Some thoughts from the present crisis.
Jack Balshaw 9/24/01

I thought the national trauma caused by the World Trade Center and Pentagon catastrophes would eliminate the double talk and political maneuvering that has become the steady fare of Washington, but it hasn't. There has been much less only because everyone is afraid of getting caught being partisan. But, those wanting to take advantage of the situation to push other agendas are beginning to move.

Don't we all feel foolish about how we kept feeding at the trough for news about Condit? How could that have been so nationally important? What this shows is that, if there isn't any real news, the media will create something to report as news. And we will go right along with them. You'd think the professionals would be ashamed to push such a story as news but until the WTC they didn't have any news to peddle.

The stock market decline may be ended, it went back up significantly as I write this. The newspapers indicated the decline was because there were no buyers. Reality check here, someone has to buy every stock sold. The buyers just didn't want to pay what the sellers would have liked. Isn't that what the free market is all about? Also, nobody had to sell. The cries about losses were only paper tears from investors who have come to believe profit is their due.

My thoughts about the new "war" on terrorism, put some younger people in charge, really in charge. Those heading government departments and military services are too constrained by their years of following conventional procedures to use imagination to get ahead of possible terrorist next steps. They use organizational maneuvering in shameful ways to stay in power. Younger people think of how to do things differently. (They want to show they have better ideas.) The FBI had to have a crop duster call them before they thought about these planes as weapons!

How about the uses of cell phones and personal video cameras? The only information we have about the actual hijackings came from people on planes who didn't survive the event. Amateurs took some of the most dramatic pictures of the planes crashing into the towers. With so many cell phones and video cameras out there, will there ever by an undocumented tragedy about a major event?

Coincident report, on September 11, 1922 the British were given the "mandate" to govern Palestine after WW I. This had a direct linkage with the Jewish people eventually being granted part of Palestine as a homeland after WW II. I don't understand how this has become such a major focus for most of the Muslims in the Middle East. Perhaps, because none of the rulers of these Muslim countries are elected, they have had to give their people someone to hate to keep their people from turning on them.

By helping us, the Pakistani government puts itself at risk of being overthrown by the fundamentalists in their country. Pakistan has atomic weapons. How much do we want to risk an overthrow that would give fundamentalists control of atomic weapons? What is our Plan B if this threat arises?

Speaking of fundamentalists, Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson sure sounded pretty fundamental calling the WTC disaster God's wrath visited on us for our acceptance of abortion, homosexuality, unmarried mothers and whatever else they don't accept. All the extremists aren't in the Middle East.

The two planes from Boston to Los Angeles had a total of 130 passengers. Does this maybe indicate maybe why our airports have too many flights scheduled?

A letter-to-the-editor offered this, " When the Federal Building in Okalahoma was bombed and we found out it was done by Americans, we didn't bomb America". Perhaps we should be cautious about hurting the innocent Afghan people.

The last several military actions we have been involved in have had to do with helping Muslim peoples; Bosnia, Kosovo, supporting the Afghans against the Russians, Somalia(?). This just goes to show that no good deed goes unpunished.