Reason in a Time of Anger

A rant about the September 11th attacks on the WTC and Pentagon.



Reason in a Time of Anger
By Kendall Clark


   [me1.jpg] [WTCme.jpg]
   
   Out of the barrage of media coverage since 11 September my mind has
   plucked the reported fact that seven out of ten Americans are in a
   state of depression. I am definitely among the seven, and I
   seriously wonder about the remaining three. How, in the face of this
   horror, could any American not be depressed by the collective fear
   and rage of a nation coming to terms with the truth of its
   vulnerability. Our vulnerability has not been exposed by way of the
   much touted "rogue Missile" but by the ingenious use of the banal,
   made infinitely more frightening for its familiarity, and the simple
   ease of its execution.
   
   No ballastic missile defense system could have protected America
   from the attacks in NYC and DC. Proponents of missile defense admit
   as much, but then they argue that you can't criticize the proposed
   system for this failure because it was never intended to defend
   against such attacks. Well therein lies one of our many problems;
   while we were busy preparing for the improbable, we were blind to
   our real vulnerability. What may have seemed plausible to many is
   now exposed as ridiculously naive.
   
   Debates about whether missile defense can be made to work have been
   now seem wholly irrelevant. It hardly matters that we can shoot down
   the imagined missiles of an enemy too impoverished to build them,
   when those same enemies can live among us and through stealth and
   ingenuity turn our own airliners into missiles, the deadly threat of
   which is only now understood: deadly enough to destroy buildings and
   monuments; deadly enough to destroy people by the thousands; deadly
   enough to destroy our sense of invulnerability. We may be in time
   repaired, perhaps restored. We are forever changed.
   
   This isn't supposed to happen to Americans; or so we Americans have
   been thinking, indignantly, forgetting that we haven't much cared
   when it has happened to others. We are shocked that such destruction
   could take place in America, not considering that such tragedy has
   become commonplace for many people in other, less self-possessed
   places. We are appalled at the blatant disregard for the lives of
   ordinary people, forgetting the pain inflicted upon other ordinary
   people by American-backed terror or, worse still, by our own
   government's hand in the name of our national interests.
   
   Don't misunderstand my words or question my loyalties. I love
   America, and I am appalled by this crime against humanity. I only
   ask for reason in a time of anger. Anger is justified. I am united
   with my fellow citizens in anger, but mine is not single-minded. I
   am angry at the enormity of this crime, and I am angry at the
   disruption of my peace. And I am angry, too, that my government
   placed us in this danger. Angrier still that, as a people, we cannot
   see that our "foreign policy" -- our patterned way of relating to
   the rest of the world -- is one of the causes of the atmospheres of
   rage and frustration and callousness inducive of terrorism.
   
   Instead of blindfolding ourselves with the flag and giving ourselves
   and our reason over to the rhetoric of war, we would do better as a
   people -- to make ourselves safer in the long run -- to examine the
   policies that led to the shattering of our national security. It is
   easy to blame a flat, one-dimensional evil, personified by Osama bin
   Laden; but it's harder to see and to admit that (to reverse a tired
   cliche) it was necessary that bin Laden exist, and so we created
   him.
   
   As hateful and as extreme as these attacks were, is it any less
   extreme or hateful to demand and to accomplish the systematic
   destruction of Afghanistan as a sop to our anger? Is it any less
   hateful to harass and abuse and attack and kill people of Islamic
   faith or Arabic ethnicity to quell our fear and secure our revenge?
   In the past 11 days, across the U.S., there've been more than 400
   acts of violence against Muslims or Arabs -- or those perceived,
   rightly or wrongly, to be Arab or Muslim. Two of those 400 acts were
   murders. Does that make you feel better? Safer? More American?
   
   Evil begets and justifies more evil; and through the actions of
   those Americans responsible for those 400 acts of hate, it's clear
   that in their hearts the terrorists have already won.
   
   So how should we respond? The attacks were by every definition
   criminal acts, and they should be treated as such. If, as suspected,
   Osama bin Laden is determined to be responsible for the attacks,
   then he should be pursued, captured, and brought to justice. All
   those who acted in concert with him to commit these acts should be
   pursued, captured, and brought to justice. I suggest nothing less
   than justice. I question whether justice requires war, especially
   the "new", open-ended, unending, war-as-crusade that we're being led
   into by our leaders.
   
   Such a war will do much to legitimize the terrorist acts, giving
   these criminal acts the credibility of a disagreement between
   States. If our goal is justice, it seems better served by treating
   these terrorist acts as international crimes. If we pursue bin Laden
   as a foe, if we wage war on Afghanistan because we cannot wage war
   on bin Laden, we will cause his sympathizers to rally to his
   support, building rather than destroying his networks. War,
   especially this war, will cause civilian deaths; and those deaths
   are too easily justified -- when they can be known by us, given the
   "unprecedented security" with which Bush and the military promises
   to wage this war -- by the facile and irrelevant idea that the
   terrorists did not care about the lives of the thousands of people
   whom they murdered. To speak thus is to speak with the voice of
   revenge, not the voice of justice.
   
   Civilian deaths in Afghanistan or in other Arab or Muslim nations
   will lend further credibility to bin Laden's claim of American
   imperialism intent on the destruction of Islam, a claim that is
   underscored by the President's careless talk about crusades. If bin
   Laden is pursued as a criminal, instead of fought as a foe, the
   world may well be less interested in helping bin Laden and his
   forces. If we make a crusade of our response, we play into bin
   Laden's hands.
   
   You may ask what you can do. You can find antiwar demonstrations in
   your city and take your family to them. You can oppose anti-Arab and
   anti-Muslim racism when you see it on the streets or spooling off
   the office fax machine. You can contact your congressional
   representatives to let them know you oppose a war against
   Afghanistan. You can resist the mass impulse to give yourself over
   to your rage. You can reason in a time of anger.


--
Posted on Monkeyfist at http://monkeyfist.com/articles/784