I am not american ( I would like to be), but I share with many milions of people around the globe the spirit of America: free country, country blessed with many extremely talented people (many of them immigrants), the way how system of democratic government and free economy should be build, and everybody should get fair chance. As example of country worth to follow. Example of how to build our own government.

(I know that it is partly naive, that american democracy has own share of problems - but still US problems are far better than in other countries...)

So I was also shocked when I heard about crashed planes - I visualized for myself small Cessna with a small bomb. I realized all the horror only hours later - and it did not sinked in yet. It's numb inside - I cannot understand this, because it does not make any sense.

Now, as a programmer I think: how tis happend, what went wrong, and how to prevent it?

What if some muslim extremists are the culprit. There are 1.2 Bilion muslims, and 99.99% of them do not support this horrible act and are sorry for america. If USA will hurt many thousands of innocent civilians, what will be the result? Enough support for 0.001% of remaining terorists to repeat this many times - now they know how to cheaply, low tech hurt USA (couple of knives are all you need and with proper trainig, you can do it with just bare hands).

I agree that USA should retaliate - and probably one of the reasons why this happened is that USA did not finished decisive action in Gulf War, and in many other occasions, so enemies of USA was misled to think it is a weak pacifist country and is afraid to hurt them back. And I understand why USA was reluctant to hurt them back: because US poeople strongly believe in sanctity of human life, any human being of any religion, and this believe is part of "spirit of america" and all the good what is in it.

Some people do not believe in sanctity of life of any human being, and for them kamikadze-style suicide might be a solution for own failed life, which (guided by spiritual macchiavelian guide) may even clear all percieved sins. There will always be these despareate people, and other machiavalian guides ready and able to train them. The worse and more inhuman will be USA's response, the better for the extremists: the more desparates will turn in. We confirmed this many times in recent history in too many countries.

If you want to shoot at a bear, you should be damned sure you will kill him.

I know it will not be easy, but IMVHO the only solution is to try to understand what made these people so desperate that they decided to do what they did. How to make these people so scarce that they will not meet each other, they will be lonely wolves without support group, not able to accomplish something as bad.

USA plans to spend $100 Billions for missile defense. 9/11 just proved how inadequate it is to prevent harm to US people. What if these money will be spent to build school and well with clean water and hospital in every village ot the countries of third world?

USA know marketing and should be better in. One cannot push love down somebody's throat. And I know this is exactly what will be very hard to sell to americam public right now. It will be chalenge of leadership. And I am sorry to say, current leadership most likely will look at the issue not from point of view of international responsibility.

Remember one of the Murphy's laws:
Every complicated, hard to sumarize problem has one simple, easy to explain WRONG solution. And is looking for a person in charge to deliver it.

I hope I am wrong. I wish we could solve perl problems instead. But I am scared what will happen next.

We just seen horible prove that violence does not have any sense, it is not an answer - it is another (wrong) question.

I heard many times that we inherited our planet from our parents. That is not true: we borrowed it from our children. We need to act in the way it makes sense to them, 100 years from now, or we fail the trust they have to us.

I am hoping I am wrong and America will find inner strength and little luck to have right person in right place (as it did many times in history) to do "hard right over the easy wrong". Unfortunatelly, this was in the platform ot the other candidate...

pmas
To make errors is human. But to make million errors per second, you need a computer.

However, I do have to disagree with one thing he said. This will happen, again and again, until one of three things happen:

1. We change the way we think and convince everyone else we have truly changed
2. Those who want to kill us are dead ... every last one
3. We are dead ... every last one ... or the USA has dissolved, most likely into a Balkanization

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We are the carpenters and bricklayers of the Information Age.

Don't go borrowing trouble. For programmers, this means Worry only about what you need to implement.

You missed the fourth option. Which is that we cease to be enough of a superpower to elicit this kind of response from the rest of the world.

This has been the fate of Britain and Spain before us, and many have wondered whether the US is already headed down that path. Personally I think it is, but it won't happen for a few decades yet.

Retaliation begets more and more... on smaller scales look at Ireland, Israel/Palestine;
These things never go away, they become entranched and fester like infections, turning all they touch into sewers.

Pray for the victims.
Pray for the survivors.
Pray for their loved ones and their families.
Pray for the hate and revenge in the hearts of all to be healed (including the perpetrators).

When the hate stops, then the killing will stop.

Retaliation does not stop hate... It feeds it.

I agree in spirit, but I disagree in reality. Yes, I would love to be able to pray for the hate & revenge in all hearts to be healed. And, in truth, I bear no ill-will to any who did not have any part in this massacre.

