Those Unanswered Questions

Those Unanswered Questions

February 20, 2006

I started out my writing début on NewsWithViews.com with a piece by this same title. While that piece was about whom children really belong to, parents or the state, this one is about something entirely different.

Following my pieces on President George W Bush, his honesty, integrity and ethics, or the lack thereof, I received several e-mails about weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) in Iraq, that they did and do exist, and were sent to Syria prior to the invasion of Iraq by Bush ostensibly to depose Saddam Hussein.

While I do remember some threat being made, after WMDs weren’t located in Iraq, toward Syria by Bush, nothing along the lines of confirmation that Iraq’s WMDs are, in fact, in Syria, was forthcoming.

Along these same lines, we hear constantly how United States satellites, flying high overhead in the atmosphere, can read a newspaper being held by a human on the ground. With that in mind, it is obvious those same satellites can also locate WMDs on the ground and in transit, being moved out of Iraq which would have had to have been done by people Hussein trusted not to steal them or sell them to the highest bidder. Given the paranoid tendencies of any tyrant, this would have narrowed the field of candidates trusted to move, secure and guard those WMDs significantly.

As for being in Syria, that is questionable, especially given the tendency of any tyrant to not be long on trust, even when dealing with another tyrant. And thinking logically, any animal backed into a corner — as Hussein was, knowing that if invaded he didn’t stand a chance of prevailing, wouldn’t have moved those WMDs to Syria, he would have lined them up in the path of the invaders. Given the ability of insurgents to insert improvised explosive devices (IEDs) in the vicinity of American forces now, such was obviously not an impossible feat then.

Now on to the handling and storage of WMDs. Most Americans are not aware of weapons storage facilities existing right here in these United States. These areas are totally enclosed by fences topped with concertina wire, sitting out in the middle of nowhere, heavily guarded. These weapons storage facilities contain acres of mounds, one after the other, known as bunkers. The construct of these bunkers isn’t advertised but one can surmise they are concrete covered by dirt. Inside those bunkers are found weapons of mass destruction — agents whose sole purpose it is to destroy life, some more heinously than others. Those WMDs are stored in bunkers for a reason: because WMDs are notoriously unstable. It is pretty obvious that the WMDs stored in these facilities could kill millions of people in short order were they to be turned loose in the wind to drift.

Other e-mails I received concerned the World Trade Towers, the Pentagon, and September 11, 2001. More and more questions are coming to light about the World Trade Towers and the Pentagon. I can remember the day very clearly. I was on my way to town when I heard the news on the radio. My first thought was that the newscasters were joking. When I realized they weren’t, my next thought was that my daughter was in Washington, DC, not far from the Pentagon. I pulled to the side of the road and called home to see if she had called. She had just called, she was okay. Knowing my daughter was okay, safe, my thoughts naturally turned, as any good American’s would, to anger: How dare they. How dare these ignorant, backward, uneducated thugs do this to MY country!!!! Just line the whole bunch of them up in front of an open ditch, dispense of them by firing squad, and bulldoze the ditch closed. Even that was too good for them.

Following the initial shock of what had happened, reason finally took over and questions started to emerge. This nation maintains a fleet, at all times, of what are known as alert planes, everything from fighters to bombers, little and big, fast and slow, depending on their purpose in the mission of defending the United States. These planes are armed and ready to go at a moments notice. They can be off the ground, in the air, and headed for a target in a matter of minutes. With the capability to flat out move, they can acquire a fast moving target in short order, they can make an airliner look like its crawling. Scattered around the country, these jets also reside in proximity to our nation’s capitol. They are there for a reason — the defense of the nerve center of our nation.

Protocol says if the acquired target does not respond to attempts at communication with defense aircraft, does not follow instructions to land, you blow the acquired target out of the sky. Just ask the pilot who got too close to President Bush’s ranch in Crawford, Texas. Now, given that these commercial airplanes, ostensibly carried passengers, were headed on a trajectory to the heavily populated areas of New York and DC, the loss of life if those planes were to be used as weapons was obviously going to be much greater than just those on board. So why weren’t the alert planes scrambled when the four commercial airliners went off the radar screen?

Following the impact of the two planes into the twin towers, those towers came down. How they came down also raises questions. Both, hit in the side, imploded, as did World Trade Tower #7, not hit at all. Those implosions were so precise that the towers literally ended up piles of rubble. Ever wonder how that could have happened when those towers were obviously hit in the side. It stands to reason, if they were going to come down, that those towers would have toppled, not imploded so precisely.

Some reasoned that the planes, carrying volatile aviation fuel, melted the steel support girders in the two towers creating a pancake effect which, once started, gained force under the increased weight and momentum the closer to the ground the phenomenon got. This is, of course, assuming that aviation fuel, exploding on impact, would burn hot enough and sustain heat long enough to melt the steel girders that maintained structural integrity.

Unfortunately, aviation gas flashes (maximum but unsustained burst) at approximately 1800 degrees. It takes a sustained heat of over 2700 degrees to melt steel. Obviously the aviation gas, exploding on impact, would not sustain the heat required to melt the multitude of steel girders in the world trade towers.

