New York, Pompeii of the XXI Century
By  Manuel Luciano da Silva, M. D.

The World History repeats itself even if we have to wait two thousand years  It was on February 5^th of 63 AD that the eruption of Vesuvio, in Italy, damaged Naples, Pompeii and Herculaneum. Many statues fell, many columns of public structures were broken and many buildings were destroyed.

The inhabitants of those regions, believing that they would not run anymore risks, reconstructed their cities  and continued to plow and cultivate their lands using the fertile soil derived from the new ashes of the  volcano.

But 16 years later, on August 24, 79AD, on a hot summer day, the Vesuvio exploded suddenly and with such gigantic  force that it covered with its mortal ashes all the city of Pompeii and also Herculaneum and Estabias.

The infernal ashes together with poisonous   gases and smoke changed that beautiful day in August into a mortal night. Of the 20 thousands inhabitants  that lived in Pompeii about two thousand  have been found  since the excavations  which have been done in that city during  the last 363  years. Because the destruction of Pompeii was so quick and so violent  -- the thickness of the ashes was greater than 20 feet – all the city life was preserved  in such a way that the excavations  have revealed  the exact and impressive way of life  that existed  two thousand years ago in that historic city in all its aspects such as: familial, social, cultural, comercial, industrial, religious and even sexual.

New York City,  the American  Pompeii
On February 26, 1993, the  world famous skyscraper complex  in New York City known as “The World Trade Center”, with seven buildings  -- two of which were called the “Twin Towers” with 110 flights each – were damaged severely by  a big explosion  caused by dynamite placed  by terrorists in a truck  which they parked  in one of its garage. This act of sabotage caused much panic, six people lost their lives and several thousands got wounded.

  The “World Trade Center”  was,  undoubtly,  the largest comercial and capitalist American symbol and even of the Western World. It was inaugurated in 1973,  and it took five years to complete. It was controlled by the “Port Authority of New York and New Jersey”. Each Twin Tower  cost 1.2 billion dollars and had a height of 1350 feet. Each one  possessed 21,800 windows and 104 elevators. Each Tower had 110 fights and were the tallest  in New York City and were among the tallest in the world. They represented,  in an impressive form to the world,  the pride of the American engineering and architecture.

More than fifty thousand people worked daily in the complex. More than 150 thousand  people passed  thru the World Trade Center every day. It constituted a big city with various banks, (American and foreign). Large companies of investment, law firms, one large hotel, various commercial centers, where citizens of  eighty nations worked daily. 

After the big explosion on February 26, 1993, the  damaged parts of the buildings were restored and everything  returned to its normalcy. The life of the World Trade Center  continued even with  more vigor,  similar to what happened to Pompeii in the year of 63 AD.

Nobody expected that “a  dormant giant”, eight years later, was going to strike and explode with such cataclysmic force  and destroy completely this marvelous skyscraper complex. But the impossible, the inconceivable happened  in the morning of September 11, 2001. It was a monstrous catastrophe which caused the greatest panic throughout America and astonished the entire world! The live TV  images  of two large American passengers planes crashing against both Towers – with only a few minutes apart – and their total destruction – caused by the monstrous gasoline explosion of the planes – gave to  the entire globe  horrible scenes of a true hell described by Dante in his “Divine Comedy”.

Who were the terrorists?
Within the first hour of the infernal destruction of the World  Trade Center  in New York City, two other large passenger planes had been hijacked.  One of those plains hit the Pentagon, the headquarters  of the American Defense Department, in Washington. The other plane  was hijacked to hit the White House, but it did not reach its  target because  some passengers, heroically, fought the hijackers  and the plane  crashed in an  open field in west  Pennsylvania.

In the four  commercial planes  that were hijacked  there were 258 persons  who all lost their lives.  On the other hand  due to the crashing  forces of the planes, 188  people died  in the Pentagon, and more than six thousand have lost their lives  in the World Trade Center, with more than six thousand wounded. More than fifteen thousand children became orphans!  These numbers tell us that more  that three times  people lost their lives in New York than in Pompeii in the year of 79 AD. More than 60 feet of debris  cover the ruins in New York compared with 20 feet in Pompeii  with the eruption of the Vesuvio in the year 70AD.

 Within a few  minutes of the infernal destruction of the American skyscraper icons, the American Governmental Authorities, including the President  George W. Bush suspected immediately that America had been attacked by terrorism. But who orchestrated such monstrous tragedy with a few minutes apart and with such incredible precision?

All the eyes turned to the Middle East and to Osama  Bin Laden, an Arabian millionaire who hates  America and whose name has been connected with acts o terrorism against American Embassies , planes and ships.

Up to now (Sept. 20, 2001) the FBI investigation  has revealed that there were 19 hijackers, divided into the four planes, and they  were all born in the Middle East and also knew how to fly the American commercial airplanes and guide them in a suicide mission against the Twin Towers and the Pentagon. 

How can America and the Western World win this war?
President George W. Bush has already said that this was an act of war against America. He called it the First War of the XXI Century.

