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I'm afraid for our pilots. On every flight, they put it on the line. Equipment malfunction or a lucky hit by Afghani AAA or a missile may bring them down. They could be killed, or even worse they could be captured. I shudder to think of what might be done to them if they're taken alive. I'm afraid for the American people. I'm afraid of the counterattacks which will surely come. I'm afraid of how much damage we may take. The continental US hasn't been seriously attacked since the war of 1812; our people are used to thinking of war as something that happens somewhere else. This is the first war in our lives where the US itself is going to suffer. There will be more dead bodies in the streets. I'm afraid for the Constitution. This kind of crisis brings out the best and the worst in people; in the name of security some will try to take our rights from us. This cannot be permitted; it's what we are fighting for. If we destroy ourselves in the process of defeating an enemy, we have not won. I'm afraid for our allies. Terrorist counterattacks will surely not be limited to the US. There will be attacks elsewhere in the world. They may be directed at US citizens or interests, our embassies or our people or companies we own, but there will be many others who will be hurt in those attacks, as there were many people from elsewhere in the world who died in the WTC bombing. And I'm afraid for Afghanistan. The people there have already suffered so much; their nation is a shambles after 25 years of war. Their civilians will cluster in ramshackle refugee camps and starve or freeze or die from disease; they'll be caught in bombings or used as human shelds, and their sons will be kidnapped at gunpoint and taken away to fight. And once the fighting ends they'll come back to find a nation destroyed. But I'm not uncertain. What we're doing is right and it is necessary. Awful things are going to happen, and we're going to do some of them. But worse things would have happened if we had not done this, and that's all that matters. (discuss) |
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