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Hold On to your Turbans
Here is the scoop on Osama bin Laden and other foes.

A week has gone by since the terrorist attacked the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and crashed yet another airliner in rural Pennsylvania. Our eyes and ears have been glued to our television sets as if what we were watching on the oversized tube was not true.

We have had a week to reflect, waived our flags, light our candles and feel heartbroken, but how come I am still feeling leery. It's really hard to think that as Americans, something like this could happen to us, the US of A. Well it has!

The truth is these attacks have been perpetrated by people who are actually willing to go through some great human sacrifices to the point of becoming suicidal. We have now learned that they have lived among us, gone to school with our students and learn to show some great indifference towards our citizens.

For years, we the US have been involved in many acts of policing the world. In Vietnam, we were fighting to keep communism from spreading throughout the region in Southeast Asia. We lost many American lives and lost our sense of innocence.

Just like during the Vietnam experience, the American forces have been deployed in several other international scrimmages. Military action in Granada, Panama and Libya were mere "War Games" exercises. We came, we showed who was in charge and left.

Even though from time to time we need to get out of Vieques and play it for real, we have pretty much come unharmed in most of our bellicose ventures. The Gulf War was about the closest thing we had to come close to any danger, or so we thought. It was during Operation Desert Storm, that I believe, the seeds for the horror of what transpired last Tuesday were originally founded.

Just a few years ago, we were feeling very patriotic because president George Herbert Walker Bush and the allies had defeated the forces of evil. The nation of Kuwait was taken by force by Saddam Hussein and his foes. In order to protect our best interests (oil), we the American people went and bombed away while positioning our bases in and around Saudi Arabia.

We outright won the Gulf War or did we? Saudi born Osama bin Laden was one of many that felt angry and violated about how the US behaved and acted during the Norman Scwarzkopf led forces theater. He felt as if America had not only bullied the opposition but also committed the cardinal sin. The forces from the West had desecrated their holy land.

The Gulf War ended and we elected a new president. Thirty-seven days after Bill Clinton had been sworn as our 42nd president, America was attacked. The World Trade Center was bombed on February 26, 1993 with very minor damages, as only six died. Had the attack gone to total fruition, thousands of Americans would have perished. The idea was to have one tower swing and topple over the other while killing many thousands and creating all kinds of havoc.

The man responsible for this attack, Ramzi Yousef, was found two years later in Pakistan. A fire made him abandon the Philippines, a place where he had been plotting his next move. Thanks to his own clumsiness, American intelligence found that the previous attack was just an aperitif for what him and his gang were planning to do.

Yousef was apprehended and turned to US authorities. Among the items saved from the aforementioned fire was a computer. The information left inside this box was alarming to say the least. Iraqi born, Yousef and his associates had plotted to blow up eleven US commercial aircrafts in one day. This was to happen in 1995 and of course, it was prevented.

As if that was not scary enough, there were letters stating a much more evil ploy. Chemical warfare, utilizing poisonous substances were to be dropped in our water reservoirs. This could have been without a doubt the most harmful attack to humanity. Not hundreds, not thousands, but millions would have died.

So where is the Bin Laden connection with Yousef? Bin Laden's, al-Qaida (terrorist organization), uses money from many disgruntle Muslim sympathizers to buy computers. His followers download easy-to-use encryption programs from the Internet. They use encryption programs to help plan or carry out their plots. They want to have branches of their organizations all over the world.

American intelligence broke the encryption and foiled the plot to have many bombs go off during the Millennium Celebrations in the US as well as abroad.

The government says is very difficult to intercept these encrypted files. Even harder is to crack the images or directions for which these evil plots are directed. In some cases it have taken up to a year to fully make sense of just one file. While most Americans waste away looking at pornography, the bin Laden network have been using the Internet as their communications tool for over five years.

We were not as fortunate in 1998, when two of our embassies were attacked in East Africa. Last year, the USS Cole was hit and 17 Americans were killed. The one constant remains to be that, "All the Islamists and terrorist groups are now using the Internet to spread their messages," says Reuven Paz, the academic director of the Institute for Counter-Terrorism in Israel.

In July, Ramzi Yousef was sentenced to 240 years in an American prison. "Yes I am a terrorist and I am proud of it", said Yousef as he was whisked away. He has not been helpful to US authorities. His demeanor was one of confidence, as if he knew something was in the works. Perhaps, he did.

Many questions are still unanswered as far as to what will happen in the coming days, weeks and months. Last Tuesday's attack have truly opened the door to what seems to be a period of great uncertainty. Are we going to war as most predict or peaceful solution will be reached? Is this the case of two tribes going to war?

Perhaps the most important lesson that I have learned about this whole experience is that no matter what, Americans have pulled together as never seen before. Democrats and Republicans have joined together as if there was no division among parties.

If a Jihad or Holy War is what these Islamists radicals extremist want, well then there is only one thing I can say; "hold on to your turbans, the genie is out of the bottle".

God Bless America!

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