However, I will gladly join up in any military action to go and kill those who choose to perpetrate hatred. This includes the leaders of yesterday's massacre, the PLO, Ariel Sharon, the IRA leaders, the British leaders, and anyone who's too stupid to realize that the blood in EVERY vein is red, that the DNA in everyone's cells is intermixable, and that the differences between us are barely skin-deep. Hells, not even that deep!

After having been on the Net for 7+ years and having had heart-to-heart discussion with people I will never see, let alone know religion, nationality, or even gender, I cannot view humanity as anything less than an organism. When an organism has an illness, we root it out and kill it, even if that illness is our own body rebelling against itself.

Terrorism is just a symptom. Hatred and objectfication are the cancers. Root them out in yourself and you will make the world better, one person at a time.

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We are the carpenters and bricklayers of the Information Age.

Don't go borrowing trouble. For programmers, this means Worry only about what you need to implement.

As a Bhuddist, (not claiming to be a Good One mind you) I look to the example of His Holiness the Dali Llama for guidance & example in the ways of compassion. From this view I agree with you & look with pride as he lead the migration away from the battle forced on them by Mao.

As an American, I look back at the same events with horror & shame. We turned our backs as 2 million Tibetans were raped & slaughtered in the streets at the hands of the Chinese army.

We did nothing then, and what has it gained? China has annexed Tibet. If we had done nothing in the time of the the invasion of Kuwait, it would still be part of Iraq now.

With compassion, we can try to see what is the reason behind the hatred so that we may ease the suffering which is the real problem, that causes hate.

You mentioned the IRA. I am of Irish decent. (Raised Catholic, got over it...) I do not agree with the fact that Ireland is considered part of Britan. It was annexed in the same way, by a greed-riddled government. The people have suffered ever since. Britan should peacefully restore autonomy to the nation of Ireland. That would ease the suffering & stop the hatred.

The problems that are arising now are of ancient origin, but of somewhat recent exacerbation. Isreal was created in the last century to give a homeland to Jews. Pakistan was created to give a homeland to Muslims. These were created by the rest of the world's "superpowers" to dump their problems into a chunk of desert & forget about them.

I am neither for nor against Isreal. I have observed that the land which they were given was already occupied by people, who happened to be Muslims. Muslims living under a theocracy which is not their own will never be treated fairly. As a Bhuddist I would not expect to be treated fairly there either, being "Goy".

I picked out Isreal & Pakistan specifically because they are so diametrically opposed to each other & because they are both nuclear powers.

The idea of using atomics of any kind in the Middle East is laughable. Afganistan & Iraq are each about the size of Texas, roughly. ONE nuclear detonation would poison the entire area with fallout. (What they are doing running detonation tests is beyond me.)

But I stop laughing when I realized that those weapons are not there for security against each other, but rather against the USA & Russia.

Unfortunately it seems that we are running headlong into a clash with Afghanistan, since the Taliban is 'harboring' Bin Laden. I have to say that this action is no shock, since he was a key figure in the battle against the invading U.S.S.R. he is a national war hero there. Sadly, however, his own vehement "holy" cruisade against America & other non-believers has little to do with the poor starving people of Afghanistan; a nation with the greatest refugee problem in the world, where 1/3 of the population is close to starvation.

Not that I think Bin Laden is a perlmonk, nor do I think he would read this, but I think that he himself could avoid this conflict by redressing his ways & reasserting what is left of his own personal fortune away from weapons & guerrilla training programs, and towards the efforts of feeding his people and giving them some kind of economic hope for the future. By his own statements, if he were to surrender himself willingly afterwards, he would still have his proclaimed belief in the protection of Allah, and might think of himself as a martyr. (hey believe anything you want pal...)

Sadly, Afghanistan is very like Tibet at this time. They have something like 2 main roads in the entire country. Like in Vietnam, where the plan was to 'blast them back to the stone age' these are a people who are not very far out of the stone age yet.

But that is to their advantage & they know it well.

War is won in the Will. You must remove the Will to fight & the war will evaporate. Of course, how we do this? That's the real question.

Whatever the future holds though, we must learn from the mistakes of history. "Don't turn your back others or they will turn on you."

I am noticably conflicted. My religion prevents me from any feelings towards others except compassion & occasionally pity. But my culture cries out for action! Kudos to G.W. Bush for having restraint thus far. Reciprocity IS a deadly game to get into. If you read Bin Laden's rederick, available at pbs.org,you will see that is what his current cruisade is all about. There is a transcript of an interview with him in 1996. In there he uses the term 'reciprocity' over & over again as justification. It would be unwise to play his game by his rules...



Wait! This isn't a Parachute, this is a Backpack!