Re: Ode to America message from rob cohn

[jeffnpat <jeffnpat@nis.net>]

Dear Karen, et al:

When you ask questions that you already think you know the answer to, there is
really little sense in asking them.  I have no idea if we'd learn more about
bin Laden if we were "given" the opportunity to study him while "still ticking"
and talking, or whether or not what, if anything, we would learn that we would
really want to know.

What I do know is that we will always learn much less from a corpse.

Bin Laden has already said, we are told, that he will not be captured alive.
If you are willing to grant him his wish, so be it.  I believe it'll happen
anyway.  Couple of decades down the line we might be wondering who else with
such a mindset might be coming down the pike, and we'll have nothing to work
with--the original specimen being dust.

I spent the night of 9/11-12 just under two miles from ground zero, as I
mentioned "on list" in a rather lengthy and indeed heartfelt posting which got
no response.  My son worked two blocks closer.  My daughter-in-law was
evacuated from the building she worked in because it was close to the United
Nations building.  Both my son and his wife used to live on Beach 129th Street,
the street in Queens where that jet crashed, which is only four blocks long,
just a block or two from where my daughter-in-law's parents still live.  We are
told that the crash had nothing to do with terrorism, or this situation, but it
will be a long while before many of us are convinced of that.  I have been
close to this, and yet I still continue to feel more a citizen of the world.  I
have not yet bought my $29.95 "flag package" to fly the fact that I'm a
patriot, much as the TV ads inveigle others to get out their plastic.  I am not
particularly proud of this, but I am also not NOT proud.  It's just the way
things are for those of us who think.  Perhaps as time moves on, as it has a
way of doing, I will be more self-critical, but not for now.

I will not ask list members to go back and dig out my neglected post-9/11
message.  I'll just repeat that, although I was witness to the reality of it,
what brought me to tears was the photo of people standing in the windows of the
tower, ABOVE THE FLAMES, who would soon be jumping to their deaths--hand in
hand.  I posed the question then, and I pose it now:  Who do you think cared
whose hands they were holding?  Life had been brought down to its lowest common
denominator, imminent death, which awaits us all, no matter where we live!

Jeff


Karen Leiber wrote:

> The problem with imprisoning him is it gives more zealots reason to attack
> us. In which case whose jail do we put him in to study him. And in the end
> would you learn anything about him.
>
> Karen
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "jeffnpat" <jeffnpat@nis.net>
> To: <sinclair@quarterman.org>
> Sent: Sunday, November 25, 2001 4:07 PM
> Subject: Re: Ode to America message from rob cohn
>
> > Dear Karen:

[ Excess quotations omitted. ]


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