----- Original Message ----- From: Appal Energy To: biofuel@yahoogroups.com Sent: Saturday, July 03, 2004 20:01 Subject: Re: [biofuel] Re: THE HOT MOVIE
Greg, It would help a bit if you took a deep breath on this one before continuing. Bush set "idle" for seven full minutes after being informed that his country was under attack. No. He wasn't told that it was a catastrophic accident twice over. He was told "... America's under attack." So you believe that he should have just sat their and continued to read a book about a goat while his country is under attack? You've already said that is what you would do. I'm afraid that the vast majority of the rest of the world sees that as gross negligence. Sure, under the circumstances his idleness changed virtually nothing. But he theoretically didn't know what the totality of circumstances were at that moment. Rather than moving immediately into a defense posture he muddled and mumbled on about goats for seven minutes. I wonder how many in our military would be able to avoid a summary courts martial were they to dally flossing their teeth at the latrine sink for seven minutes after their unit came under attack? You seem to disregard that the president is the "supreme military commander" of US armed forces. His failure to behave accordingly is cause enough to remove him from such a position, or at minimum to guarantee that he doesn't re-obtain such responsibility. And then, of course, there is the manipulation, distortion and fabrication that he effected to take a nation wrongly to war... Todd Swearingen Post Script: Don't suppose you'd care to provide the flight number for -------------------------------------------------------------------- I know a bit about the military, having been in it. And frankly if the CO thought that you should have your teeth flossed, before you went into combat, you had better floss your teeth. I was busted once for having a " 5 o'clock " shadow, because I was given orders to do something, and wasn't given enough time to shave, before the next orders came down the pipes. History is filled with commanders that thought that you had to go into combat with spit shined boots and lord help you if they weren't shined. History is also filled with commanders ( like Gen. Eisenhower ) that spent hours trying to figure out what happened and what to do about it, ( like the German counter attack during the winter of '44 ), when they were hit with a surprise, but, once they figures out what was going on, they were hell on wheels ( Gen. Montgomery was one such commander, didn't react to surprises well nor to flaws / mistakes in his plans, but, he had a great reputation, when things went well and / or according to plans ), so the analogy doesn't hold water with me. At least like unlike some Presidents ( I could name ), Bush only spent a few minutes, before coming to grips with the issue. His being told it is an attack ( after the second plane hit ) came after he thought the first plane was an accident. Remember, after the first hit, he asked if there was any more information, and was told not at this time, so he had every reason to believe that the first one was an accident. Once the second aircraft hit, even I was in shock I knew it for what it was, but, it took time for it to resister. I saw the look on his face, and it was the same on mine, when I found out that that death had come to someone close. It was one of shock. Of all the scenarios, of attacks to the US, only one person that I know of that even came close to predicting the possibility that it might happen in that particular fashion, deliberately using a nearly fully fueled commercial airliner is the author Tom Clancy, in one of his books. The fact that the attack happened the way it did caught everyone by surprise, no one expected an attack like this, and the fact that it took only 7 min for Bush to work through the shock and deal with something that neither, the President nor any of the other people that the President rely on, ever envisioned - let alone run through a war game scenario and be prepared for, should make people glad that 7 min is all it took. I would bet that had this happened during the cold war, nukes would have been flying before the first tower fell. Personally while I don't agree with some of the things that he has done, I think that taking a little extra time, to deal with his own emotions, to something so unexpected, was a good thing. I won't begrudge anyone a few minutes to deal with what happened. I prepare for the things I believe will happen, where I can affect the outcome, that is all anyone can do. In this situation, once the planes left the ground, the only people that could have affected the outcome were the passengers, crew, and the terrorist themselves. Absolutely nothing prepared the people that were not "in the know", Each of us deals with shock in our own fashion, and the fact that it took only 7 minutes for Bush to work through the shock and collect his thoughts to deal with it is commendable, granted it would have been nice if it was faster, but, thank the Lord it didn't take longer, like I know happened with other people. I was in a situation last fall, were a decision made to late would have been catastrophic and affected thousands of people, but, I was prepared mentally for the possibility, so I was able to deal with it, without hesitation in a way that only a few dozen people know what happened, the people that were with me, and the folks at the hospital were I ended up for a few hours. I have also been in situations where I was caught totally by surprise, and it took a few minutes collect my thoughts and get things moving, lucky for me those were false alarms. Greg H. P.S. If you were asking about the crash in which my friend died, because the pilot had a heart attack, in your P.S., it was a flying orientation flight from the Air Force Academy, I have no knowledge if it had a flight number or not. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Make a clean sweep of pop-up ads. Yahoo! Companion Toolbar. Now with Pop-Up Blocker. Get it for free! http://us.click.yahoo.com/L5YrjA/eSIIAA/yQLSAA/FGYolB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuels list archives: http://infoarchive.net/sgroup/biofuel/ Please do NOT send Unsubscribe messages to the list address. 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