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A Tale of Two Media:Tragedy and Images
For me, the images down here will be the barges that chugged out of Battery Park carrying corpses bound for vast New Jersey morgues, the smoke and smell and noise, the gaunt and hollow-eyed looks of the cops and firemen digging desperately for their buddies with their bare hands, the relatives on their knees praying all over the place, the video of the couple jumping off one of the towers holding hands, crushed police cars and fire trucks, many with bodies inside, the distant figure on the water everybody said was the U.S.S. George Washington, an aircraft carrier sent to protect New York harbor, and the soldiers with machine guns that are guarding major roadways and airports.
Big stories like this now are covered two ways -- online and off. The former draws millions to websites like CNN's and USA Today's, and new kind of sites like this one. Bloggers and others put up sites so that people could describe what was happening in their own words. People in apartment complexes and news sites posted accounts, and looked for relatives and housing.
As interesting as the Net is -- some of the best and most graphic video of the tragedy was popping up all over the Web -- and as idiosyncratic, the dominant medium when stuff like this happens is still TV, by a wide margin. Hour by hour, TV culls and culls until it finds a handful of quickly familiar images burned into our national and global consciousness. In our time, somebody has a videocam aimed at everything all the time, and within minutes the pictures show up everywhere, on television and the Net. Almost nothing is our culture goes unrecorded or unobserved any longer. The immediacy was as astonishing as the images were unbelievable.
By nightfall, CNN, MSNBC and the networks were moving away from the dramatic video and the indescribable scenes of wreckage and carnage and calling in the policy wonks and propellerheads who hide out in Washington caves until something like this happens. The focal point of all the airtime then shifted from the devastation in New York to the parsing and analyzing of the political, governmental and intelligence communities. For future reference, that may be a good time to turn off the tube and get online, the medium of individual stories, feelings and experiences.
When things like this happen, TV, much more than the Net or the Web, reveals whether leaders rise or fall to the occasion. Mayor Guiliani of New York clearly rose to the tragedy. President Bush, sticking to his cautious sing-song monotone, fled to various bunkers and seemed to shrink throughout the day. Guiliani got bigger by the hour. Defying advice that he hide out until the shooting stopped, he rushed to the scene, was nearly killed, calmed the city down and took charge of the clean-up and rescue. Bush got on his best suit and stuck to the prompter. At least that was the image that TV brought of us of these two very different leaders.
If you love New York, your heart will break when the smoke clears. Something about the city is busted for good, no matter what the mayor says. The damage is not describable, and surely hasn't been captured on TV. There are dead firemen, cops and office workers all over the rubble, everybody is saying, and the dust is so thick even the cadaver dogs are getting sick. Five techs with thermal imaging probes were retreating uptown, their sensitive equipment almost useless in the mud (caused by water poured on the still-burning fires) and smoke and dirt.
The buzz from the cops and reporters standing around is that the death toll will be horrible -- between two and three thousand -- but nowhere near the much higher figures feared yesterday. It seems that many people did get out, calling wives and cops from their cell phones as they went, as did some of the doomed passengers on the hijacked planes. (And a number of the people buried under the towers are still calling for help on their cells. Others got calls from spouses and friends telling them to get out.)
Across the street, a group of structural engineers were reassuring reporters that the towers collapsed of their own structural weakness, the steel melting from the fires, the buildings designed to collapse inward -- rather than fall down -- to save lives.
With their usual hubris, reporters and politicians were promising us that everything was going to change. But if the attacks demonstrate nothing else, it is the folly of that kind of thinking. Terrorists change too, and for all the high-tech equipment pouring into Manhattan, sometimes there isn't a thing we can do to stop them.
On a side note, for those of you thinking about war, I suggest you read Black Hawk Down by Mark Bowden. Then think again about sending troops out to battle.
...I'll procrastinate tomorrow...
Speaking of online media (in another sense) - I've heard reports in the past that claimed that Bin Laden steganographically hid data inside of images and postings on public message boards to communicate.
I was wondering how feasible it would be to create filters for Apache and/or IIS which would strip images of potential steganographic information. For instance, GIF images could be converted to JPG's and then back to GIF's before being served - this would probably eliminate hiding data in the LSB. (Obviously you'd have to do some caching) You could do similar things to other media, like WAV and MP3 files.
How hard is this? Could it be used to prevent use of public servers as repositories for steganographic media? Would it work? Would it be used widely enough to be effective?
