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139

L. Neil Smith's
THE LIBERTARIAN ENTERPRISE
Number 139, September 17, 2001
Nine One One

I'm sitting here listening to the TV as all the talking heads analyze the World Trade Center disaster. I'm probably just as shocked over the attack as any American, and I'm not sure that I'm thinking totally rationally, but two things come to mind...

First, despite being at the center of the attack, both NY Governor Pataki and NY Mayor Guliani made their way to the crime scene to survey the damage and to meet with their top staff to co-ordinate the rescue and clean up actions. Meanwhile, our President, President Shrub, is busy NOT being anywhere NEAR Washington, D.C. Yes, they spirited Vice President Cheney to a secure location, but it's still NEAR DC, and he is in face-to-face contact with the emergency and defense co-ordinators. Mr. Shrub is staying as far away from DC as possible. Now, the newsheads are reporting that this is because the SS wants to keep Mr. Shrub safe, but that could be done from any safe house near DC. Also, compared to the response from other political and governmental leaders (US and foreign) Shrub's comments appear disjointed and nearly incoherent. This is the man in charge of filling the leadership role of the US? My personal belief is that the reason President George Bush, Jr. is staying away from DC is to keep him from embarassing himself any further.

Second, despite the stunned comments from Senator John McCaine(?), it is quite possible for a person moderately trained in flight skills to seize such an aircraft and crash it into a building. Just check out Tom Clancy's Debt of Honor [paperback, "econo-clad" hardback, audio cassette] for a detailed vision of just such an attack. What makes all this so funny in a sick and perverted way is that in Debt of Honor and Executive Orders [paperback, "econo-clad" hardback, large print, audio CD, audio cassette] (which opens with the post-attack scenario) the various talking heads are gabbling with their groups of technical people and each talking head attempts to try to gain a statement that just such an attack must have also included loading the planes with some form of explosive device. Whereupon the tech people explain that a 747/757/767 is a large explosive device already, containing tons of highly explosive and flammable fuel. Yet, you can tell that our real talking heads have not read Tom Clancy, or, at least, not Debt of Honor and Executive Orders for each of them this morning turned to each technical person and asked whether the planes involved had been loaded with smuggled-in explosive devices prepared just for this attack!

We will continue to hear the 'experts' claim that only a truly sophisticated team of professionals could have pulled this off. I believe that we will find, in due time, that the 'professionals' are nothing more than semi-trained religious fanatics. Even so, the Secretary of Energy is using this event as a springboard for his demands that we develop stronger protection (read: federal government and state government control of our movement.) to ensure that just such an attack can never happen again.

Yeah, right. Does that mean that each city will now have 24-hour Combat Air Patrols of F-16 fighters loaded with AAMRAM missiles to shoot down any incoming flight that does not POSITIVELY respond instantly to Air Traffic Control instructions? What happens if an airliner pilot just gets nervous from being so crowded. What if two airliners have to make unplanned swerves to avoid a mid-air collision due to poor ATC equipment? How many innocent passengers must die to support such 'positive safety' measures.

Already, Governor Davis and the California state government officials are planning committees to develop a 'defense shield' for California, to ensure that such a tragedy can never occur here. Unh-Hunh! And, next we're gonna legislate earthquakes out of existence!

My prayers are for those who lost relatives in the WTC and Pentagon attacks and for those who are trying so desperately to rescue victims and stop the spread of the resultant fires. My thoughts are on the future. I urge everyone to be ready to fight the coming wave of 'close the barn door' legislation that will be generated after this disaster. We don't need to have our freedoms curtailed any further.

Derek A Benner [[email protected]]

IF...

If Abraham Lincoln and Northern interests had not aggravated the South with tariffs, 620,000 Americans would not have died.

If Teddy Roosevelt had not charged up San Jaun Hill, Americans would not have died in the Spanish-American War.

If Woodrow Wilson and his cronies had kept out of European affairs, Americans would not have died in World War I.

If the League of Nations had not forced the election of Adolf Hitler, there would have been no Holocaust.

