First, I don't claim to be a lawyer, but my best buddy is. I saw this and wanted his opinion. Read Carefully what the FBI DIRECTOR says.

FBI NAMES NAMES

The FBI, deep into what has become the biggest criminal investigation in U.S. history, has released the names and pictures of 19 suspected hijackers — for the first time linking some to bin Laden and his al Qaeda network.

"We believe that one or more of them do have contacts with al Qaeda," FBI Director Robert Mueller said.

"ONE OR MORE" - you gotta be kidding me. One out of 19, that is horrible. If they are only able to get one confirmed contact out of 19, This sounds like a very shaky case against that terrorist organization. Let me know what you think.

-- Bill (Bill@Bill.com), September 28, 2001

Answers

Bill,

They may have tons of circumstantial evidence and won't say anything more until they have an airtitght case. Also I don't think that we as civilians need to know every little thing that the government is doing to protect us, and to apprehend or determine who was responsible for this attack. Day by day the case is getting more airtight. Eventually it will be obvious who did it and why.

I am not a big hush hush government proponent, but I also don't want the news leaking everything that is going on in this action. I remember during the Gulf War that Saddam Hussein said he was able to track the allies by watching CNN, or something close to that.

We as a nation have to let our intelligence peole do their job without harrassing them constantly about what they know. I know it is hard to trust the government, but we need to give them the benefit of the doubt in this case so it can be brought to a swift conclusion.

Talk to you later.

-- Bob in WI (bjwick@hotmail.com), September 28, 2001.

I agree with on principle. I am not asking them to tell me or the public anything. Remeber, they were the one's that went to the media to tell them this. If it was such an "airtight case", then they need to quit going to the public to build support for their "war on Terrorism". I am not a conspiracy wacko, nor do I belive they are hell bent on erroding our civil libirties. I don't believe in the New World Order, that said. I don't know what would compel them to come out with such weak evidence. I may not know much, but I think the Bush Administration has done a good job of bringing this nation and their other client nations into the fold. Saudi Arabia seemed to realize the importance of defying the son of the man who protected their cash crop. It as if BUSh said "Remeber that little war we won a few years back. How are your bank accounts now that we protected your oil for the next 10 years. Time to pay up folks. Let us use the airbases to bomb your fellow arabs even further into the stone age."

-- Bill (bill@bill.com), September 28, 2001.

I can appreciate that it will take time to really marshall their evidence and in some cases the government might want to protect clandestine sources but sooner or later (sooner is better) they NEED to present to the American people their reasons WHY we should get our troops killed and why we should kill what is beginning to look like a great many other people.

In this nation we don't hold with secret trials, we don't imprison people without first giving them a trial and we don't kill people without being able to demonstrate justifiable cause. I'm willing to be patient but sooner or later President Bush is going to have to prove his case or risk losing public support, most especially if we start taking real casualties. "Because I said so," isn't going to work forever.

={(Oak)-

-- Live Oak (oneliveoak@yahoo.com), September 28, 2001.

Very well said, Live Oak! It sounds terrifically shaky to me, and I think before we can willingly send other people's sons and daughters off to be killed it had best be solid evidence and not just a convenient enemy. The more this goes on the less I like it and I have NO problem with our country going to war over the mass murder of it's citizenry......it just better be the right people that we propose to kill, or it will only become worse.

-- Doreen (bisquit@here.com), September 29, 2001.