The commentators  have  already compared  this terrible act of terrorism to  Pearl Harbor, committed by the Japanese  on December 7, 1941, which cause the U. S. A. to enter the II World War.

The Pearl Harbor disaster which begun at 7:55 AM, caused destruction of 18 war ships, 170 airplanes and 3,700 deaths. It was an act of infamy as President Roosevelt  called it on December 8, when he addressed the Congress.

But at that time the Americans knew who the enemy was and where he was  located, so it could be found and destroyed. Today the situation is much different. The terrorism which destroyed the World Trade Center in New York City was planned by a group of foreign religious fanatics, whose  elements mix themselves  very easily with the other elements of the society, including the American Society. Because the American society is free, open, any of its building  are vulnerable to the acts of sabotage  and terrorism. How can America win such a war when  the enemy is composed by  “invisible agents”  that are  willing to commit suicide?

It is going to be very difficult and it will need a long fight. But American have  to have guts in order to prevent even a  greater disaster, with much larger consequences.

What is the religion  of the Arabs?
For us to understand better the fanatism  of certain Islamic elements, we should review the foundation of the Islam Religion. We should, before going any further, observe that  there are extremists, fanatics,  also in certain Catholic groups (IRA in the North Ireland) and even among the Jews in Israel.

It was Prophet  Muhammad (570-632) born in 570 in the city of Mecca, Arabia, and who at the age of forty started preaching  a new religion based on the rules and amendments dictated directly to him by his God Allah.

At that time the Arabic World was divided into many tribes  and each one had a different religion. Muhammad  was able to conquer various tribes and imposed upon them his new religion and was able to start a new concept of Holy War or Jihad and furthermore fused in a synergetic way the two loves: Patriotism and love of Allah.

With this sentimental duo, Muhammad  became one of the most  dominant figure not only religious but also secular. For this reason the Arabian Empire extended to the frontiers of the India  and also to the Atlantic Ocean.  The Arabs invaded the Iberian Peninsula in 711, and lived there more than 500 years. We, Portuguese, know very well, how many years of wars we had to maintain in order to take  from the Moors the territory that constitutes today Portugal.

Muhammad wrote a religious book called Al Koran. This book is for the Arabs what the Bible is for the Jews and the Christians.

Al Koran, the Sacred Book
The Koran is a collection of the sermons and rules pronounced by Muhammad. Muhammad prohibits his followers from eating pork meat because even though he did not know the causal agent, he observed that pork meat  caused a disease among the Arabs which killed them. We know today that that disease is trichinosis.

The Koran defines,  clearly,  what type of religion  Islam is,  what is the true meaning of Jihad (Holy War) and also  the sins of suicide and martyrom.

As a religion Islam is a very good religion, and its main objectives are to love God Allah. And to love and do good to all  human beings.

For us to understand the motives why a group of Arabian terrorists committed such barbaric acts of destruction, we have know that there are indeed two types of Islam.

(1)      One is the Orthodox Islam, the old one and the good one.

(2)      The other is the modern, the bad  or  Islamism (the fanatic, the fundamentalism).

This Islamism covers itself with the umbrella of Islam, but it is NOT religious. It is a political, fanatic sect which was born inspired in the fascism and communism.

The members of Islamism do not practice Orthodox Islam. They form small  groups  which in their total form compose  “foreign legions of Islamism” and they have already infiltrated  more than sixty countries.

In the  U. S. A. there are about 60 Portuguese-American Catholic Churches, but  on the other hand there are more than three thousand Mosques. Many of these Mosques in U. S. have already been infiltrated  by members of the Islamism sect.

Another startling fact that we have to know is the that because of the American Constitution which separates 

State from the Church, the FBI or any other Governmental Agencies  do not have the legality to inspect the activities  (monies, etc.) of any Mosque, Synagogue or any Christian Church. So these religious institutions  can have covert activities  if they wish. 

How does Al Koran define Jihad of Holy War?
Al Koran is very clear in explaining the Arabic word Jihad, or Supreme Sacrifice.  or Holy War.

If we consult Al Koran. The chapter "Pilgrims",  Sura,  reads as follows:
(1)      The Jihad (pain)  of a woman is  the labor of  giving birth.

(2)      The Jihad ( filial responsibility)  of taking care of our old parents.

(3)      The Jihad  (duty) of a soldier who goes to war to defend the country and  Allah.

(4)      Concerning the military Jihad Al Koran is very explicit. “Has to be a regular army,      against  another  regular army”. “Acts of terrorism against civil populations cannot  be considered in the definition of Jihad”.  

         The  Suicide Law described in Al Koran:
(1) “It is absolutely prohibited anyone  to commit  suicide, even though if there is a supposed just cause”.

(2)      “Anyone who commits suicide, with a knife will spend the eternity in hell with the knife penetrated in the stomach”. 

(4)      “Any one who commits suicide by drinking poison will spend the eternity drinking the same poison”.

(5)      “Anyone who commits suicide by jumping from a mountain  (or a plane) will fall into the burning hell for ever”. 

