I post rarely to the list but have been lurking for a year or so. I live in
north Brooklyn. The smell has begun to reach us. It is sickening.

I have just received this message from a friend. I'm not sure if we'll stay
or go.

One way or the other I thought it worth passing on.


Andrea Baker



My dears,

I have just received the e-mail below from a very level-headed friend in
Geneva. I don't know what I think on all of this, but there is one point
which is impossible to deny: our health is at grave risk breathing in this
toxic air. I have personally inhaled quite a lot of it being downwind in
Brooklyn on the first day, as well as in downtown Manhattan last night.
Without further discussion, I am heading to Vermont

Please please take care of yourselves & consider very seriously what this
e-mail is telling us.

Much love,
Margaret


>
>Friends in New York:
>
>If I were you I would get out of New York -- now.
>
>We were reading today that bin Laden has trained between 20,000 and 50,000
>followers in his camps in Afghanistan. And now they are all over the place.
>
>The NY Times reported that someone inside his operation reported they had
>developed nerve gas, tested it on animals, and produced thousands of
>canisters of it.
>
>If I were in New York, I would get out. It makes sense that bin Laden's
>followers would do a surprise attack like they did, in the air, taking
>advantage of the element of surprise, then follow up with nerve gas and or
>bombs on the ground just to make sure the US gets really freaked out. In
>fact I will be shocked if they don't do a follow-up. They pulled off a
>really amazing feat, but without a follow-up life will go on in the US, and
>the fear will subside. Bin Laden's followers have the power to pull off a
>follow-up, they know they have the power, and I think they have good reason
>to pull off a follow-up, since it will exponentially increase the
>effectiveness of their attack. Also, bin Laden is marked for death, so why
>would he wait to order it? I think it will happen very soon. Like in days,
>not weeks.
>
>Unrelated to my follow-up theories, according to reports here, asbestos was
>all over the World Trade Center, so everyone who breathed the dust and
>worked on the rescue without safety-wear is screwed. Have you heard that?
>That seems like the kind of thing they might be afraid to say in New York
>because it will make people so sad. But it makes sense that it's true, and
>according to a 60 minutes I saw years ago it only takes one microscopic
>needle of asbestos to cause cancer. It sticks in your skin (usually in the
>throat or lung), and your body creates scar tissue around it to contain it,
>and it stays there until a tumor forms years later. The more you breath,
>the
>more likely you are to have one stick in you, and the more likely it
>becomes
>that one of those that's stuck in you will turn into cancer.
>
>Sorry for the bad news and the bad attitude, but as this sinks in I'm
>trying
>to be more realistic about what it all means, and it's definitely not good.
>
>The fact is you now live at ground zero. The cells that pulled off this
>attack were not the cells in New Jersey and the Bronx and Brooklyn. Those
>cells are still there. Moreover, the success of the attack on Tuesday could
>very well serve as a catalyst in terms of showing the other cells how
>effective the organization is, and that their methods are working. I'm sure
>bin Laden's followers are all very pumped up right now, and I believe they
>are simply waiting for orders from him to go into action with additional
>actions against US civilians.
>
>One other thing, remember that you have two strong reasons to disregard
>what
>I'm saying, both of which are wrong. -- One is you're in a position where
>it's easier to go into denial than to face the reality. Denial means that
>you can go on thinking that they'll clean up downtown and everything will
>return to normal. Facing the reality means you you have to accept that you
>may lose your home, your business, your friends and your life. The second
>reason is related to the first. The government wants you to be in denial,
>and the press repeats what the government says and doesn't want to upset
>you, so they also want you to be in denial. The reason the government wants
>you to be in denial is they desperately want to maintain calm and order.
>They don't want bin Laden to win, and that means they have to make you feel
>safe, and promise you that you will be safe, even though they have no real
>ability to insure your safety. If you don't feel safe, the enemy has won,
>and the government doesn't want that, because that means the government has
>lost.
>
>But that's exactly why I think you're in for another attack. Because bin
>Laden wants to win, and he knows that he has to kill even more people, and
>create even more fear, in order to win. This is the high point of his life,
>but he can make it even better by killing even more people. And his life is
>almost over.
>
>I'm really sorry how serious I am about all this. But there's never, ever
>been a better time to take a long vacation away from the city, and may
>never
>be such a good reason again, especially if you stay. My biggest fear right
>now is that you won't be able to get out in time.
>
>If you want to come visit us you're very welcome. But really all you need
>to
>do is go to Connecticut or somewhere far enough away from Manhattan that
>you
>won't get bombed or gassed. Manhattan is just ground zero. It's like the
>gaza strip or whatever it's called between Israel and Palestine. It's the
>war zone. Only the enemy doesn't have its people living there too, and the
>enemy is in your midst and is ready to die for its cause.
>
>Finally, when Bush comes to New York tomorrow I guarantee you he'll have a
>super high tech defense against explosive and chemical weapons with him,
>but
>he won't be passing them out.
>


_________________________________________________________________
Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp