9/11 Anniversary - My reactions

FIRST OF ALL MY RESPECTS TO ALL BRAVE, SERVING, AND MARTYRED AMERICANS!

On the anniversary of 9/11, to gauge world opinion I have been reading articles and essays by purported experts on America & Americans in foreign publications trying to describe the psyche of Americans and their government. It has been painful reading them give advice to us, which I consider nothing but stupid or short of senseless drivel. Their articles and essays may appeal to the less aware people who get swayed by even a light populist breeze, however I have to inform them their analysis is dead wrong! You cannot spend 4 years in an isolated environment of an academic institution in America and let that make you and expert on American psyche! That's doing no better than the terrorists hijackers of 9/11.

I can tell you as a person who grew up here and has now spent half my adult life in this country their "analysis" is way off the mark. One doesn't become an expert on America living in a closed environment like they did.


As much as I am saddened and humbled by the events of 9/11, and bow my head to the Heroes. I dearly wish from the bottom of my heart for the sake of the ones who lost their lives, their near and dear ones, my own children, family, friends and myself the events of the day would have never happened!


Without being an apologist for anyone, have some people in American government and corporate houses made mistakes along the way I'm sure they have. Tell me a nation or corporation that has not bungled along the way? Do you then go out and try to destroy them completely unless there intentions were clearly maleficent? Being a follower of history I can find less than a handful of such instances. America the government and America the corporate has never done anything close to that. Jokes aside, there is no arrogant and loudmouth America. This notion that America the big brother is trying to control the world as the single evil entity is nothing short of poppy seed ingested hallucinations that I can attribute to!

There is only ONE AMERICA, the warm loving, caring, & sharing ONE! The America these people will never know because of their inbuilt and deeply ingrained subconscious prejudices. If America and Americans are so bad why come here? Why not stay in the comfort of your cold dusty cave, or pest filled tropical jungle, or hot, dry arid desert, or wherever else you are coming from? I have yet to see people immigrating to Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, Pakistan, India, China, Mexico, or even Japan and Europe, in droves like they make a bee-line for America even now!

For the last 3 years the country has been in a recession, bottoming housing market, high unemployment, and various other issues, yet the American people or the American government and business has not turned their on backs on anyone anywhere whether it be helping the earthquake victims in Haiti or Japan, rescue trapped miners in Chile (YES, American Technology at it's BEST!), trying to contain the financial meltdown in Europe (would have never guessed it, right?).

Does the world standby Americans when a natural calamity befalls us? Thank goodness we don't have half the problems they rest of the world has or we would be left up the creek to dry...

It confuses me that the rest of the world thinks that Americans have unlimited patience to keep on accepting the hurls and abuse it constantly throw at us yet we keep turning the other cheek! Has 9/11 changed Americans? It didn't immediately, but the procession of subsequent events is surely bringing about a slow and marked change in the thinking of "American" people.

Let me tell you what the event of 9/11/2001 has done, it has made the majority of simple minded, loving, and trusting Americans realize the world is a much deadlier and vengeful place than they can even imagine. That it is not all about "do unto others as you would have others do unto you"! There are people, countries, and ideologies that want to hold you(Americans) responsible & destroy you for the real and imaginary grievances which are inflicted on them by their own people!

Here's a thought if the Saudi hijackers were so upset at their monarchy why didn't they do something in their own country? Because they knew they would have faced a certain and mind you horrible death if their government had even got a whiff of their plans. So they come to America abuse our hospitality, take advantage of our law enforcement mechanism (innocent until proven guilty of an actual crime), prey on the tolerance of American society (had it been any other country they would have been marked men), to kill our people! If once was not enough we have another guy try to do the same almost a decade later by trying to use a SUV as an IED in New York - AGAIN! Yet it was not the first or second time that New York was made a target. In 1993 the WTC was the target of the first of many attempts to kill thousands of Americans by blowing up a truck filled with explosives in its' basement parking lot. So these were and are not isolated one off aberrations, but a series of well thought out deadly projects to inflict harm on the United States of America and it's citizens!

The American people are the ones that ALLOW their representatives to spend billions if not trillions of dollars on foreign aid helping other people. It is the American people who have ALLOWED their C-suite executives to export millions of jobs outside of the country to places like India & China. Yes, there is a business motive to it, but don't forget we could have done sent those jobs anywhere else had we wanted. Don't forget companies like Dell, HP, and others have shut down operations in India and elsewhere before and moved them elsewhere. America, could become a closed and protected economy like China, India, and dozens of other countries. America could also start imposing high tariffs on foreign imports like Europe, Japan, and others. Yet, we don't do it, at-least not yet; and don't tempt us into doing it! The tide is turning as 9/11 has started to make common Americans more aware of what has been and is going on in the rest of the world. Instead of trying to become equals the rest of the world does not think of rising up to the level of America, so what does it do try to do drag it down to their level!

