Pubdate: Sun, 30 Sep 2001 Source: Knoxville News-Sentinel (TN) Copyright: 2001 The Knoxville News-Sentinel Co. Contact: http://www.knoxnews.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/226 Author: C.L. Maxwell ATTACKS ON WORLD TRADE CENTER, PENTAGON SPARK COMMENT I was not surprised by the Sept. 11 attacks, but, like others, I too can only try to "write out" this madness. Now I just feel more and more like Cassandra - ever since at least the late '70s I could not understand why Americans did not believe that the repeatedly declared terrorist jihad was for real. Over and over we took direct hits with hundreds of lives lost and countless others held hostage and tortured. Why did civilized nations wait until it was too late to fight against this evil? We now are killed by the weapons and other support that we gave to one corrupt regime after another, while waging a farcical drug war that has destroyed more civil liberties and harmless Americans than anything else in our history. This millennial Armageddon does indeed seem to be a war of biblical proportions, as one commentator noted. How awful that only unspeakable tragedy can unite us. Can we truly defeat those who live only to slaughter us? Why can't we turn the unconstitutional DEA into the T(errorism)EA, especially since opium is one of Osama bin Laden's main exports? That would be one way of proving that our leadership has finally sobered up enough to face the real world, not some puritanical neverland that makes silly fools and hypocritical liars out of everyone involved in it. C.L. Maxwell Madisonville, Tenn. - --- MAP posted-by: Rebel