Over the past couple weeks I haven't read a newspaper or seen any television, and a few times I've wondered if there was anything interesting going on in the world. As I drove down the street to my mother's place, I saw a flag at half-mast and idly wondered why. I came in and both TVs had the volume turned all the way up so the painter out in the yard could hear them. I just sat down to sign on at the computer and check my email. I saw the paper... ACTS OF WAR in bigger type than I'd ever seen... not that I noticed it was bigger than I'd ever seen... and wondered briefly what was going on in the world. After five or ten minutes the loud TV filtered into my head enough to make me think truly unusual had happened... Peter Jennings had been on an awfully long time... and I picked up the newspaper and spread it out on the table so I could see the front-page story. Then I was just shocked.
This time last year I was in Manhattan seeing the sights. Just a couple weeks ago my stepmother had a meeting in the world trade center. It's hard to imagine those towers just aren't there anymore. My first horror though was for the people on the planes. We were talking recently on this board of how we'd like to die. And I said I didn't have a preference but that has got to rank high on my list of ways no one should have to die.
The US is an obvious target for someone wanting to be heard. We're powerful and prosperous. And thank heaven for that. There will be help for every survivor and for all the families of the dead. If the guilty party can be discerned, justice is almost certain. And the country's far from chaos. Not even Manhattan is anything resembling chaos. Since I opened the newspaper I've thought a lot about the families of those killed today, but I've also thought a lot about people in less prosperous, less powerful countries for whom terrorism is a daily event.
As horrible as yesterday's events are, and as deep a wound they'll make in our emotions, they're barely a scratch on this country's abilities to function. Other countries out there are completely torn apart under far smaller but unrelenting acts of terrorism. Yesterday will cement our unity as a country, and possibly help forge greater ties even between Arab and Jewish Americans... it will, for better or worse, increase our efforts and awareness in security and perhaps war. But one thing that also has to come from this is a thankfulness for our strength and prosperity, a deeper sympathy for those countries less capable of handling terrorism, and a need to extend our great prosperity to help them however we can.
The United States is often disgustingly self-serving. Of course it's important to tend to our own country's wound, and to seek justice. But I hope that's not where it stops. Good things will come from the tragedy, they always do. And bad things. I hope someday we'll be able to list a greater openness and willingness to help other nations even where our own interests are not involved as one consequence of yesterday's events. The terror the people in America felt yesterday is felt much more regularly in other parts of the world. Empathy has to count for something.
I suppose for it to count, it has to be more than empathy. It has to be action.
Z
ID:193956
 Sep 12 2001, 11:48 am
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I hope someday we'll be able to list a greater openness and willingness to help other nations even where our own interests are not involved as one consequence of yesterday's events. Not trying to boast or anything, but perhaps you (America) should take note from some smaller countries. New Zealand has and continues to help in numourous countries for no other reason than a moral one. Our Army numbers only about 5 or 6 thousand regular soldiers, yet we are deployed activly in over a dozen countries with peacekeeping and aid. Most notably in East Timour. Also, incase your interested, New Zelaands Army has just mobilised and a mass recruiting campaign has just been put inplace to help America, should they find someone to kick the crap out of. | |
I see the problem as the US try to impose their values all over the world.
So freedom is good. But what do the hungry masses in Somalia want? Food. The Somalia adventure is not done out of concern for the people of Somalia, but for the purpose of testing a new US military doctrine. How have the US helped the Somalian people? By sending supplies that were taken by the warlords? I read in the newweek mag that the "international" involvement prolong the conflict by the duration of the mission. And the war spoilts last longer. So what have US done for the people of Somalia? Why isn't North Somalia's Government "Somaliland" recognised by the US? It is stable and peaceful. Much better then the south. Why does the US insist on not recognising them? Remember what happened to Cuba? You might lose another natural ally there. I gather that US involvement anywhere is not due to an enlightened motive to promote peace but due to selfish greeedy desire to impose control. | |
*gasp* You mean to say... the U.S. Government is acting in its own interest?! Heavens forfend!