If Franklin Roosevelt had not aggravated the Japanese, there would have been no Pearl Harbor, and Americans would not have died in World War II.

If Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill had not given Josef Stalin all he wanted, there would have been no communist threat.

If Harry Truman had been no more than a failed haberdasher, there would have been no bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and Americans would not have died in the Korean "police action."

If John Kennedy and the military-industrial complex had stayed out of Viet Nam, 50,000 Americans would not have died.

If FBI snipers had not killed Randy Weavers's wife and son, and a religious cult in Waco had not been wiped out by a benevolent government, the Oklahoma City bombing would not have occurrd.

If that same government had not supported Israel with billions of U.S. tax dollars, the bombing in new York and Washington would not have occurred.

Once again, politicians succeed by failing, "War is the health of the state" (Randolph Bourne), and innocents die.

Brian Monahan [[email protected]]

Sir,

I have watched in horror today as Americas foreign policy chickens came home to roost. Four big fat explosive chickens, landing on hundreds, maybe thousands, of innocent people.

We need to re-examine the arrogant, condescending foreign policy that our country has followed for the past half century. The foreign policy that has allowed us to interfere with other nations internal affairs to such an extent that we would bribe officials, rig elections, casually invade, or just directly assassinate the leader of a nation that we found disagreeable to our desires.

And when we re-examine that foreign policy, I hope that we look to our founders for inspiration. Specifically to George Washington. We should maintain friendly relations with all nations, entangling alliances with none.

Today we have seen what all of our entangling alliances have brought us, as those entanglements have reformed themselves into a giant noose which was used to hang those innocents killed today in New York City, Washington DC and Pennsylvania.

However, we must first hunt down and retaliate against those that murdered these unknown hundreds or thousands of innocent men, women and, likely, children. We should not make the same mistake a third time, that we made with Germany after WWI or with Iraq. So when we do this, do it completely, as we did in WWII.

Yes, I know all the arguments and controversies about how we got into WWII, and I know we should not have been in WWI or Iraq. But that does not mean we should ignore the lessons they can teach us.

In this case we were attacked, innocents were killed. This would be a justifiable use of government force.

End it completely, end it now.

Tom Wright [[email protected]]

Sir,

Has anyone commented on the fact that 25 years ago the US voided the IInd Amdnt on cvil aircraft, with the excuse that this was supposed to stop highjacking, and just how well that worked today? I have in mind a position paper for JPFO, GOA, MSSA, all the usual suspect, calling for 1) its immediate repeal, and 2) for airlines to issue 1911s with appropriate ammo to all passengers.

Has anyone had the testicles (or ovaries) to observe that maybe the reason we have a freshly minted fify foot crater in western PA instead of, say, another hole in the Pentagon is because some airline pilot had the brains to realize that he, his crew and his passengers were dead anyway, so he had nothing to lose, and decided to deny the hijackers their target? I.e. that hundreds, maybe thousands of Americans are alive today because some airline pilot decided that, by God, he was not going to be a whining, sniveling victim and went out the way he damn well wanted to?

Has anyone had the testicles (or ovaries) to observe that when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, Congress went into session for a declaration of war, but this time, Congress was evacuated like the impedimenta they are?

Has anyone had the testicles (or ovaries) to observe that maybe we'll all be better off without half the damn Pentagon?

Charles Curley [[email protected]]
http://w3.trib.com/~ccurley

Hello, All!

Just to show that the early bird DOES occasionally make out, this is a letter I quickly put together yesterday and sent out far and wide. Either yesterday or today it appeared (unedited or with some revisions or abbreviation) in:

The Los Angeles Times
The Indianapolis Daily Star
The New York Post
The Indiana Daily Student

Dear Editor:

Today's horrendous events have produced immediate devastation unprecedented in our short history of domestic terrorism. Tens of thousands of lives have been snuffed out in several hours.