JonKat's article really drives home something that had been hovering around my mind while I dove deeper into the web and farther and farther away from the TV.
They say that Vietnam was the TV war. The event so saturated by the media that interpreted it that the event itself was changed. The Gulf War might be considered the highest incarnation of event Television -- characterized by just the elements JK mentions. Hyper focused images extracting as much pathos as possible from the event. Tight messages. Repetition. Analysis. Hyperbole without connection.
It seems that perhaps september 11th is the first Interactive war. The impact of cell phones accross the event is astounding. The role of Internet as events unfolded is equally impacting. The tenor of coverage provided by the Net has been throughally, radically, different from the TV coverage.
As much as things will change because of this event, I am struck when considering how this event shows how much already has changed
It may have appeared that he was shirking away, but from what I understand is that when he first heard the in Florida he requested to be flown to NY to be there directly and immediately. The secret service had a clear understanding that they had to first protect him from any and all danger and flew him to the nearest secure area (Louisiana). From there the secret service took him to an even more secure area (SAC in Nebraska). Finally letting him fly to DC once things were secured. There's just no pleasing people these days, if he would have flown directly to NY, you'd probably have called him a fool and putting the leader of the US in undue jeopardy.
The only thing I wish I had seen more of was a bit more fire in his eyes, an almost WWF Smackdown, we're going to get you look for lack of better words; but of course that would probably not be appropriate for the situation (actually whoever did this would probably just enjoy seeing it).
Now is not the time Mr. Katz to forward your personal political agenda.
I disagree. Numerous times i've seen even the major network anchors almost breakdown in tears. There was even video of the president on the verge of tears.
First: I would urge everyone to be very aware that not everything we read, regardless of source or attribution, is as it seems. We MUST act with reason and common sense, checking to make sure misinformation isn't used to compound these heinous acts. These bastards want to destroy us, Americans and all of the civilized people of the World, we must not allow it. As we have seen the civilized leaders of the world, even those with whom we have serious political differences, pledge to join us in what must be a massive fight against all those who would seek to destroy civilization and we must hold them to it.
We have already seen extremist from the left and the right, within and without, attempt to advance their "cause" on the back of this tragedy. Surely just as horrendous a crime as the act itself. These extremists must also be dealt with.
I am certain good will prevail over evil.
Second: Tuesday we were all made combatants in this War, we must support our military response. And, perhaps more importantly, all of us must defend the world economy. Remember that it is completely in our hands and minds. Consider Monday the bottom of the economic downturn. Invest prudently, but invest. Buy wisely, but buy. And be vigilant of those who try to gouge or otherwise unfairly profit from this.
Third: I'm a first generation American. My parents were driven from Iran by this same Islamic filth (I'm sorry but I can't help but be prejudice, and feel hate for them all. All I can do is try not to act on it). Deep within me is a hatred of that religion, all religion. They killed more than half of all the people my family knew and loved, stole all they had worked for and filled their lives with pain and terror. Even before the "fundamentalists" took over, my family (Zoroastrian and Catholics) and many others were persecuted for their faith, the cloths they wore, the food they ate (they kill people for drinking wine or eating ham ). I say these things not to spread my hate, It's my burden to bear and I don't wish it on my worst enemy. I say it so I can point out that although I'm filled with hate for ALL muslims and all Gods, my parents are not and didn't teach it to me. They know and love a lot of muslims, muslims helped them flee certain death. But those muslims were secular, they acted in the name of humanity not in the name of Allah. Beware of ANYONE who presumes to act or speak in the name of any god. I understand that some people feel they need faith in gods to be good people , and I try to be respectful when I can but it has gone too far for too long.
Lastly: To all those like me who owe their very existence to this great nation, it's our turn. Half a century ago the descendants of european immigrants went by the tens thousands to the homeland of their ancestors to rid the earth of a great evil. We must do the same, the battles will be fought differently but in the end we too shall prevail. I have great faith in America and the civilized people of the world. This is not a time to wave the flag, it is a time to display it proudly and put all our efforts into the task at hand. Victory at any cost.
It has been said the the government will be investigating suspicious cell phones calls made during yesterday's events in hopes of finding a conversation between terrorists. This is the first time Carnivore is being used in a well publicized situation - and despite my desire for the protection of free speach, I can't bring myself to flame the government for using it under these circumstances. Is Carnivore now our friend? What distinguishes when it should and should not be used?
After we punish the enemy with bombs, with bullets, we must salt the soil that the twisted tree of intolerance and fanaticism takes root in. We must change the hearts and minds of the young.
