This site is set up for complaints, so it only seems fair that I present some of my own. But because it's my site, I'd like to set my complaints apart from the rest. So, I'm putting them here and calling them rants. They won't be regular or frequent, but hopefully some will be informative.

12/9/01 - Terrorists

Yesterday, in America, a great tragedy occurred. Four planes were hijacked, and crashed. Two crashed into the twin towers of the World Trade Centre, in New York, which collapsed. One crashed into the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., and the fourth crashed into the ground in Pennsylvania, assumedly missing its intended target.

Thousands have been killed, and millions affected. Now, whoever did this obviously had it well planned - taking out a major centre for America's commerce, for its defence, and two possible targets for the thwarted plane were the White House and the Capitol building, both prime symbols for the country's government. The hijackers must have known how to fly the planes, since any pilot who knew where they were headed would have crashed the plane in a safer place, knowing they were going to die anyway. Maybe that's what happened in the Pennsylvania crash.

One of the most common sayings taken from Sun Tzu's "Art of War" is "Know your enemy, and know yourself, and you need not fear the result of a thousand battles". The problem here is that someone has declared war on the US, and no-one knows who the enemy is.

I have no idea who these terrorists are working for - a large amount of blame falls on the Middle East and Afghanistan, particularly the fanatical Taliban group. It seems too horrible to consider that this would be organised by Americans, and it is with Afghanistan and the Taliban that the US has its greatest grievances. The greatest fear for me, as an Australian, is that whoever committed these atrocities has not finished, and that they will attack America's most fervent ally.

In fact, our Prime Minister was not 5 km away from the attack on the Pentagon, and was rushed to safety. In a more whimsical situation, many would make comments on how unfortunate it was that it missed him, and I daresay I would be one of them, but this is just too horrible to make any jokes about just yet.

The only thoughts I have at the moment are sympathy for the victims, and those associated with them, and anger at whoever did this for doing it and not making any claim about it. Someone with a specific goal in mind would be making threats at this time, that if their demands are not met then they will find some way to do it again. But someone performing acts of sabotage on such a huge scale, offering no identification, is doing this out of revenge, and that is something to be feared, because it is impossible to know when they will feel that they have had enough revenge, and it is likely that the answer is never.

©2001 Confusing Manifestation

Previous Rants:
10/8/01 - Cloning

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