It also stands to reason that the heat from the exploding aviation gas would be highest at the point of impact, on one side of the building, not equally disbursed to all sides of the building. If enough of the steel support girders were melted to breach the structural integrity of those remaining, it stands to reason that the part of the building above the impact would list to one side and possibly topple, sending debris and rubble in every direction with the steel girders below that point maintaining their structural integrity. If the steel support girders on one side of the building were breached, even one side and one corner, the remaining girders on the other three sides and corners and within the building itself would maintain the structural integrity of the building.

So how is it that the twin towers and World Trade Tower #7 — which was not hit at all — imploded upon themselves so neatly? This is a question more and more people are asking now and no one is answering. And the fact that no one is answering suggests that the prevailing explanation of who, what, when, and how is not credible. That the prevailing explanation comes from our government suggests that our government isn’t being forthcoming, truthful, or honest.

With regard to the Pentagon, ever wonder why, when you look at pictures of the Pentagon taken immediately following the impact, you don’t see airplane parts, seats, human bodies, and luggage that would have naturally become projectiles exploding from the plane by the force of impact, following the path of least resistance in the opening created by the impact? Again, no answers of why we don’t see what should have been present.

Now, back to the WMDs stored here in these United States. The American people may not know where these WMD storage facilities are, but terrorists make the location of such things their business. Nothing is unattainable if the price is right. The loss of life on September 11, 2001 was approximately 2700. Just think how many people could have been killed by hi-jacking something as big as a commercial airliner and crashing it into a weapons storage facility, breaching the integrity of the bunkers and letting lose a cloud of agents whose sole purpose it is to snuff out any life unfortunate enough to be in the path. Just think of the destructive capability. Just think of the horror, panic, and hysteria that could be initiated in a split second. There would be no containment. Any attempts to evacuate would be insufficient and too late. The prevailing winds would carry weapons of mass destruction, concentrated or diluted, everywhere. The long-term effects would be unforeseeable and unpredictable.

Reports are now surfacing that Saddam Hussein actually did have WMDs and that there are secret tapes in which the use of those WMDs against America was discussed. The surfacing of those tapes, at a time when Bush’s intent in invading Iraq, his use of illegal wiretaps against American citizens, has come under fire, is suspect. The time for those tapes to have surfaced was then, not now. And while those tapes may exist, and may disclose discussions of using WMDs against America, the fact still exists that the mere threat of the possibility does not constitute grounds for invasion. What it does indicate is a need for increased security at all points of entrance to the United States, whether by land, sea or air. And the fact still remains that our northern and southern borders remain, post 9/11, wide open to anyone wishing to sneak across for whatever purpose. Three terrorists have been arrested, not generally known to the American public, and improvised explosive devices (IEDs) have been confiscated along our southern border. How many terrorists haven’t been caught and how many IEDs already exist on American soil?

When IEDs start going off in this country, and it’s bound to happen considering the ability of illegal aliens to cross from Mexico into America with little or no deterrence, the American people are going to see firsthand blood spilled on their own soil, they are going to experience firsthand the horror of not being able to see it coming, of not knowing when they might be a victim, of living a chaotic existence beyond their control.

Maybe then, the realization that knowledge is power and the lack of knowledge allows governments to lie to the people without consequence will bear fruit, will wake the American people up to the fact that they are being deliberately lied to and misled.

In among the e-mails I’ve received concerning all this, I’ve been called a Bush-basher, a Bush-hater, anti-Bush, and been told I’ll have to eat crow when the tapes surface proving Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.

We can argue semantics all day long, but the truth is that the American people have little to no knowledge of what their government is doing in foreign countries, how the United States government is using and abusing other nations, especially poorer nations. And the American government is certainly not about to enlighten the American people. Such would obviously not be in the best interests of the American government whose first and only priority is its own power and position.

The United States is a superpower. With that position, in accordance with the foundations of our nation, comes the inherent responsibility to not be a bully. But that is how the United States is perceived by other nations, especially poor nations whose resources and governments are being used by the United States government for its own purposes, benefit, and economy.

Now, if you were living in one of those countries, seeing your land laid to waste, your forests cut down, your air and water polluted for the benefit of a greedy, self-serving superpower, and knowing you couldn’t win a straight on confrontation with that superpower, what would you do to protect your land, your air, your water, your resources, your homeland, your family, your people? You wouldn’t think that chanting “death to America” or engaging in terrorist attacks was fanatical at all. You would see them as necessary to the preservation of your very life.

The problem with Americans is that, for too long, they have not had their very ability to exist threatened. Americans are complacent, apathetic, lazy, and above all, willing to believe anything and everything they are told even when they know, deep down, that it isn’t logical and can’t possibly be true. The same is true concerning the willingness of Americans to act. The prevailing belief, even among those who are active dissenters against an out-of-control rogue government, is that our Constitution and Bill of Rights will always be there, without our help or vigilance, to protect us. To that end we nod our heads in agreement as our politicians, who would never meet the standards or qualifications of a statesman, pontificate vociferously, telling the American people exactly what the American people want to hear without challenge when those same politicians do the exact opposite but continue to be re-elected time after time.

Make no mistake, I love my country. But I have no love for a government that no longer represents the American people, no longer exists within the bounds of the Constitution or Bill of Rights, but exists purely as an uncontrollable, faceless, growing monster devouring everything in its path.