Opinion

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12.15.03

Is Today A Turning Point in World History?

Today started unlike the normal I am used to. For a start I could not sleep last night, tossing and turning, the temperature dropped and I had heard that another storm was on its way. At 8.30 am I woke up, it looked cold outside, no one else was awake, and after all it was Sunday so I dove back under the covers!

At 10.30am I was woken by the sound of the neighbor scraping the sidewalk. Had he gone mad? Little did I know that in the two hours I had fallen back asleep three inches of snow had fallen? The phone rang; it was my kid cousin a few blocks away. She enquired what I had been doing all morning and when I told her that I had been asleep she replied, I guess you have not heard on the news that Saddam has been captured?

I dropped the phone on her, and despite my boycott of CNN for their disgusting 9/11 coverage on the day I knew it was the best place I would get this piece of news. And there is it was in plain view. Saddam Hussein, the so called Butcher of Baghdad had been caught. The news went into depth about the capture and the reign of terror he had ruled with and so forth. It’s old news now, no matter where you are you would have heard about it. Even though it’s the early hours of the morning now the world press will all have the same front page in a few hours in every language spoken.

For all the positive reasons that capturing a man like this has for the world stage, or what we are fed by the media and the ‘official’ government line I now have to wonder if there will be a kind of domino effect about to happen. Will the ripples of this fan out and rock the waters with more acts of terror? Sine his capture the Dept. of Homeland Security has raised the ‘Threat Level’ Indicator to Yellow: Significant Risks of Terror Attacks (http://www.dhs.gov). I have to say I am nervous, in six days I take to the skies to visit family for the holidays.

The Muslim religion preaches peace. Before we mix up the events of 9/11 and Muslims as a whole lets get that clear from the get go. Not all Muslims did this act. Not all Muslims are terrorists. Violators come in every shape, form, color, race and religion. The people that unleashed this terror on American soil and on the ground of many other nations around the world say that they do this in the name of their religion. Crap! They use this to hide their  faces. Cowards! But there are the fanatical that use their religion in such a way to promote their idealisms and their hatred for America . Inevitably we fall into a trap that they want; for us as a whole to blame the majority rather than the minority, to denounce their religions as one of violence and hatred. It makes it easier to endorse their personal ideals so they may justify their hatred.

It is these factions, the splinter groups that have me worried. Each day I sit in horror and despair as yet another coalition soldier is killed in action by loyalists, renegades, fanatics, and just about every crack pot that we have to deal with. Add this to the Terror Alert being raised and we could have a recipe for disaster.

Don’t get me wrong. One of the objectives of the War in Iraq was to capture and bring to trial Saddam Hussein. But today I was watched the news, and as they all paraded their ‘experts’ and ‘military tacticians’ each one of them clearly said that today’s events does not immediately make the world a safer place. I could not agree more. In my own opinion I don’t feel that we are any safer than we were over two years ago. No matter how much you lock down a building someone can always get in. The same can be said for a country or even a city.

Do we have to be aware of those same outside fanatics, renegades, and loyalist to Saddam in Iraq and scattered through the world ? Yes. Do I think there will be more attacks on American personal on home ground and abroad? I don’t know. I sincerely hope not.

I am a frightened man since the day of 9/11. The city of New York goes on, the scars will never heal. Before then I never used to let world events bother me as an individual. I listened to them, I followed the news just like anyone else, but did I ever think it would land on doorstep? No. Since then I have to be aware of what happens at home and  thousands of miles away. I just don’t know if it’s going to end up in my lap one more time and that of my fellow New Yorkers. I am a dot in the millions that live in the greatest city in the world that one morning also became a target. This is not what I want to have to consider each day.

Finally; hundreds of brave men and women have given their life in the pursuit of the War in Iraq . There are families, along with the bereaved families of 9/11 that will have a solemn Holiday Season this year and for many more to come. The capture of Saddam Hussein today is a turning point for the intelligence community and I hope for the safety and peace of the world. But I have to ask one question that has been on my mind all day?

One man was identified to be the instigator of 9/11. O-B-L. Where is he and why have we not found him?

-DRS