Over-reaching effects

["Maryanne Stroud Gabbani" <maryanne@ratbusters.net>]

I just got off the phone with my lawyer in New York...couldn't reach my
children but he said they seemed to be ok but horribly shocked like everyone
else. He asked what the reaction in Egypt was and I said that the streets
were empty last night and everyone is in shock. They also wish the TV would
stop showing that stupid footage of the celebration because it is so
atypical of the reactions. He tells me that they are beginning to pull in
evidence that perhaps this can be laid at Bin Laden's door. If that is the
case, I would cheerfully strangle the son of a bitch with my bare hands for
what he has done. I don't know however, that I would be happy to see the
women and children of Afghanistan suffer for what some bloody renegade Saudi
has done, when they suffer enough under their own government.

What remains to be seen is the sheer extent of the destruction, not just of
human life and property but also of all the records that were held in those
buildings. They were, for the most part, financial organisations and
insurance companies and the like. One can only hope that the records were
backed up somewhere else. One of the companies that was destroyed was the
one that carried the life insurance on my late husband that has been tied up
in the courts and was to, in part, finance my kids' education. We still have
an account with enough to pretty well take care of it, but it may well be
that the insurance is gone with everything else.

Like I said, it's too small a world for these kinds of actions. We have to
find a better way to live. I hope cool heads prevail and someone takes care
of the guilty party without harming more innocents.

Maryanne Stroud Gabbani
Cairo, Egypt
maryanne@ratbusters.net
www.ratbusters.net