Hoboken Almanac - Walter Trego

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Walter Trego - September, 2002

SEPTEMBER 11 + One Year

A year has passed, and we have eulogized and memorialized and compared the tragic events on September 11th, 2001 with other events in history. The Battle Antedum, "Remember the Maine", and Pearl Harbor. Each of these events was catastrophic and immediately there was an outcry: "To arms! To protect!". In some cases it was the right way. But there are also questions.

At this time we are looking at a very different enemy. We are looking at elusive terrorist assassins from many lands and places. So who exactly is this new enemy? Which country? Which group of people?

Indeed, we have been horrifically harmed and violated, I will not dispute that; and perhaps we do need "Homeland Protection" that is different from anything in our history, but at what cost? Do we turn over our Civil Rights, for which we have fought long and hard, to a president who wants unlimited power with no questions asked? Power to make his own laws and conduct all investigations in secrecy behind closed doors? A president who wants us to turn over our Civil Rights to military tribunals - accountable to no one? Do we imprison people indefinitely just because they look like an ethnic group that we suspect or who overstayed their visa "by even one day"? Are we going to repeat what we did to Japanese Americans during World War Two? And how come we did not have similar determent camps for German and Italian Americans during that same time? How do we select which enemy is MORE ENEMY?

Are we heading down a path of unreasoned hatred and suspicion and fear - all being fanned by a constant media onslaught?

Are our basic rights being eroded all in the name of "Homeland Security"? Our senses are being dulled and our eyes glaze over by the constant barrage, from the president and the media, to the point that we stop being vigilant. We are being lulled into a daze of fear and secrecy. Someone wise once said: "Democracy dies behind closed doors". Think about it.

By focusing the public's attention to enemies like Bin Laden and Sadaam Hussein, however real, we are being distracted from paying attention to subtle enemies both from abroad and at home.

Our president is calling for war. We could not find Bin Laden, so now we pick the next name on the list.What makes us so sure that we can find him any better than Bin Laden when the time comes? Our president is ignoring the opinions of our friends across the world and as long as the American people are afloat in an ocean of fear they will forego their right to question. This is not leadership; this is pure arrogance.

Let us go back to 1936, when President Roosevelt sent a letter to Hitler saying what a wonderful job he was doing. The world was in a depression and Hitler led his country to prosperity. In order to achieve and justify his objective to German "prosperity" Hitler selected ethnic minorities and made them the scapegoats for all the problems of the German people. Soon after he took some bold steps, all in the name of "Homeland Prosperity", by marching into Rhineland and taking back possession of it from the French. The French did nothing. Emboldened, he next pushed into Czechoslovakia, claiming there were German citizens being abused there, and again nothing was done. I can go on with Poland, Russia, etc. The German people said and questioned nothing, indeed, the world said nothing. After all, it was for a just cause of "Homeland Prosperity".

Had the Western powers evoked their rights as the winners of the First World War and prevented Hitler from taking this aggressive posture, there might not have been a Second World War. Had the world QUESTIONED his attitude against minority groups like 20 million Jews, Gypsies and many others, the world might have been spared the Holocaust.

The question I ask: "Do we, as Americans, wait and take the first blow to our Civil Rights, or do we listen to history and question motives for unbridled power and demands for secrecy?" If we do not challenge "the powers that be" we may be plunged into a war that we cannot win and lose much more than we could ever gain from such an act. We are facing the subtle and secret erosion of our American Freedoms and Justice. Do not be lulled into complacency by rhetoric and fear-mongering.

These are all questions that all Patriotic Americans should think about and voice their opinions as I am voicing my thoughts on this web - one year later.

Read "SEPTEMBER 11TH, 2001"

Benedict J. Fernandez
September 11, 2002

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