Sunday, September 11, 2011
Kathleen Parker, Pulitzer Prize Winning Columnist on the impact of 9/11 on the American psyche. "Something was unleashed 10 years ago that bears our scrutiny. It wasn't only evil, though the attacks were certainly that. The event was so cataclysmic and horrifying that it caused a sort of emotional breakdown in the American constitution. Simply put, it damaged our collective soul and seems to have released a free-ranging hysteria that has contaminated our interactions ever since. No matter how many prayers uttered; no matter how many hands held or pledges made; no matter how many bombs dropped or coffins draped. A nation cannot heal itself without self-awareness. On this score we have fallen short. We seem not to want to recognize that we don't have a problem; we are the problem. Putting it bluntly, 9/11 caused us to go temporarily insane." http://www.chron.com/opinion/outlook/article/Terror-attacks-of-9-11-left-legacy-of-hysteria-2163617.php
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Perhaps 9/11 did drive people insane Doug, but the ones who planned it and carried it out were already well ahead in the 'insane' stakes....the country and the world is run by madmen, gangsters and cretins....9/11 is a symptom not a cause in my opinion.
ReplyDeleteYet we go forward Doug and a new day is within the horizon.
ReplyDeleteI think ordinary human beings are sick of war by 2001, AA. So the people who do these things are not sane, that's for sure.
ReplyDeleteNot much other choice Jack. You're right.
ReplyDeleteSo very well stated, Aaran. ".the country and the world is run by madmen, gangsters and cretins....9/11 is a symptom not a cause in my opinion."
ReplyDeleteIS run, present tense, & that is why I have no reason to believe tomorrow will be any better.
I forgot to add: 9/11 did exactly as it was intended to. Were the planners insane, or extremely clever?
I vote for insane. There isn't much cleverness in what those 19 people did if you ask me. They took advantage of a more open security system than they might have faced in other countries like Israel and Jordan.
ReplyDeleteIf you had the will to murder people by airplane, it was possible on that date.
I think al-Queda was hoping for a trans-global clash between secular/Christians and extremist Islamic factions. In part they succeeded, but it wasn't violence that brought down the biggest Islamic state in the Arab world, Egypt, and I don't think the fanatics will waltz into power in Cairo anytime soon.
So like most human plans, bin Laden's gambit was only partially successful.
Well in evolutionary terms they are not clever as I see it anyway and I don't know what other measure than that there is or could ever be really?
ReplyDeleteFair enough, AA.
ReplyDeleteI just ran across this, & cannot imagine how I let it go so easily! I must have been ill.
ReplyDeleteWhat were the immediate results of 9/11? What deceitful actions did we take? Who reinforced us, & for what? What were the consequences? How many innocent people have died? What economic damage has the cost of the invasion caused?
But, let us not forget bin Laden. This is where we can focus our hatred & blame. Our assassination of him was just one more mockery of our injustice system.
Five of our home grown war criminals walk free, responsible for far more deaths than he. Ah well. What the hell. We got what we wanted, so did Tony Blair & the rest of the etal.
That certainly is true. Events like the insanity and inhumanity at Abu Gahib and Gitmo have done as much damage to America's reputation abroad than the Vietnam War.
ReplyDeleteThe interminable quagmire in Afghanistan, the whole insane mess in the Iraq War, and the thumbs up at the highest levels to torture have tarnished the moral authority NATO had had over outfits like al-Queda, Dragon.