Slashdot Mirror
Our New Pearl Harbor
Eerily, the scene invokes disaster movies -- a number of which have actually shown the World Trade Center towers being blown up. Staring across the harbor on this gorgeous day, it takes a few seconds to realize that this isn't the evocation of something new and horrible, but the real thing, our own Pearl Harbor, perhaps even worse, since it struck us closer to home and reminded us all how technology can bring us all nose-to-nose with war in seconds, and there are no real barriers between people willing to use it in evil ways and us. Technology allows us to see the building collapse before the reporters even know what has happened. We have to try and make sense of it ourselves.
The silence is stunning, unprecedented for mid-morning, mid-week anywhere near Manhattan island. Everyone is in shock. Stories, malls, business are closing, their workers crying, distracted, unsure of how to behave.
Technology turns planes into weapons. It tracks aircraft hundreds of miles away. It brings us instant and horrific images. It sends us to e-mail, telephones and cell phones to spread news, facts, rumors and stories.
We are both shocked and oddly prepared. Sci-fi and other forms of popular culture have been preparing us for this kind of Techno-Armageddon for years. Technology can do all sorts of amazing things, but it can't protect us from a handful of determined people. We've never seen anything like it, yet in a strange way we have thought of it for years.
Standing over the harbor, I did something I haven't done in 20 years. I dropped to my knees -- following the lead of a bunch of strangers -- and prayed. I have a bunch of friends in somewhere in that Techno-Armageddon, and just wanted to post these thoughts. If anybody wants to post their own, hopefully here's a good place.
It this your new Perl Harbour, or is it Nagasaki and Hiroshima coming back to haunt you ?
While the events today are of course a perverse display of violence aimed at civilians, no one should be ignorant of the fact that the U.S. themselves are not exactly virgin in the field of hitting very large amounts of civilians with no prior warning what so ever.
Another thing: There is a lot of sentiment that this is Islamic terrorists, or the like. Remember Timothy Mc. Vein ? The press was blowing that one up as a mid-east terrorist attack, until *investigation* reveiled it was in fact a genuine misguided U.S. citizen.
Think people. Don't get carried away in anger with a blind wish for vengence.
As for the US's retaliation, I think it should be swift and decisive. I think there should be a battery of cruise missles launched at every known, suspected or rumored terrorist hangout, EVERYWHERE in the world. There are arguments to this that we should wait until we are sure who it is, that we should not retaliate at all because this will just perpetuate the hostilities.
OK, here's the short checklist (in no particular order) on "Who do we bomb today?"
for being a mess in the first place
for the possibility that they want to escalate the war
for being general trublemakers and helping Palestinians
for maybe Saddam did it
for Ghaddafi was in the plane business before
for being general pain in the ass from WW2
for someone just might not like the fact you killed his father
for the same reason as Vietnam
for killing U.S. Marines over there
for if they didn't like your shah, they didn't liked you
for being in fundamentaly wrong religion
for threatening before and after the strikes you did there
for being troublemakers in the two wars so far
for demanding apology for bombing of their cities during WW2
since US didn't help them get rid of Brits
opposite from Ireland
for if they don't listen to our orders, they're capable of everything
for they might just be proving what piece of crap NMD is
for they might still resent you not helping them 1992-1995
for knowingly allowing extremist groups to exist and thrive
for someone over there might think you want them as a next federal state (and they're still with them Brits
for clearly opposing trading with renegade Taiwan R.O.C
for not locking up all suspected anti-globalisation activists
for probably housing terrorist and generaly disliking USA
Did I miss someone?
To boldly invent more hot water.
But whom do you brave americans attack if the problem lies in your society instead of some mystical bin Laden ? And disaster is done by your fellow countrymen like Tim and Nichols ...
__
L.
Sure. Just don't forget to include the giant bullseye on each.
~ radiographite: art by john shepard