As hard as it may be to contemplate -- especially for New Yorkers in the midst of the carnage -- these losses were probably not the primary goal of the terrorists. More likely they were merely bloody stepping stones along which to prod the United States toward becoming, irretrievably, a police state.

Those who truly hate America will be most interested in watching our government pull the plug on our Bill of Rights -- already in critical condition as "collateral damage" in the War on Drugs and the War for Votes.

The sweetest revenge against America will be watching the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave become, by our own hand, the Land of Papers, Please, and the Home of Staying Home.

Kent Van Cleave [[email protected]]

The below is the text of a message I've been trying to distribute as widely as I can. L. Neil Smith gave me your address & suggested I send it on to you. Please feel free to use it in any way you wish.

If it's in a form that makes attribution easy, please include my email address.

Thanks...

- - -
I'm confused. Maybe somebody can help me.

Everybody is talking about bombing the Middle East. C'mon...you want to kill everybody out there? Very few people are involved. Besides, short of nukes you can't do it. Any attempt will just create more resentment & hatred. We gain nothing. The terrorists gain many, many allies. Remember, these are individuals, not governments.

This is a criminal matter, and the people involved are criminals. Why not identify the individuals involved, find them, and kill them horribly? Why hold innocent civilians of other nations responsible? This is just weird. I don't get it. (Incidentally, if heads of government out there are guilty, why not treat them the same way? Why start a shootin' war, with the wrong people dying?)

Also, everybody wants "the government" to fix this, even though everything the gov't can do amounts to a further assault on our civil liberties. And those of non-citizens, some of whom live within our borders. They are our guests. Why are we even thinking about this? Why not admit our safety is our own responsibility? Why not, while we're at it, save money in the process?

If we really want to stop all this, it's easy. Here's how:

1) Repeal all 25,000+ "gun control" (aka victim disarmament) laws "for the duration"
2) Train flight crews in the proper use of weapons (we can demand that the airlines pay for this before we fly)
3) Issue weapons to flight crews (ditto)
4) Allow passengers to openly carry firearms.
5) While we're at it, severely cut back on the armed bureaucracies that can't protect us anyway. The savings from that should pay for our guns.

Radical? Sure. Would it work? Sure. Is it consistent with the 2nd amendment? Er...actually it's required by the highest law of the land.

We can't possibly afford to have members of armed bureaucracies on every corner, in every airplane, in every bus. Also, if we did, they'd be ineffective. Look at the numbers -- armed civilians are much better at stopping crimes than police officers. We're more likely to hit our targets, less likely to be shot ourselves (that uniform is a target, guys), and less likely to shoot innocent bystanders.

Afraid of a crime wave following all this? Vermont is the safest state in the Union. Carrying weapons is legal, concealed or not. Florida made it slightly easier to get a "concealed carry" permit, and violent crime dropped between 10 & 40 percent, depending on who's counting. These are facts, however unpopular.

Worried about a plane possibly crashing as a result of shooting back? Well...sure, it could happen. But we can do some math here. How many die in the plane crash? And recent events show us there's no reason to expect the passengers to survive anyway, so they have nothing to lose. Also...this way the terrorists don't achieve their objectives. Instead, they die.

I expect to get hate mail for this. Please, before you vilify me, do some reading. Think about it. The actions that give you a warm and fuzzy feeling are not necessarily the actions that produce useful results. Anybody out there involved in raising a kid? Think about it. You know what I mean.

Let's try taking responsibility for ourselves. No, let's demand the responsibility. These individuals are our problem. Our safety is our problem -- and dealing with them is our responsibility.

We don't need bombs for this. We don't need the government for this. Nothing it does can work anyway, and we all know it.

The emperor has no clothes. At the moment, neither do we. But I'm going shopping.

David H. Young
[email protected]

In light of the recent multiple attacks against America, many people must be asking themselves why did this happen? How could anyone be so evil as to do something like this? Well the true answers aren't going to be easy for Americans to swallow. Even though Osada Ben Laden is considered one of the prime suspects and Afghanistan is harboring him, if we find evidence to prove his forces carried out this heinous crime then that still doesn't make him or the government of Afghanistan entirely to blame.