We salt them with small computers. With internet access. With a telephone in every village. With juvenile novels and encyclopedias translated into Arabic. With teachers who speak their language, and who teach them to use these tools to answer questions for themselves. Yes, some of those teachers will be killed. They are soldiers in this war as much as anyone who takes on a beret or a gun, and we can make martyrs of them for the world.
No tyrant can long survive with an informed and educated populace.
The organizations they declaim as the mouthpieces of the US shall be USED as the mouthpieces of the west. We tell their children that there is a life beyond substistence farming and blood feuds. We tell their wives and daughters that there is a life where they are valued as individuals and people in their own right, not as chattel.
We give them the tools of bilateral communication, rather than unilateral indoctrination. We give them the internet. We declare a great work, of making sure that every corner of this globe has access to fast internet access. Not just the US. Not just Europe. The world.
They will see pornography sites. They will also see sites discussing engineering, and simple improvements to agriculture. The curiousity of children will be piqued, and their questions answered. With each question asked, and each answer given, we slowly wean them away from the culture of intolerance.
They'll be able to ask questions without censure or censoring, and get answers they might not otherwise have.
I would sooner carpet bomb with game boys and Pokemon, and an Arabic translation of Monopoly, than FAEs and nuclear explosives. The adults are beyond our reach. The young MUST be reached so that 20 years from now, the thought of piloting a captured airliner into an office building full if innocent bystanders meets with universal horror.
I fear, in the haste for vengeance, that the nature of this conflict will be forgotten. Make no bones about it -- this is a culture war. It can only end with a declaration on the order of Cartago Delendo Est.
We cannot win this war with bombs or bullets, although we can accelerate its prosecution by those means. We can only win this war through a generational conflict; we must win the war in the hearts and minds of the children growing up in the Middle East now.
Winning that longer war will be costlier and less immediately gratifying than cluster bombs and Fuel Air Explosives, and "killing the bastards and everyone that helped them."
It can, however, be a profitable war.
If you are an author, or someone who creates media, contact your publisher about translating your works into Arabic. Someone in the DoD is in charge of outbound propaganda; we should find who that person is, and give them the munitions to win this war.
Bin-Ladin has declared this a culture war.
Let's show him what a culture war TRULY looks like. Let's send in Shakespeare. And Heinlein. And Harlequin Romances, Pokemon and The Simpsons.
Ken Burnside
reprinted without permission from jerrypournelle.com But Jerry won't mind.
Best Slashdot Co
The last few times I've flown, I've been told that all cell phones must be turned off for the duration of the flight. I assumed that this was because they would interfere with cockpit communications. And now news reports are often talking about the cell phone calls made from airplanes during the hijackings. What gives?
The FAA security increases are irrelevant.
The real security increases took place at internet speed, within the first half hour after the first plane hit. Passengers on that plane used cell phones to let the world know they had been hijacked. The news media let the world know that hijacked planes were being used as weapons. Callers from the fourth plane got their cultural norm updated when they called out on their cell phones. They recomputed the risks and benefits of
A) 30+ people attacking five hijackers armed with knifes, vs.
B) sitting quietly while the plane is crashed at high speed into a large object.
Because they were a little late getting this news, they were unable to regain control of the plane when they attacked the hijackers, but they thwarted its use as a weapon. Within twenty four hours the news had spread: if someone with a knife starts to hijack a plane you are on, jump them-- kick them, bite them, knee them in the holy land. Do whatever it takes, because even though you might get hurt, or killed, your odds are a lot better than if you let them get control of the plane.
The real lesson here is that, when attacking a wired society, you'd darn well better coordinate your attacks, because within a blindingly short time the society will have learned and that trick won't work anymore.
-- MarkusQ
There is a reason that Bush went to a bunker (along with Chenney, and others like the speaker of the house). The US is not simply a big chunk of land surrounded with "no tresspassing" signs. America is a set of ideas, covered in the US constitution that are believed in by a lot of people. The US government is the embodiment of these ideas, the judiciary, the executive branch and the legislative branch. It is critical that the US government continues to function, hence COG.
to quote one website:
There is a reason the US government has spent billions of dollars on things like Cheyenne Mountain, STRATCOM, Mount Weather, Mount Pony, Raven Rock Site R, Boonsboro, Casper, Hagerstown, Mercerburg, CMAH, kneecap, etc.
Defying advice that he hide out until the shooting stopped, he rushed to the scene, was nearly killed, calmed the city down and took charge of the clean-up and rescue.
