When the attacks on the World Trade Center (WTC) in New York happened, I was out having dinner with some some friends. I only realised it has happened, when another friend sent me an SMS informing me that the twin towers have collapsed. I thought he was joking because the WTC has been attacked before. He simply replied that I should just watch the news on television.

I was only 5 minutes away from home when I received the message so when I turned on the TV, a shocking sight that greeted me. One tower has collapsed and the other was still burning. It wasn’t long before the remaining tower came crashing down before my eyes.

I wrote an email to a friend in New York (the only Singaporean I know who works there) because I couldn’t get him on the phone. It was several long hours before he replied to my mail and I only read it the next morning. His brother was also unscathed, though he was close enough to Ground Zero when it happened.

I was outraged. I was outrage not because I am pro-American. I was outraged because I have a friend whose life was threatened. The terrorists may try and justify what they do, but it has nothing to do with my friend and his brother. Neither has it got much to do with the 2600 over souls which perished in the twin towers that day. Whatever good reasons there might be for these attacks, the very actions of these terrorists invalidated them.

I can still remember the look in the eyes of one of the traders in my office the next day. He was an American. He came into the office and placed a small American flag on one of his screens. I also recalled the Cantor Fitzgerald screens that went blank, and it was very much later that I realised that a total of 658 employees died in the Cantor Fitzgerald office located in the South Tower.

Regardless of my disagreement with certain American foreign policies and some military action taken in other parts of the world, what Osama bin Laden and his henchmen did was unforgivable. It was a pity that he died a quick death only a few months ago at the hands of a Navy SEAL team. I would have preferred that he stand trial for his crimes against humanity, and then hung on the Brooklyn bridge by his scrotum with two fishing hooks which pierced his testicles and tied to a small silk handkerchief like Saddam Hussein. It would be nice if we can all see the hanging of this devil in a live telecast. I would have considered getting shot dead by the SEAL team in Abbottabad as mercy for him.

Sadly, Osama Bin Laden and the ideologies of Al Qaeda has spawned numerous other outfits in the regionn. Whatever political reasons I had to oppose the Internal Security Act [ISA] is set aside because of the threat of Jemaah Islamiah [JI], though I still believe that we should still charge them in court and sentence them formally instead of detaining them indefinitely without trial.

There should be no compromise with these extremists. If they do not treat the lives of the rest of the human race and their property with respect, then they should be treated like wise. These self-righteous, criminal hypocrites claiming to be Muslims and hijacking the religion have no place in human society. Everyone of them should be hunted down like a rabid animal and eliminated with extreme prejudice.