Letters to David Irving on this Website

Unless correspondents ask us not to, this Website will post selected letters that it receives, and invite open debate.

Gene Mangrum of Nashville Tennessee thinks (Wednesday, August 25, 2004) the 9/11 hijackers were not intrepid

Umbrage at "intrepid"

I AM an avid fan of yours and your website. But I think you should refrain from language which may be interpreted as sympathetic to terrorists. It does not lend credibility or credence to your overall message. I quote:

"Hazard a guess that it spelt out in simple, credible language the reasons why Atta and his eighteen intrepid men were sacrificing themselves to attack Wall Street, the Pentagon, and the Capitol?"

I don't think these punks were "intrepid". "Cowardly" is more like it. I think people who kill innocent people or use innocent people's lives as simple cannon fodder are nothing more than cowards. Terrorism is a desperate act by those who feel powerless and are too cowardly to attack those who directly threaten them. One should not describe these types of cowards as brave or "intrepid".

I certainly hope that you don't sympathize with these scoundrels. I don't think you do and I don't think you intentionally mean to portray these terrorists as heroes or martyrs or sympathetic characters. But I just ask that you try to refrain from language that might be interpreted as support for these terrorist scumbags.

Gene Mangrum
Nashville, TN

DAVID IRVING writes:

HOW kind of you to write. If you read The 9/11 Commission Report then "intrepid" is the only word to describe the actions of these nineteen young men -- in my view. I did not say "admirable," I said: "Intrepid."

Seizing control of a heavy airliner with a full load of fuel, cargo, and passengers and flying it deliberately into an "enemy" skyscraper takes more guts than launching a cruise missile from an aircraft carrier or submarine hundreds of miles away, or dropping cluster-bombs from an altitude of 30,000 feet or firing thousands of rounds of 50- caliber ammunition* into a village from a C-130 Spectre gunship, or ... or ... or ... etc.

Would you deny the Japanese kamikaze airmen the description "intrepid"?

* Aubrey Soper corrects me on Friday, August 27, 2004 about the armament carried by the Spectre gunship: two M61 20mm Vulcan cannons with 3,000 rounds one L60 40mm Bofors cannon with 256 rounds one M102 105mm howitzer with 100 rounds one 25mm GAU-12 Gatling gun (1,800 rounds per minute) one L60 40mm Bofors cannon (100 shots per minute) and one M102 105mm cannon (6-10 rounds per minute)