And if he had been killed, what would that have done to the calm of the city?
We didn't elect Bush or Guiliani for their physical traits. We elected them for their minds, and for their stage presence. At the time the plane diverted, another was heading toward Washington, quite likely toward the white house. Please Jon, go to adequacy, we don't need your trolling here.
When Bush was on TV, all I saw was a deer in the headlights, a small scared child reading off of a teleprompter. He did not inspire confidence. He did not speak from his heart; he read what his speechwriter wrote for him. I did not feel he was up to the task of dealing with such important tasks.
On the other hand, Colin Powell kicked ass during his numerous apperances. And this really is the thing that comforts me; Bush really does have a great set of advisors and a great cabinet.
Bush leads a group of great men; unfortunately, Bush himself is not a great leader of men.
Hmmm, that's not the way I interpret the point of the editorial. It seems to me the sentiment is a hope that the US will, because of a new awareness of its own vulnerability, no longer feel as free to cause suffering to innocents abroad as it historically has been. Anyway, apart from whether or not that's a reasonable hope, that's what I thought the author was focusing on, not a celebration in increased suffering overall.
"I used to be a dilettante. Then I thought I'd try something else for a while."
Correction (amplification). The sanctions have been in place for over ten years. Children have been starving and dying of cancer at highly above-normal rates for much of that time. After the Gulf War conditions were pretty bad even to start with because of the destruction of basic infrastructure. Iraq has seen children playing in streets covered in raw sewage, emergency vehicles and hospital equipement lying idle for want of spare parts, patients treated with anaesthetic. This was a country that before the Gulf War had a high quality socialized healthcare system and relatively good living standards (due to oil exports, of course). The US has stood by and callously blocked the import of essential medicines, anaesthetics and spare parts. Make no mistake, the US government is fully aware of their complicity in the suffering and death of innocent Iraqi civilians.
Female Prison Rape in NY
While watching the news tonight, there was one quote that sounded ominous to me. I don't have it exactly, but it was something to the effect of the United States employing 'the full spectrum [speaker's emphasis] of its military might' in a retaliatory response.
/.ers' thoughts on these points.
It would seem like overkill to me, but it could be said to sound like the use of nuclear weapons has not been ruled out.
I know the United States has a long-standing 'no first use' policy, but under the circumstances I can't help but wonder if that will remain in effect. How quickly might Afghanistan (or whatever country he's holed up in) cough up bin Laden and his cronies, if they were threatened with an ICBM or two? Would the court of world opinion renounce or support such an action, in light of what has happened? Just looking for other
~Philly
I found that a lot of the journalism was horrid. My favorite comments:
"Security in this building is so tight, how could this have happened?"
"It was terrible watching those people jumping out of the window. Why don't they have parachutes on those top floors?"
These were REPORTERS. Any others?
yes, we all know www.counterpunch.org is more credible then cnn. Arifat had to send out police forces to stop people from celebrating in the streets because he knew the pr would be bad. He even went to give blood the next day to try and calm the situation. Get a fucking clue? thnx.
You're absolutely right on one point. It's not Bush's fault that he was shuttled all over the country.
I will say this, though. I've never truly understood the public function of the presidency. I've sometimes wondered why the nation so desperately needs a charismatic figure to line up behind, to the point where we elect criminals and people we don't entirely trust. But yesterday changed all of that. I saw the towers burning with my own eyes, and I was shaken up-- I didn't know if more was on the way, if I was safe where I was, what to do next. I wanted somebody to get on TV and say "this is a tragedy, but we've got things under control." Even though I've never liked Bush, I was glad that someone existed to fill that role.
It didn't bother me that Bush was in the air, I was glad that the Chief Executive was safe. And then he reached Louisiana and gave a speech, and it was devastating. I've never seen such a short, useless, unempathetic performance. He was reading off of a goddamn teleprompter, for chrissake! And he was reading poorly! I've seen fifth-grade plays that convey more emotion, confidence and skill.
Perhaps irrationally, I lost a lot of confidence in this nation at that point. The knowledge that Bush surrounds himself with intelligent people was not enough to reassure me; I wanted to know that we have a president who cares. I didn't expect him to shed tears-- I just wanted some emotion, be it anger, sadness, grief, anything. I also wanted something more substantial. Perhaps this last could have been attributed to lack of time... But when he reached the White House and for the rest of the day, we got little more; better reading skills, perhaps. But nothing to convince me that the guy cared.