There is another entity that has to be considered a major contributor to this tragedy. A country that has been at war with its own people and has violated the rights of its own people and even murdered its children. This country has incarcerated over one million of its citizens in just the last ten years; many of these people committed nonviolent victimless crimes. It has a total of over two million of its own citizens jailed, more than any country in the world ever has. This country has violated its own Constitution over and over again while its leaders have sworn that it is a nation of laws. As a member of NATO it has, along with other member countries, violated NATO's charter and bombed civilian targets in a sovereign nation embroiled in its own civil war. It currently has troops stationed in over one hundred different countries and is seeking more money from its citizens to enlarge its military operations. That country of course is America.

The American government has meddled in foreign affairs of every country it could. It has used every excuse from national security and defending our allies to stopping ethnic cleansing, but the fact is American politicians need only make up any excuse to commit acts of coercion against anyone or any nation. This more than anything else has contributed to the extreme hatred we saw manifested September 11th and the 19th April 1995 in Oklahoma City.

Today there is much talk about what should be done to counter these kinds of horrendously evil acts that have taken place in America. Some suggestions that have been proposed are that we find the specific group responsible and take lethal actions against them, President Bush has vowed that not only will we take action against the specific groups responsible but the countries that house them. And then we have been advised that we should have more spies infiltrating these terrorist organizations, also certain freedoms we have held now must be encroached upon to protect the American people.

America will surely take aggressive action and punish any country and terrorists responsible, but that is where we need to stop and reflect on why this happened and what we can do to prevent this from happening again. First we have to put an end to the imperialist idea that we have vital interests in the over one hundred countries we have troops stationed in. We must quit meddling in the affairs of foreign nations, our government can't solve this nations problems it certainly has no right to coerce other nations to behave as it sees fit. This mentality more than any other has created more enemies and endangered more American lives than any other mind set!

Second the idea that we have to give up rights to protect ourselves is bogus and was discarded by Americans over 200 years ago. Unfortunately late in the 19th century and throughout the 20th century our society has fostered the idea that freedom is not compatible with safety. The cold hard fact our nation needs to realize is that without freedom there can never be safety!

September 11, 2001, will always be a day that changed America forever. The question is did America learn the lesson that we have to expand our police state to even more nations and live in a police state to protect ourselves, or have we learned that we need to stop meddling in the affairs of other nations and expand the freedom of our citizens to exercise their rights? If we have learned that a non-interventionist foreign policy and expansion of individual freedoms are what makes Americans safer, then the horrible crime of September 11th doesn't have to be the day that America changed for the worse. It can be the day that America said we won't allow terrorist activities to steal the freedoms that made this nation great.

If we have the courage to do this then our children will one day thank us for protecting their inalienable rights.

Kevin J Tull [[email protected]]

Four airliners were seized and turned into enormous bombs. The ultimate loss of life is unknown, but likely to be in the tens of thousands. At bare minimum, the number is likely to be more than 10 times the number of people who died when Pearl Harbor was attacked.

The only weapons used were knives.

Knives! Apparently they were the kind used to cut packing materials and do not look like much on the X-ray machines. But they were enough, because the terrorists knew for certain that neither the crew nor the passengers would be armed.

Why aren't the crew armed. One pilot with a pistol could have saved thousands of lives. One flight attendant was able to hide in a rest room and use a cell phone, but had no weapon to defend the passengers. On one plane, the passengers apparently tried to physically overcome the terrorists and may have prevented their plane from being a fourth bomb. But they were disarmed.

Why isn't there a program for arming the flight crews? Why isn't there a program for training volunteer air marshals?

Why? Because the gun control crowd wouldn't like it. They continue to insist that it isn't people who commit crimes, it's the weapons. Want to end crime, then disarm the law abiding public on the hope that this will disarm the criminals also.

Yeh, right.