Just because there's only a handful of abnormally large kids on the playground bullying all the smaller ones doesn't mean that there aren't plenty of smaller ones who would do the same thing if they were capable. All over the world, people are pushing around other people, and have been for millenia. No major global power in the history of major global powers has ever been a truly benevolent one, although generally speaking they view themselves as such. What sort of world power would you rather have dominating global affairs? One of the old European empires? The U.S.S.R.? Heck, as long as we're talking about alternative histories, suppose Hitler had conquered and held together a good chunk of the world under the Nazi ideology? Fancy a Japanese military empire? It's easy to sit there and say that humans are selfish, aggressive and overly domineering. But preaching about it isn't actually going to fix it. | |
It's easy to sit there and say that humans are selfish, aggressive and overly domineering. But preaching about it isn't actually going to fix it. Yes. Nothing can fix it. | |
Spuzzum wrote:
It's easy to sit there and say that humans are selfish, aggressive and overly domineering. But preaching about it isn't actually going to fix it. I'll go on record as saying that while we've done many very bad things to other people in the world over time, as a whole the US (especially post-Nixon, and even moreso post-Reagan) has been the most benevolent superpower in history. We haven't used wars to expand our property in over a century and after World War II become one of the more truly free societies. (Pre-WWII, in my opinion, we were only slightly better than the Nazis and such...we had our racist camps too, but we didn't kill them all). And Somalia was a pure attempt at helping someone (with some motive to get Bush a better place in the history books). We had no self-interest there, which is one of the reasons we screwed it up so bad. | |
Okay, I know America-bashing is a fun activity for those outside the US borders, but saying that the US "only acts out of selfish" motives is a bit unfair. The US has committed more money, troops, lives, and efforts to helping nations throughout the world than *ANY* other nation *EVER*. In fact, I think it is precisely because we have allowed others to become to dependant that much of this anti-US sentiment arises. Like spoiled children whining that their father doesn't give them enough and like the poor children who simply envy where the man had to work to get, many foriegners are too busy espousing the evils of the US to even realize that without the US, they probably wouldn't be around. Let's look at the facts:
US intervention in World War II saved not only Western Europe, but much of Asia as well. Not only that, but the US invested billions of dollars and sent thousands of its citizens to help rebuild friend and foe alike. The US was instrumental in forming both the Marshall Plan and the UN in order to give all countries a say in world affairs and help bring about a more united world. When the French economy colloapsed in the late 50's/early 60's it was US 'capitalist pigs' that poured money to boost their economy. And all we got in return was insults. The United States has frequently been the main and often sole support for third world nations struggling from warfare or natural disasters. This despite a lack of foriegn aid in instances like this summer where over 3 dozen American communities were levelled by tornadoes. The United States is the source of leading humanitarian groups such as the Red Cross, the Peace Corps, and Habitat for Humanity, not to mention other cutting edge organizations working to alleviate suffering such as the American Cancer Society. Americans give more per capita to charity than any other nation in the world. It was the United States who worked to stabilize the IMF, Japanese, Russian, and Mexican economies despite other nations cheering when our dollar eroded. Do not kid yourself; Americans got to where they are not because they were born into it, but because every generation has fought to hold what they held and shed blood, sweat, and tears to make it great. We are a nation that takes those outcast or fed up with their own nations. We are despised because we have taken a road that few other people have been brave enough to follow- and we have prospered. We have as often as not seen no aid in our darkest hours, but it has never slowed us down. This crisis will be no different. We will seek out the support of others because we desire their alliance and want them to have a say. But we do not need their approval. I cheer those independant minded individuals who shake the mantle of ridicule and unite with us in genuine sympathy. To those who rejoice in our sadness, I can only extend pity. We do not hold our allies' poorly considered words against them, even as they hold every action against us. Hopefully, the world now sees that America is flesh and blood, just like everyone else; it is simply our resolve and the grace of God that has granted our success. To this end we welcome everyone to join as in our success and weep with us in our hour of tragedy, just as we wept for others. But like the phoenix, we will rise again, and I fear that our foes have a terrible reckoning in store. -James | |
Do not kid yourself; Americans got to where they are not because they were born into it, but because every generation has fought to hold what they held and shed blood, sweat, and tears to make it great. Yankee to English translation: Right place, right time. | |
There are many people at "the right place at the right time"; the erroneous assumption is that people automatically realize this. Second, many times it's just "making good with what you've got."
-James | |
Jmurph wrote:
There are many people at "the right place at the right time"; the erroneous assumption is that people automatically realize this. Second, many times it's just "making good with what you've got." We also got to where we are with a lot of killing and the near genocide of a people. I think, in the last 50 years, we've built a great country, in large part by starting to actually follow the spirit of the rules set up at our founding. But we should never forget and can't fool ourselves about some of the evil things we did to get to this point. | |
This turns out to be really really hard. Our experiences in Somalia were one example of trying to do this...
The main problem is that if our direct interests are not involved, then we are likely to start something, dabble a bit, and drop it, leaving the people worse off than when we started because now they have developed some dependence on us and we haven't taken the time to give them the tools to solve whatever the problem is without us.
Over and over we have lifted the hopes of some people, had them take some form of action based on our promises, then dropped them like a hot rock and left them stranded. The Khurds being one of the worst examples.
But, nonetheless, I'm hoping that we will now be focussing more on terrorism as an entity in itself, and working with the rest of the world on ways to stop it. Developing tools to do that can end up helping everyone while we attend to our direct interests.
And terrorism is its own thing...frequently terrorists don't actually want to win, because winning would mean they weren't special anymore, they actually had to do boring stuff like maintain the economy, and they wouldn't get to run around shooting people anymore. It's common for some guerrilla group in a country to reject serious offers of peace with them, because then, well, there'd be peace.
Guerrilla groups and terrorists are not always the same thing, but it's general musing...
(Unfortunately for all, the Taliban WERE interested in winning...)