I understand that Bush is a busy man, but we needed somebody to be there. There isn't a president we've elected in the last 20 years who couldn't have handled that situation. Why couldn't Bush?
His wife, on the other hand, was extraordinary on TV this morning. Not to mention Guiliani, who could for all intents and purposes have been the president.
Golda Meir's decision was for Israel to resort to assassination of those responsible for organizing and carrying out the attack, an operation later referred to be the media as the "Wrath of God". Calahan concludes that method which worked was for Mossad to cut loose from bureaucratic restrictions a mostly independent operating team organized similar to current US special forces. This team was given a list of potential targets, a directive to not harm innocents, and autonomy to go hunting.
I am concerned that it would be simply impossible for any current United States government to authorize similar autonomy despite the necessity of success.
One key difference between then and today is that today's targets might be less inclined to be in Europe, an area in which it was relatively easier for the Israeli assassination teams to operate in than say Afghanistan or Pakistan for Americans. Calahan's thesis also mentions an operation where the proximity of Israel to Lebanon enabled a massive force of dozens of Israeli commandos to kill three major targets and about a hundred Palestinian guerillas.
In another disturbing article The Atlantic Monthly raises the issue of whether the unwillingness and/or inability of United States intelligence agencies to conduct longterm missions to penetrate local populations in areas such as Afghanistan might make any effective action against Osama Bin Laden's organization impossible. The United States doesn't even train agents in the local languages let alone assign agents to become experts specializing in a country.
I think that Mr Katz has made a mistake about President Bush's 'singsong monotone'.
I used to be a doorman and I have hit a lot of people and thrown them out. Mostly they yell and swear and threaten with anything they can think of. A few, a very few fortunately, use just the same tone as President Bush did and they are the ones who come back when you have finished your shift and, well in one case, beat up my friend so badly he had eight broken fingers, a broken jaw, two cracked ribs and a broken arm. He never worked on the door ever again. Another acquaintance got an iron bar across the back of his head. Someone even got shot (most unusual here in Australia) as he walked out of the club when his shift finished.
That singsong monotone is the most dangerous thing that I have heard for a long time and I am worried that all that suppressed anger might lead the US into something they can't win and can't leave.
Afganistan has been the key that broke three empires already (Moghul, British and Russian). We could have a lot bodybags coming back home if prudence isn't used.
Remember, Palestine was a British colony, with both Jews and Arabs living there. The following was taken from the American Israeli Cooperative Enterprise Page on Myths and Facts of the Partition.
MYTH
"Israel usurped all of Palestine in 1948."
FACT
Nearly 80 percent of what was the historic land of Palestine and the Jewish National Home, as defined by the League of Nations, was severed by the British in 1922 and allocated to what became Transjordan. Jewish settlement there was barred. The UN partitioned the remaining 20 percent of Palestine into two states. With Jordan's annexation of the West Bank in 1950, Arabs controlled approximately 80 percent of the territory of the Mandate, while the Jewish State held a bare 17.5 percent (Gaza, occupied by Egypt, was the remainder).
MYTH
"The Palestinian Arabs were never offered a state and therefore have been denied the right to self-determination."
FACT
The Peel Commission in 1937 concluded the only logical solution to resolving the contradictory aspirations of the Jews and Arabs was to partition Palestine into separate Jewish and Arab states. The Arabs rejected the plan because it forced them to accept the creation of a Jewish state, and required some Palestinians to live under "Jewish domination." The Zionists opposed the Peel Plan's boundaries because they would have been confined to little more than a ghetto of 1,900 out of the 10,310 square miles remaining in Palestine. Nevertheless, the Zionists decided to negotiate with the British, while the Arabs refused to consider any compromises. Again, in 1939, the British White Paper called for the establishment of an Arab state in Palestine within 10 years, and for limiting Jewish immigration to no more than 75,000 over the following five years. Afterward, no one would be allowed in without the consent of the Arab population. Though the Arabs had been granted a concession on Jewish immigration, and been offered independence - the goal of Arab nationalists - they repudiated the White Paper. With partition, the Palestinians were given a state and the opportunity for self-determination. This too was rejected.
make world, not war
No, Americans did not. Neither did Afghanistan's Taliban, but, rest assured, they're on the shitlist. Now, there's talk of Hussein aiding the terrorists. He, too, will have to deal with the repercussions. According to the US gov't, anyone aiding or associating with "known" terrorists is in an unenviable position.