George L. O'Brien [[email protected]]

Wednesday night, Sep 12, on Fox News I watched Bill O'Reilly interview a woman who was a former employee of the Department of Transportation. This seething socialist was chomping at the bit for enacting new, sweeping security regulations; knives & a complete ban on all carry-on luggage. Where does this end? Will we all have to wear strait-jackets to travel by airplane?

When the body count is complete, we'll probably learn that upwards of 30,000 people had been killed in under an hour, by -- gun-control laws. It's time to take the gun-control people by the heads & rub their noses in this. They had their chance & it's been a dismal failure. Anybody on those planes with a gun could have stopped this. We need our rights back.

Don Koehn [[email protected]]

I want to get a grassroots movement together to flood President Bush and Congress with requests to change the law so that the FAA is required to recognize State CCWs.

Considering that CCWs tend to hit the range more often than cops, and tend to be more "gunheaded" than most cops, I think we're reliable enough to be able to choose ammo that won't cause undue damage to the plane.

The track record of CCWs in various states that have "Shall Issue" laws has shown that people holding CCWs are level headed enough to only shoot when needed.

Last but not least, the heroism by the people on the plane that crashed [near] Pittsburgh demonstrates that if the people on board the other planes had had an effective method at hand, then tens of thousands of lives would have been saved.

http://www.vote-smart.org/index.phtml is an easy source to get addresses for your representatives.

If you'd like to just mail the President, send mail to: [email protected]

Jeff Schwartz [[email protected]]

Y'all:

As you may or may not know, I am a Web hosting provider for libertarian, pro-gun, and anarcho-capitalist Web sites.

I just registered the domain name deadterrorists.com.

I'm going to put up a site that shows various, graphic ways that the people responsible for this act might be punished.

(Though you can be sure that I'll intersperse the site with my thoughts on how this mess was avoidable.)

So ... let's assume for a moment the guy behind it all is Bin Laden. Anyone have any notion where I can get a hi-res picture of the guy? The first thing I do, I'm going to graft it onto a pike and put it in front of the rubble. That'll be the main page.

But I'm also interested in other ideas. Just killing these guys might make them think they're headed for Paradise. So what would be a really good way to keep that from happening to a member of Bin Laden's religion?

Burying it in defiled ground? Dismemberment? Typically religions have prescribed ways of disposing of the dead, with some ways being reserved for making certain that the deceased does not reach Paradise.

There must be something, and I'm too ignorant to know what it is.

Any advice or suggestions would be welcome.

Also, if anybody knows Bin Laden's e-mail address, so that I may inform him of the site when it's up, please feel free to pass it on.

Ahhh ... I feel better now than I've felt since Tuesday. An actual way to contribute, using my technical skills. :))

Bill Stone [[email protected]]

The US Government is trying to use this terrorism as the excuse to attack the last vestiges of the BIll of Rights. I think the one idea we should promote heavily is arming the flight crews and attendants. Even gun-control advocates can support this, while they won't support any ideas involving armed passengers. If we can focus debate on this idea, it will drain off support for other useless and harmful ideas. Of course the truth is that airline terrorism is trivial compared to blowing up dams, releasing viruses, nerve gas, etc., and many other means of attack that don't even require suicidal fanaticism. But the emotional response now is going to focus on airliners as though they were our only problem, and arming the flight crews will make people feel better without wiping out civil liberties. (Who knows, it might eve help once in a while.)

[email protected]

Grave New World

Every 20 years or so, there is a day where the whole world changes, suddenly and dramatically. Often those days are marked by the assassination of a president or other prominent figure. Sometimes, the precipitating event is a financial panic or act of war.

September 11, 2001 was one of those days. The full impact of the terrorist attacks on the people of the United States is not yet known, but it will be far-reaching. The destruction of the World Trade Center will likely play as great a role in shaping the 21st century as the assassinations of McKinley, Kennedy and the Archduke Ferdinand played in the 20th.

Already, a great majority of the American people are willing, even eager, to accept new restrictions on their freedoms in order to "combat terrorism." And the politicians are only too eager to oblige them, even as they mouth platitudes about "freedom under attack."

