Inklings...

Here's my take on the situation. I'm not saying that I know hard facts, this is just what I've gathered.

Whoever did this didn't succeed.

Whoever is responsible for this incident, be it Bin Laden or anyone else, pulled this maneuver off with such efficiency that we did not even notice it happening until that first diversion hit the Trade Center. Yes, I said diversion. The two planes crashing into those buildings were merely a distraction from what the terrorists were really intending - to hit the Pentagon and the Capitol building. If you take out the Pentagon, you remove the ability to send vital information as quickly as possible amongst national security. If the ability to send vital information as quickly as possible amongst national security is removed, then so is the ability to mobilize units to defend. More importantly, also removed is the ability to figure out where to defend. In other words, you open up the Capitol building to attack. And if you take out the Capitol building, you kill almost every important leader of this country, save a few.

Four planes were hijacked by the terrorists. The first two, large airliners headed to Los Angeles from Boston (therefore capable of traveling a long distance because of an excess of fuel) were set up for two reasons. The first reason is, of course, a diversion from the actual tactic. However, the second reason for these two planes is glorification. What did we do almost immediately after the first plane crashed into the North Tower? We sent out our television crews. Every major news organization in America (and even some abroad) were on the scene to cover this brazen act of terrorism. And just as things couldn't look worse, a second plane comes in and crashes into the South Tower. What did that accomplish? Not only did EVERYONE just watch smoke and debris emit from the World Trade Center North Tower, but with the United States watching and unable to stop it, we got attacked again. Twice. There wasn't a thing we could do, and we got it all on tape. Perhaps this puts that in a little bit better light - "Look at us humiliate the American government!" said the terrorist leader.

Now, while everyone is yelling, "Oh my God!" and fretting over this terrible disaster, what's going on? A third hijacked plane crashes into the Pentagon. Something happened on that plane, though. Someone, maybe more than one, became brave and tried to overcome the terrorists piloting the hijacked plane. Why do I think this? Because if I were a terrorist, I'd want to hit the exact OPPOSITE side of the building. The news reports have said that the plane crashed into the side which was mainly offices, and that the main nerve center was not damaged at all, being on the other side of the Pentagon building. So what happened? For some reason, that third plane never hit it's intended target. Had it hit, it would have knocked out the nerve center, thereby removing that aforementioned ability to relay information quickly to the forces that could possibly stop that fourth hijacked plane from reaching it's ultimate, and most important, destination.

That didn't happen, though. What happened to that fourth plane? If you look at radar trajectory before it crashed, about five minutes before said crash took place, there was a severe jolt in its travel path. That means that something happened to the plane and it fell. It fell like a rock, because the plane was obliterated along with its passengers, which means it would have had to have done a nosedive. What usually causes a nosedive? I think, in most cases, that would be a missile. A missile. Shot by, of all people, the United States Government.

Now, I'm not laying any blame for real here, since I don't really know that much. Maybe someone got brave on that fourth plane, too, and wrested the controls away from the terrorists, only to crash it. But it seems like a logical path of thought. Bam: Two of the largest structures in the busiest city in America get taken out. When nobody's looking, a second smoke screen is thrown up to get the real deal done. Think about it from the point of view of someone who is REALLY pissed off at America. You want to cause a ruckus in the largest place possible, with the highest profile so that all kinds of attention can be diverted to it, while you sneak in the back and blow the shit out of everything important. Where do you hit? New York, of course. What in New York? Why not the World Trade Center buildings? Literally hundreds of thousands of people in any spot at any one time in that area. Making any sense?

But it's of no use to go over how this was done. The important questions are "Why?" and "Who?" "Why?" is probably a tough one. And since not everyone has the honor of the Japanese, "Who?" is also a very tough one. To figure out why, we need to look at some of our past. But first, we need to take into account how long something like this had to have taken to plan out. Those two planes hit in exactly the right spots so as to collapse both of the Trade Center towers. That means that whoever did this, for whatever reason, had to have studied plans of the buildings for quite some time. Four planes were hijacked, all so quickly and efficiently that we didn't even notice until it was too late. All four planes were headed out on long trips, thus full of fuel, and were large - 757's, I believe. So whoever did this had to know that the Trade Center buildings were designed to handle only the impact from a 707. And while that's not a secret, it's also not something your everyday person just knows. The speed and stealth of the execution of the hijackings was so excellent and so precise that they had to be carried out (rehearsed) over and over again to perfection. Our culprit has to have had a lot of free time to spend training people. Thus, the reason for this attack has to be several years old.

And this also leads into who would do it. For when we figure out a real reason for this attack, we figure out who could have done it. A fact that helps in the "Who?" category, though, is that our terrorists were suicidal. They were so devoted to whatever reason was motivating them that they didn't blink to die for it. They didn't blink to fly a few planes into some buildings. They weren't fazed by sneaking around at an airport. Those facts, combined with some past foilings, point a heavy finger at Usama Bin Laden.

I, however, don't believe that it was him.

Why don't I? Well, first of all, he has denied that it was him. Now, I'm not saying he's a trustworthy person, or that his word can be taken for truth, but I don't think he'd avoid responsibility for this. The man is an outcast from Saudi Arabia, living in Afghanistan. I highly doubt he has any concern for the place he lives in, so he wouldn't lie to protect them when he can easily flee. Also, he'd probably want to brag about being able to damage us with such precision and without us being able to stop him. No; while the people who follow him are definitely zealous, and while he's definitely had time to train people for this, and while he even announced in July that he would "hit us where it matters", I don't think it's him. I don't know who it was, nor would I be surprised if it does turn out to be him, but I just don't have the feeling that it was Bin Laden. Has anyone ever heard of reasonable doubt?

For the same reason that even the slightest missing piece of evidence keeps a defendent from being convicted, we should not rush to "bomb the shit out of" Afghanistan. Because if it's not Bin Laden, and the Taliban is not covering up for him, we will have done to Afghanistan exactly what our terrorists did to us. In our country, Timothy McVeigh was apprehended and punished accordingly for his crime. But someone from another country commits an act of terrorism and their whole country gets bombed, regardless of guilt. And while we know that there are people who wholeheartedly hate our country, making them our enemies, that alone is not a good enough reason to kill people. I can sit here and wholeheartedly hate George W. Bush, which makes me his enemy, but that doesn't give him any right to kill me.

Whoever did this is a despicable person. And while I cannot condone the death penalty, the strongest words you could use in reference to them is that they deserve to die. The Japanese bombed Pearl Harbour, yes. But this was on Hawaii and the Japanese government owned up to it. Now, someone has struck us on our mainland - a terrible disaster with a death toll nobody wants to know. Our mainland, not a remote state. This is reprehensible, and should not be tolerated. We need to find out who did this and punish them. They need to be punished thoroughly and the leader of this group needs to be eliminated. We need to send out a message to future such groups that they shouldn't even think of imitating this deplorable act. In the meantime, though, help out. Give blood if you can. If you're a religious person, pray your heart out for those people. Donate money to organizations that are helping recover the victims. Do something to help, because it's good. And good is the antithesis to what we witnessed today. Have a good night.