With these laws so clearly written in Al Koran, the sacred Book of Islam, how can we explain  the existence of Islamic groups who act in the name of Islam or the God Allah and perform acts of terrorism against innocent civil populations by committing suicide  to obtain their terrible objectives

Islamism
There is only  one explanation. The philosophy of Islamism, or the radical fundamentalist Islam , begins  with the brain washing of young recruits, converting them into a new pseudo-religion in which the new students starts believing  fanatically that their Jihad, or their supreme sacrifice, or Holy War, can be attained if they commit suicide for  a specific cause  and therefore they will enter  a special  heaven where the carpets are made of naked breasts and there is an abundance of beautiful virgins who even after intercourse they will continue to be always virgins!

The Talibans
The political group that controls Afghanistan is called Taliban, a word that in Arabic means Students. In the  Afghanistan there are several  religious schools or seminaries  that prepare students for the Islamism. It is from these students that they go all over the world to feed the “terrorist cells”. Osama Ben Laden has been the  monetary sponsor of these schools or monasteries which prepare these students for the Islamism.

Prophet Muhammad
Prophet Muhammad has died 1369 years ao, but the Holy War or Jihad  between the Islam and the Western world – the Christian World – has continued for many centuries. The best example is the Crusades – eight of them – and they lasted more than 200 years – and on the  end Jerusalem continued in the hands of the Arabs….

President Bush
Now President George W. Bush is trying to be   Pope Urban II, who incited all  the European counties,    during  the Church Council on November 27, 1095,  to get together and form a coalition and reconquer Jerusalem from the Arabs, the City where Jesus Christ was born. The Crusades became in a sense the Catholic Jihad for the Christians.

Is the President Bush going to be able to obtain a coalition of the nations of the world, so together the civilized world can eliminate all the terrorists cells of Islamism that exist in 60 different nations?

The United Nations is the international institution that should assure such high responsibility of obtaining such a coalition. But  on the other hand  the U. S. A. owes  more than two billions to the United Nations, so it is  in a weak position to ask…

In the world history there were always crazy people willing to give their life because of a spiritual fanatism. The best example are the kamikazes.  The Japanese word kamikaze is composed of kami = good, plus kase = wind, meaning ”divine wind”. During the II war  many Japanese suicidal pilots (up to 30,000) guided their planes loaded with explosives against American war ships. They gave their lives in honor of the Japanese Emperor, who they though was their God.

Are the Americans going to get another terrible  ”volcano”?
Let us analyze the world  history  in retrospective.

(1)      Pompeii, Italy,  had the first eruption of the Vesuvio, in February 5, 63 AD, but there were no victims that we know of.  Sixteen years later, August 24, 79 AD, there was a gigantic explosion of the same volcano destroying the entire dirty of Pompeii. And more than two thousand human being lost their lives.

(2)      On February 26, 1993, a gigantic exposition damage the New York World Trade Center, and six people died and several thousands were injured. On September 11, 2001,  the World Trade Center in New York City   was destroyed by  terrorism  using American passenger planes as bombs against the Twin towers. More than six thousand people lost their lives, more than 6 thousands were wounded and more than  15 thousands children were made orphans.

(3)      On August 6 1945,  the first atomic bomb was dropped  in the city of Hiroshima, Japan,  killing more than 92, 000 people.  On August 9, 1945,  the second atomic bomb was dropped into the city of Nagasaki,  killing 40, 000 people.

(4)     The Third Act.  Every theatrical play or opera has three acts.  The Cities of Pompeii and New York  have been victims of  two acts of terrorisms!   Are they going to have the third act, how and when?

If you want peace, prepare yourself for war.
If universal history repeats itself – Si vis pacem para bellum – If you want peace  be ready for war – is a Latin proverb.

The Americans have to prepare themselves very  well  to prevent attacks  by the terrorists with atomic bombs, chemical and biological  which will result in  many victims,  not in the thousands but in the millions. Unthinkable?    That was what everyone was saying before the destruction of the  World Trade Center

Who are going to be the terrorists? It does not matter. The Americans have to be on the alert all the time and cannot trust anyone, special from the Middle East.

Presently we have 204 nations in the world. On the World Trade Center citizens of  80 different nations  lost their lives including Portuguese citizens. It is the responsibility of the United Nations, together with these 80 nations to  defend every country against any form of terrorism.

Pax Americana  and the  Phoenix. 
I have lived in the United States for 56 years. I never saw America in such peace, as up until  the catastrophe of September 11, 2001.  This means that the Pax Americana has ended. A new era has begun.

The Governmental authorities have already said that the World Trade Center is going to be reconstructed.  And that a wall similar to the Vietnam  Monument in Washington will be added with the names of  all those that died in the disaster.

Phoenix is the name of a birth, larger that an  eagle, that in the Greek mythology represents the Sun. This bird has a life circle of 500 years. At the end of this period it will  resuscitate from  its ashes, even with more vigor, which conveys to it  the spirit of immortality. Phoenix represents the sun that sets in its flames and rises again in its flames in the morning. So let the World Trade Center be the Phoenix of the XXI Century!

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