Of course, it is those very politicians -- the Bushes and Clintons of the world -- who stirred up the hatred that enabled despots and terrorists around the world to rally their followers to attack innocent Americans. The primary blame for the grisly acts of terror which stunned the world yesterday lies with those who perpetrated them, coldly planning and executing complex and coordinated schemes to kill thousands of innocent victims. But it is America�s "bipartisan" foreign policy that set the stage for these events.

In the coming weeks, we will be treated to an unending stream of propaganda about how "we" were attacked and how "we" must pull together to support our nation�s rulers. We will be told that we must accept new restrictions, relinquish even more of our privacy, give the police and the military even more power, carry national ID cards, etc., etc., etc.

For what? To combat terrorism? These measures will fail, because the real problem lies not in our nation�s "lax security" but in its leaders' unquenchable desire to meddle in the affairs of other people all over the world. We are outraged -- as we should be -- when thousands of innocent Americans are killed by foreign terrorists. But where was the outrage when President Bush the First and his successor Bill Clinton ordered air strikes throughout Europe and the Mideast, year after year?

Things are about to get a lot uglier in the United States, as our rulers seek to impose new controls on an already over-policed America. And people who should know better are jumping on the bandwagon, excoriating anyone who dares to point out that America's "leaders" bear some of the blame for yesterday's heinous act.

I have long predicted that the fate of America in the 21st century will likely be decided around the year 2004; the events of September 11, 2001 make that possibility seem even more likely. The weeks, months and years ahead will prove crucial in the battle for individual liberty. If we who love liberty are not vigilant and united in our efforts to prevent the imposition of a full-blown American Police State, the greatest casualty of yesterday's terrorist attacks will be the rights and liberties of the American people.

David F. Nolan
September 12, 2001

I had really hoped that this letter would be sent to The Libertarian Enterprise under very different circumstances, but time and events wait for no one. I have divided this letter into several parts as it has several themes and I give you permission to publish or edit any part as you feel is needed.
- - -
On a happy note I would like to thank Mr. L. Neil Smith and the many other contributors for the great discussions (argument?) around and about the issues of liberty, freedom, rights AND responsibility.

I had read several of Mr. Smiths book over the years as a fan of Science Fiction, along with many others. About 2 months ago I had done what has become more common on the Internet now, and started on a web site about one thing, followed various links, and arrived at a completely different area of the web.

In my case the beginning was my usual tech haunt (www.slashdot.org) and the ending was at a site devoted to the issues surrounding home schooling which brought me to the writings of a Mr. John Taylor Gatto. [of no relation to the editor of TLE I assume?] I ordered his newest book on the modern school system (I later found a glowing revue of it on this site). Reading this, combined with my recent marriage, and the though of having children soon, was a great push to look closely at my opinions, politics, and future.

Realizing the Libertarian (shall we say) bent of Mr. Gatto, I started to re-read the first author I though of in the same vein, Mr. Smith. I also began to do some searching on the web for Mr. Smith and discovered this, TLE, site off his website. I began to read all of the TLE from the beginning and have now completed most of the site. I am still reading a few of the late 2000/early 2001 editions. Combined with talking to a few friends of a libertarian bent, reading other authors like James P. Hogan, and surfing MANY of the sites listed here, I am now certain that I am now, and have long been, a libertarian. OK a slightly frozen Canadian libertarian, but still, a libertarian.

I can also state with total assurance, that if anyone cares to also read this much libertarianism in less than 6 weeks - GET THE REALLY BIG BOTTLE OF ASPIRIN. This much libertarianism in a short period could meltdown parts of your brain.

