (I am assuming he is talking about Dunkirk), but when bombs fell on Pearl, we moved.

I can tell you that personally I am unacustomed to being afraid. I am uncomfortable with the feeling. I don't know if this is an American thing, or just me personnaly. Tuesday I was afraid. Today I am angry.

I live in Ohio. For those of you unfamilier with America this is geographically, and even culturally many miles from New York City. Before Tuesday, New York City often times felt like as much of a foreign city to me as London.

Today I am a New Yorker.

On Monday, and every day prior in my life I looked to the sky and felt safe. I felt that I was master of all that I surveyed.

Of course I was naive, but that is how it was.

Before Tuesday my greatest fear was that another American would kill me for the twenty dollars in my pocket. I never conceived of an attack from outside.

Of course I was naive, but that is how it was.

I will tell you something that was not reported on the national news. On Tuesday afternoon as the President returned to Washington, his plane flew over Ohio. Some fighters esscorting him broke the sound barrier.

We were not warned that this might happen. At the time I was not aware what the noise was. I went outside and saw the contrails in a sky where the news had just told me there were no planes. And for a time I was frightened. My knees were were literally weak.

I was not the master of all I surveyed.

I am no longer naive.

To those that wish to do us harm, and I do not believe anybody who visits this forum is one of those...

If your goal was to make us afraid, you have suceeded.

If you goal was to take away our naivete, you have succeded.

If your goal was to make us angry, you have succeded.

If your goal was to make us weak, you have failed.

Geoschmo