Obligatory 9/11 Post
I took part in a memorial service this morning. It was complete with sound bites from that day and place in time. I cried. I resent having my emotions manipulated in that fashion, but there it is. Thousands of civilians, just trying to go to work. They die because our government supports an unpopular regime in Saudi Arabia. What was their involvement? They paid taxes and worked in a financial hub. Some of them were from my home town. Some of them were faces I passed in the hall of my High School, or their brothers and sisters. I recognized some of the names. I saw those towers being built, the New York skyline off in the distance like the Emerald City of OZ. I saw them fall on a television screen, live.
Fucking outrageous. Disgusting. Horrible. The price for murder is usually life in prison or death. This is true no matter if you kill one person or thousands of people. Whether or not you are ever made to pay that price is another story. We humans have always had a hang-up about numbers, but the murder of one is no less a crime.
I remember a lot more than 9/11. I remember fear and suffering as a village awakens to the thunder of hooves and the glint of sabers at Wounded Knee. I remember what the Romans meant when they said “Decimate.” I remember the stories of atrocities from Burma, and Ethiopia, and “Ethnic Cleansing”. I remember rifle fire in Ireland, and the answering blasts in London as glass showered in the streets. ... and I remember the wailing of the survivors on every continent.
Where did it start? With the Saracens and the Knights Templar? With the Hordes of Genghis Khan? With the small, sturdy brown race that pushed the Caucasians out of the Indus Valley? Who knows and who cares? It must stop!
posted by breakerslion @ 6:15 PM
6 comments
6 Comments:
The horrors of 911.
I could still remember the scene on TV, and the occasion of it all. I had just completed OJT with my reservist unit, and had just come home, only to witness the scenes of terror.
No country should ever have to go through such a terrible carnage.
"They die because our government supports an unpopular regime in Saudi Arabia."
I suppose you mean that they died because our government insists that Israel has a right to exist.
It seems like they died because evil terrorists killed them.
You want it to stop. So do I. But I also want justice, and I want to live. If the radical Muslims laid down their arms and acknowledged that Israel has a right to exist, then we could have peace. But the radical Muslims hate Israel. They hate you. They hate me. They are committed to our destruction.
Do you want to appease these people? Do you want us to lay down our arms and ask them to play nice?
It sucks; on that point, we agree. But if we don't defend ourselves, these people will kill us.
Thank you, Breakerslion. I’m so sorry that you lost people you knew. I didn’t, but my sister lost some clients, and friends have lost family and friends.
The radical Muslims are not going to lay down their arms. But I can tell you that the Muslims I know do not want to take up arms against you or me or anyone else. People in the Middle East lost relatives too on that day, and they are alone and alienated when their neighbors cheer. The whole issue is complicated.
I’m not going to try to talk sense to the suicide bombers; they aren’t ordinary people, a lot of them are fortunate sons/daughters who politically and ideologically driven, rather than being poor or disenfranchised. Mohammed Atta was a pampered boy, with every opportunity given to him. It’s a weird truth that those least fortunate are not necessarily the ones who became most angry; the elite become violent radicals.
What concerns me are the poor and disenfranchised who cheer them on. They are dupes, but to some degree they dupe themselves. Dehumanizing other people is, sadly, a very human exercise. I do not agree with the dehumanization of Israelis, either.
But it is our self-contradictory relationship to the Saudi Royal Family, who shakes hands with us while funding radical madrassas (schools) headed by frenzied America-haters that must finally be dealt with! Why are we appeasing the Saudis? Because that's exactly what we're doing!
No, I don’t want to “make nice.” I’m a realist. But let’s face facts: Iraq is a failure and Iran has positioned itself well in that region. The majority of moderate Arabs/Muslims/residents of the Middle East (overlapping, but not the same, populations) love our freedom and hate our policies. We alienate them to our peril.
Yes, I want bin Laden’s ass. Yes, I wanted Sadaam gone. Yes, I want the people of Iran to overthrow their theocratic government. Everything could have been handled more cleverly. (Remember when the Taliban “lost” bin Laden? That’s the traditional Pashtun way of saying, “If you come get him, he’s your prisoner—he’s no longer our guest.”) A little policy coupled with cultural awareness (and I’m not just talking about diplomacy) goes farther than tons of bombs.
Bin Laden and his henchmen are about as Muslim as Hitler was Catholic.
They are just a group of mesmerised delusional malcontents who just so happen to have huge amounts of money and access to a horde of disaffected uneducated angry men with no prospects for the future.
No country or religion declared war on the USA on that awful day, just a group of radical thugs.
The whole jihadist guise is a cover to legitimize their actions and stir the hearts and minds of the grossly misinformed and indoctrinated Eastern underclass.
The kneejerk reaction to invade Afghanistan and Iraq..Iraq?..has proven to be an umitigated disaster. It will take generations to restore any semblence of trust between the East and the West.
The hubris of the FBI and the CIA and their refusal to cooperate and share information prior to the attacks was deplorable.
Now the dye is cast, the same lies get recycled, and the blatant exploitation of the horrendous events of September 11th is expertly managed by the Rovian propaganda machine and regurgitated by the spoon fed American media.
To add insult to injury now the tireless workers who helped in the recovery and cleanup of ground zero are being diagnosed with lung disorders from the toxic dust and debris.
A horrible day on so many levels.
concernedengineer:
I threw that sentence out to see what would come of it. Osama Bin-Laden is a madman with an axe to grind because of our military presence in Saudi Arabia, where we prop up an unpopular and somewhat corrupt royal family. Thanks to us, the sick little megalomaniac couldn't get any traction on his revolution machine. All the hate-mongering on the other hot buttons of the Middle-East gets him money and cohorts.
Israel is a reality independent of our government's insistence.
Beast: Exactly so, but it seems everybody gets a turn, and ours was far less terrible than the Dresden Fire Storm, to name one example. I am forever disgusted at the idea of civilian targets in a "war". The rest of the war concept doesn't sit much better in my stomach.
Kristine:
"Dehumanizing other people is, sadly, a very human exercise."
If we could see an end to that, what would then follow? I dream on.
homo escapeons:
Well said!
Don't lose that dream.
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