In your role of
terrorist mastermind, you have one aircraft available to strike one
target in Washington D.C. which target would you choose? The Capital
building? The White House? Have you ever seen Washington D.C. from
the air? I circled Washington D.C. one night for about an hour and at
one end of this big grass mall is the Capital building and at the
other end is the White House both damn hard to miss. Some have said
those were the targets for the aircraft that went down in
Pennsylvania but that returns us to the original question, why hit
the Pentagon?
Are Americans emotionally attached to the Pentagon as they are to the Capital building or the White House? George Washington laid the cornerstone for the White House; the Pentagon was constructed of poured concrete during World War 2. It is almost inconceivable to understand what these terrorists had hoped to gain by targeting the Pentagon.
Now let's look at the situation again like Machiavelli, let's use a chess player's eyes. What if the there had been no strike upon the Pentagon? A group of terrorists from various nations high jacked civilian aircraft and attacked the World Trade Center, civilians attacking a civilian target. Could the US military then mobilize to invade Iraq and Afghanistan? The attack on the Pentagon was an attack on US military installation that fully justified a full retaliatory military response.
Of the three successful terrorist flights, it was the most difficult to achieve. This aircraft avoided other higher value targets for what was no more than a figurehead attack. Yet if we look at it through the eyes of Machiavelli we can see that it was the most crucial and the most difficult. This is not a conspiracy theory, this is conjecture. We cannot look in to the hearts and minds of our leaders. We cannot see into the future so we must rely on our ability to see into the past.
With history as our guide we
become schooled in what human nature can and will do. They will
commit terrible acts to advance an agenda. They will burn down their
own Capital or lie about military events. They will kill foreign
heads of state to gain power, they will remorselessly kill the
defenseless and they will even kill their own leaders. It is,
after all, only a matter of degrees.
"O, pardon me, thou bleeding piece of earth,
That I am meek and gentle with these butchers!
Thou art the ruins of the noblest man
That ever lived in the tide of times.
Woe to the hand that shed this costly blood!
Over thy wounds now do I prophesy,--
Which, like dumb mouths, do ope their ruby lips,
To beg the voice and utterance of my tongue--
A curse shall light upon the limbs of men;
Domestic fury and fierce civil strife
Shall cumber all the parts of Italy;
Blood and destruction shall be so in use
And dreadful objects so familiar
That mothers shall but smile when they behold
Their infants quarter'd with the hands of war;
All pity choked with custom of fell deeds:
And Caesar's spirit, raging for revenge,
With Ate by his side come hot from hell,
Shall in these confines with a monarch's voice
Cry "Havoc,' and let slip the dogs of war;
That this foul deed shall smell above the earth
With carrion men, groaning for burial"
William Shakespeare -- Julius Caesar Act 3, Scene 1
Are Americans emotionally attached to the Pentagon as they are to the Capital building or the White House? George Washington laid the cornerstone for the White House; the Pentagon was constructed of poured concrete during World War 2. It is almost inconceivable to understand what these terrorists had hoped to gain by targeting the Pentagon.
Now let's look at the situation again like Machiavelli, let's use a chess player's eyes. What if the there had been no strike upon the Pentagon? A group of terrorists from various nations high jacked civilian aircraft and attacked the World Trade Center, civilians attacking a civilian target. Could the US military then mobilize to invade Iraq and Afghanistan? The attack on the Pentagon was an attack on US military installation that fully justified a full retaliatory military response.
Of the three successful terrorist flights, it was the most difficult to achieve. This aircraft avoided other higher value targets for what was no more than a figurehead attack. Yet if we look at it through the eyes of Machiavelli we can see that it was the most crucial and the most difficult. This is not a conspiracy theory, this is conjecture. We cannot look in to the hearts and minds of our leaders. We cannot see into the future so we must rely on our ability to see into the past.
"O, pardon me, thou bleeding piece of earth,
That I am meek and gentle with these butchers!
Thou art the ruins of the noblest man
That ever lived in the tide of times.
Woe to the hand that shed this costly blood!
Over thy wounds now do I prophesy,--
Which, like dumb mouths, do ope their ruby lips,
To beg the voice and utterance of my tongue--
A curse shall light upon the limbs of men;
Domestic fury and fierce civil strife
Shall cumber all the parts of Italy;
Blood and destruction shall be so in use
And dreadful objects so familiar
That mothers shall but smile when they behold
Their infants quarter'd with the hands of war;
All pity choked with custom of fell deeds:
And Caesar's spirit, raging for revenge,
With Ate by his side come hot from hell,
Shall in these confines with a monarch's voice
Cry "Havoc,' and let slip the dogs of war;
That this foul deed shall smell above the earth
With carrion men, groaning for burial"
William Shakespeare -- Julius Caesar Act 3, Scene 1
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