Americans and myself included, because I am an AMERICAN and a PROUD one, are coming to the realization we need to take of our country and people first! We are getting sick of hearing there was a tsunami, earthquake, genocide in a certain part of the globe so we need to send billions of dollars of aid there and put our peoples' lives at risk! We don't care if people are starving in certain countries so we need to send jobs there to help them out. Why? Because look what 50 years of do gooding did to America, more than 3,000 killed in New York City!

For the last 200 years America took care of itself and the world when no-one was there to be a role model, now I think the time has come for America and Americans to once again take care of themselves, but let the rest of the world step-up it's own game!

Am I upset? YES, I am UPSET! Upset as an AMERICAN! Upset as a parent of couple of great ALL AMERICAN kids! UPSET AS AN AMERICAN CITIZEN WHO HAS HAD ENOUGH!

On behalf of most(see we still have freedom of choice!) AMERICANS I'm giving the rest of the world notice don't take us for granted, at-least not anymore!

WE WILL NEVER FORGET!

The Myth of Osama Bin Laden's Lavish Lifestyle

Team Six of the US Navy SEALS successfully assaulted and were finally able to bring an end to the OBL and his terrestrial existence on planet Earth. I believe this is a fact we should rejoice on and congratulate the administration and the brave men and women of this country who risked their lives to make this happen!

I am saddened that even the American media forgets to mention that he, i.e. OBL was one of the major brains behind the 9/11 WTC carnage that took 3,000 lives on American soil and countless many overseas! Let's not forget those whose lives were lost and the sacrifices their family members have to still endure! As well as the permanent changes that have happened in the daily lives of billions of people worldwide since that fateful morning of 9/11/2001.

However, I am more dismayed at the general media who has tried to milk this event by trying to portray a larger than life image of OBL after his death! Let's get one thing straight and clear everyone OBL was a COWARD! And NO he was NOT charismatic or a leader! He preyed on the weak, poor, socially, economically, and mostly uneducated youth like his partner Al-Zawahiri to entice young Muslims to fight for their (OBL+Zawahiri) personal ideology. Yes, there were a few educated folks who supported the same agenda, but they were and are still the minority contrary to what the media wants us to believe. This is no different from how gangs find recruits from modern urban inner cities or militias recruit new converts for their cause in the American Suburbia.

This weasel or rat whatever you want to call him was hiding in a small town being protected by elements of the Pakistani intelligence and military. For days I have been reading about reports of the multi-million dollar compound where the brave and outstanding members of Team Six finally put an end to him. If you have seen pictures of the building where OBL finally breathed his last he wasn't living like a shadow of what moderately well-off Pakistani's live like. The place while big clearly looked in a state of disrepair. It was more like a dilapidated safe-house.

I can bet for a fact that his Pakistani or other handlers lived ten times more lavishly than what he was found living like in his last days. Okay so the compound was large, but big F#$%*&^ deal! OBL was a global multi-millionaire, the media doesn't get tired of telling us this every single moment! If you look at the compound around this large building it didn't even have a garden or a lawn that was properly manicured or well kept, just a dirt field. Small time local-millionaires in the region live in better comfort and style than what OBL lived before he died.

Even the furniture, which you see from the pictures and video released by the US, in the so called mansion looked like it was from the middle ages. OBL was living like a rat in a sewer, not like the Sheikh he was supposed to be. This is no different than when Saddam was found hiding in an underground hole by the US forces years ago! For all the palaces that Saddam had he was literally found trying to survive and stay alive in a rat hole!

What people in the west don't realize is that in most other countries having high walls and gated courtyards is the norm for anyone who is even slightly middle class or above. For Americans who have traveled to places in Mexico, Puerto-rico, DR, or Asia, etc. they will know this is a fact. Again unlike the US or Europe very, very few houses are wired for internet in these countries. With the proliferation of mobiles (cells phones for Americans) most people don't even have landlines for telephones.

Secondly, I can bet most average folks would probably have more than a couple of hundred bucks on them plus at-least couple of credit cards most of the time. All OBL had was 500 Euros (they say he hated the US & everything American so probably no dollars ;-). OBL was a legitimate Sheikh a multi-millionaire who was hiding in a country where credit card acceptance and usage is very low compared to US, he had to have cash on him to survive if ever even in a minor pickle. 500 Euros is not a lot of money, even an economy airfare out of Pakistan costs twice as much. The cost of a weekend stay in a decent hotel in a Pakistani metro would have cost him more than 500 Euros!

In all reality the poor bugger was running scared, hiding in Pakistan where power outages and brownouts are the norm. Life was not even normal forget about being lavish for him at all, he was pretty much stay'in alive by the skin of his teeth! Maybe the CIA guys paid (or were charged) a million bucks for the house next door to watch him from. Which is why they think his house was also worth the same. Just like the US Govt. pays $500 bucks for an ordinary hammer, that sells for $10 at Home Depot!

So read between the hype and garbage the traditional media reports.