Pentagonal Ponderings For Fridays Dispatch

• Has anyone thought about the families of the 911 hijackers and wondered what they would do with their remains and if there has been an effort to retrieve them? Few things could give a better insight to the way a Middle Eastern person processess information than this question. There has been no legitimate effort on the part of their families because most Middle Easterners believe that 911 was concocted by the US and Israel to give carte blanche for military action against Islam. Even if they did come forward retribution would be swift, extensive and awful.





• Actual conversation between myself and 11-12 year old boy in Iraq: "Where's George W. Bush?" "Heck, I don't know- Washington I guess" "Oh, OK where's Rummy?" "I don't know-I suppose the Pentagon." "Ah yes, Arlington, Virginia. Saddam terrible- Bush good."





• Conspiracy theorists alternate between amusing and disgusting me and challenging my thinking.





• I mean come on- a government that can't win a drug war they declared 30 years ago, can't balance a budget, can't organise a national election without overwhelming controversy and the need for a court decision, can't, can't... but, can organise a conspiracy involving multiple nations, thousands of civilians and military personnel in multiple civilian and military organisations etc. to kill thousands of its citizens and possibly cripple or destroy it's economy to get a war on against a people it has almost always actually sided (such as in Bosnia and Kosovo) with in military action or humanitarian aid?





• There are many factoids concerning The Pentagon such as the number of acres of windows, the millions of tons of concrete it took to build etc. but, my favorite trivia? "Abbie Hoffman declared the group's intention of levitating the Pentagon 300 feet (90 m) by means of meditation, wobbling it once in mid-air in order to exorcise evil spirits" when he led a protest there.





• That building cost 83 million dollars in 1942.





• In the military anyone who worked in the Pentagon is viewed with awe and reverence without any consideration first being given to what their mission may have actually been.





• They may have been shining a generals shoes, making his coffee and scheduling appoinments but, they'll be spoken of in hushed tones- His last assignment was the Pentagon! and angels will sing out when they come around.




• Really, I heard them once.