Subject: Things I know and Things I do NOT know....

Hi

I have three very different reactions.

These things I know:

My heart bears great compassion for those who have been touched by this thing. It weeps for the willful destruction of life, including many of those still alive whose lives are nevertheless destroyed.

My guts want to bomb every place that Bin Laden has ever set FOOT to a desolate plain of black radioactive glass fifty feet thick. They want to throw the children and wives, the brothers and sisters and their wives, husbands and children, the parents and the friends of the men that did this into a bonfire and televise the results worldwide.

My mind is confused, so these things I do not know:

Where is justice here? How can you punish one man - a HUNDRED men - for possibly tens of thousand of deaths? What is right here? Is it right to follow this destruction with even greater destruction? Does a, "moral high ground," even exist in this mess? In World War Two, we fought the Nazi, and in doing so, became just a bit more Nazi-like ourselves. Will we now, fighting cowards and terrorists, become more cowards and terrorists?

I just do not know. I'm just glad I'm not the person that has to figure it out.

My stomach tightens up every time I see a tape of the towers collapsing, and I think of the children that must have been there, the mothers and the fathers who leave children behind, of the innocent in this matter who do not deserve punishment but who have already taken the worst of the punishment ...

My stomach tightens up and I think that you should all be glad I'm not the person that has to figure it out, either.

This one last thing I know to a depth I pray that none of you ever comes to know: If an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth is the path to take, we are, all of us, going to the restaurant behind out little white canes and ordering the baby-food special.

Last Edited: 08/27/2010