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Attack On America
Mr, Scott Martin Presents Information to Gryphon
Mr. Martin has been a key
correspondent with the
newspaper, giving us his
reports on the developing
coverage of the story. We
have gotten a broad overview
of information surrounding the
terrorist attacks from him. As
we collaborated, we better
understood the facts and new
updates and reports on the
disaster. This individual and
unique review might shed
some light on some of the
issues surrounding the terrorist
attack. This is a summary of
our meetings with him on the
events of the past week.
When asked on
Wednesday, September 12th,
Mr. Martin responded, “If it is
true that Osama Bin Laden is
responsible for [the attack], or
the group that he controls is
responsible for it, the we are
basically going to declare war
on Afghanistan, and him. If
we find out that it’s true we’ll
bomb Afghanistan back into
the bedrock age. They’ll be
running around throwing little
tiny pebbles at each other.”
As we understand that
this is the worst terrorist
attack on United States land
ever. The plans of terrorism
will limit our democracy. This
is a war against organization.
As Mr. Martin explained,
“The good thing that’s
happening here, if you want to
think of something good
besides the heroes there that
are doing the rescue work,
almost 90% of the world is
coming on our side, and said
that what happened was very
wrong. European countries
even said that this was an act
of war. When you talk of war,
it’s a whole different ball
game.”
We watched Palestinian
common people celebrating on
the West Bank dancing and
throwing candy in the streets.
The Gryphon asked Mr.
Martin, “What do you think
we should do about the people
that are cheering?”
Mr. Martin replied, “Well,
they are just ignorant civilians,
they’re ignorant. They see us
as the ‘Great Evil’, and they
see that any time the great
evil, or the great devil gets
hurt, then that’s something to
cheer about. These are
people in the Middle East who
have been really oppressed.
They have been murdered in
this conflict for a long time.
They have been affected in
the conflict with Israel, who
we have been supporting for
years, which is basically a
Christian nation in which they
have gotten [beat up]. They
see it as us supporting Israel,
so we’re evil to them.”
In 1993, Bin Laden made
the infamous statement of his
approach to American
relations. The view he holds
is that any American is fair
target. “A six-month old baby,
to him, is a fair target as long
as it is American,” Mr. Martin
added.
There had been hundreds
of leads, but at the time of the
interview, the President had
singled the potential enemies
down to about four groups that
have that much money, that
much sophistication, and that
much organization. An enemy
that we know of now or a
group or sect that are our
enemies, are the fundamental
Muslim extremists." What are
the odds of getting box cutters
on four
flights on the same morning?”
said Mr. Martin. “You know,
there is something wrong with
the security system here.
That’s what the congressmen
are saying, that we’ve got to
talk about what we have got
to do with this, but even more
importantly about what is
going to happen in the future,
so that this doesn’t happen
again. And that’s where the
whole big security issue
comes up. That’s going to
take a lot of money for these
new detectors, and paying sky
marshals.” (Sky marshals are
armed policemen who
basically fly on the planes to
make sure they are safe.)
Mr. Martin, again, would
like to encourage students to
donate blood. The day of the
tragedy, 80,000 pints of blood
were taken directly from
eastern North Carolina to
“Ground Zero.” Our nation’s
people seem to now have a
resurgence to give themselves
in the realization of human
venerability, as a reminder that
we are all in this thing
together. It also seems as a
fresh sense of patriotism is
spreading. Stars and stripes
deck the cities in unity and
hope, bringing us all under the
common bond of freedom, no
matter what social or cultural
ties we have.
America: The
Great Devil
Through the eyes of Islamic
fundamentals, western society is
seen as a great evil power. They
see us as a contributing force
against the predominate religious
culture, and traditions of Islamic
nationalism. Overseas, America
is deemed “the Great Satan” to
portray our nation as having an
overtone of evil, making us a
prime enemy. If anything
threatens the safety or interrupts
the working of such a
“threatening” world power, there
is, in their minds, much reason to
celebrate.
(Maybe our enemies would
eventually point to American
trademarks like Hollywood and
the music industry for their
rationalizations.) Generalizations
are drawn that this nations
population must be “polluted”
with perverse images and
portrails of those they see as
American media. When solely
looking at the country from media
intake, one could possibly form
an opinion on what could be
considered common of American
life. In their morals, the Afghan
and Muslims are trained and
taught from infancy that
Americans are evil.
Obviously no reason
excuses any attempt to deface
such a nation. Though wavering
at times, yet still standing, our
symbols of freedom, liberty, and
justice for all, for which some still
strive to keep it in its purest form.
Shall we then become the
means of our enemy’s
extermination, or they of us? Life
can be war, but how much can we
learn, even of our own ignorance,
when we put our minds together
for the common good?
Mr. Scott Martin