Anyway I just would like to say thanks again for this wealth of information and knowledge. I hope in the near future to contribute an article I am trying to finish on Libertarianism/US History and their relationship to the Open Source Software movement (yep Mikey is a computer geek). If not as an article I hope to at least contribute a link to this info on my website to your Letters To The Editor section, if you find it good enough, of course.
- - -
Next. Somewhat in relationship to the above I would like to say that I think you must do more that just say "I'm a Libertarian". You must act in some/many ways to support this idea. For some that action is political, for others it is educational (i.e.. the TLE), and for myself it is financial. I am not rich, and the Canadian dollar just does not buy what it used to, but I like to help where I can. I have found the PayPal system excellent and have used it to contribute directly to TLE, I recommend the system. I have supported those authors I thought I like and have learned from (L. Neil Smith, John Ross, Dr. Lott, Mr. Gatto, etc.) by buying books.

While it might not be a lot of money, I believe every little bit helps. Along that lines I have already purchased three copies of Mr. Gatto's excellent book on the American School System, and have given them to family and friends. With the thought that ideas may have a more lasting effect then money I would now like to make a proposal to the fine folks at the TLE. I would like to try and get two bangs for my CDN buck and I would like to order from Mr. Gatto's site 8 copies (one for each of your Bill or Rights amendments dealing with individual rights - see I have been reading the site - and 10 is a little steep for me right now) and have them send directly to you. All I would ask is that they be given/donated in such a way as to have the most impact in making people think about libertarianism, modern schooling, and the government. I was thinking they might make good gifts to some of the kids that you have a writing contest for, or some such.

Anyway, if this is of interest please contact me at [email protected] and I will make the arrangements. Just trying to do my part, heck if the US ever gets it back together again, and returns to a Constitutional Republic I might like to move there. Heck even the Free State idea sound good.
- - -
And now finally to the saddest note. I would like to say how saddened I was to hear of the horrible events of this morning in Washington, NewYork, and Pennsylvania(?). My deepest feelings go out to the family and friends of those killed on the ground and in the air. What else can be said.

I did have the unusual experience of trying to explain the events of the day to a colleague of mine as we watched the news during our lunch hour in one of our companies video rooms. With any news story the important things are "who, what, where, when, how, and why"

We may never know all the WHO, but most will be found in the end. Given that the WTC was attached it does not seem likely to be a domestic group.

The WHAT they did is obvious, as is the WHERE, and the WHEN.

Most of the HOW is known, we fill in the minor details as time goes on. I do find it ironic that I had just read last week the line in Mr. Smith's novel The Gallatin Divergence, that said in regards to Koman's planet "... what a swell incentive a worldwide antinuclear treaty had provided for the development of biological warfare...". Remove the ability to strike one way, and another way "will" be found.

(As we say on the net - I now risk certain flamage - but must say what I feel.)

Unfortunately most Americans will get all the above and never accept/see/understand the final issue.

Anyone who reads this publication can come to a more rational explanation of the WHY of these events then most of the government and media seem to be. Even without knowing the exact group responsible I think most libertarians would agree that the American People have now begun to pay for the decades, even century, of actions by the American Government who claim to represent those same people. The forces of those that have felt the effects of the American Government do not appear to be so willing to DISTINGUISH between the Government, and The People, "IT" claims to represent. Such fine lines are lost on many people and groups around the world that have felt, in one form or another, US Government influence.

Again I say to the American "People" that we wish you the best, and may whatever, or whatever God you believe in, aid and comfort you in this terrible time of need.

Peace Be With You - (things must be really bad for me to say that, as I am an atheist)

Mike Pare [[email protected]]

To whom it concerns,

What's with that Reichard White pro-Ossama bin Ladin bullshit? [see http://www.webleyweb.com/tle/libe58-19991031-05.html - ed.] Can you honestly support his opinion enough to publish his letter? If you do, I wish the worst upon you and your loved ones also. That is just disgusting. He idolises and murderer. He made a career out of finding sheep to carry out his orders of murdering innocent people. We have the freedom of religion and belief, otherwise you wouldn't be allowed to think what you do. So how is the U.S so bad? You need to strongly rethink your standing on the value of life. I hope you burn in hell too. By the way feel free to post my letter and email address because those who disagree with me are more then welcome to enlighten me on how I am wrong.

Unknown User [[email protected]]

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