Of course, the US gov't has aided and associated with terrorists, including bin Laden (sp?) and Hussein...I hope that doesn't mean we're declaring war on ourselves...
Jihad: This word has been in frequent use in the Western press over the past several years, explained directly or subtlety, to mean holy war. As a matter of fact the term "holy war" was coined in Europe during the Crusades, meaning the war against Muslims. It does not have a counterpart in Islamic glossary, and Jihad is certainly not its translation. The word Jihad means striving. In its primary sense it is an inner thing, within self, to rid it from debased actions or inclinations, and exercise constancy and perseverance in achieving a higher moral standard. Since Islam is not confined to the boundaries of the individual but extends to the welfare of society and humanity in general, an individual cannot keep improving himself/herself in isolation from what happens in their community or in the world at large, hence the Quranic injunction to the Islamic nation to take as a duty "to enjoin good and forbid evil." (3:104) It is a duty which is not exclusive to Muslims but applies to the human race who are, according to the Quran, God's vicegerent on earth. Muslims, however, cannot shirk it even if others do. The means to fulfill it are varied, and in our modern world encompass all legal, diplomatic, arbitrative, economic, and political instruments. But Islam does not exclude the use of force to curb evil, if there is no other workable alternative. A forerunner of the collective security principle and collective intervention to stop aggression, at least in theory, as manifested in the United Nations Charter, is the Quranic reference "..make peace between them (the two fighting groups), but if one of the two persists in aggression against the other, fight the aggressors until they revert to God's commandment." (49:9)
JonKatz said:
When things like this happen, TV, much more than the Net or the Web, reveals whether leaders rise or fall to the occasion. Mayor Guiliani of New York clearly rose to the tragedy. President Bush, sticking to his cautious sing-song monotone, fled to various bunkers and seemed to shrink throughout the day. Guiliani got bigger by the hour. Defying advice that he hide out until the shooting stopped, he rushed to the scene, was nearly killed, calmed the city down and took charge of the clean-up and rescue. Bush got on his best suit and stuck to the prompter. At least that was the image that TV brought of us of these two very different leaders.
Oh, come one. If the Mayor of New York is killed in a secondary attack, the country is still stable. Yes, he is the mayor of the largest city in the country, but his death would have had nearly no effect on our country. He would have been a statistic.
If the president is killed, then it's a whole other story. Sequestering him away from the public eye for about 5 hours while we determined if the attacks were even over was prudent and handled perfectly.
Grow up.
"George hid" is all you can say? Our country performed nearly flawlessly in how we initially reacted to the attacks. That's why the death toll is 10% of what I originally feared. Every death is a tragedy, yes, but imagine the numbers if we had dragged our feet at all.
- Hans
Weaseling out of things is important to learn. It's what separates us from the animals... except the weasel. -
Fifty Years of Appeasement Led to Black Tuesday
Fifty years of increasing American appeasement in the Mideast have led to fifty years of increasing contempt in the Muslim world for the U.S. The inevitable climax was the tens of thousands of deaths on September 11, 2001--the blackest day in our history, so far. The Palestinians, among others, responded by dancing in the streets and handing out candy.
Fifty years ago, Truman and Eisenhower ceded to the Arabs the West's property rights in oil--although that oil properly belonged to those in the West whose science and technology made its discovery and use possible.
This capitulation was not practical, but philosophical. The Arab dictators were denouncing the wealthy egoistic West. They were crying that the masses of their poor needed our sacrifice; that oil, like all property, is owned collectively, by virtue of birth; and that they knew all this by means of ineffable or otherworldly emotion. Our Presidents had no answer. Implicitly, they were ashamed of the Declaration of Independence. They did not dare to answer aloud that Americans, rightfully, were motivated by the selfish desire to pursue personal happiness in a rich, secular, individualist society.
The Arabs embodied in extreme form every idea--selfless duty, anti-materialism, faith or feeling above science, the supremacy of the group--which our universities and churches, and our own political Establishment, had long been preaching as the essence of virtue. When two groups, our leadership and theirs, accept the same basic ideas, the most consistent wins.
After property came liberty. The Iranian dictator Khomeini threatened with death a British author--and with destruction his American publisher--if they exercised their right to free speech. He explained that the book in question offended the religion of his people. The Bush Administration looked the other way.
After liberty came American life itself--as in Iran's support of the massacre of our soldiers in Saudi Arabia, and the Afghanistan-based assault on our embassies in East Africa. Again, the American response was unbridled appeasement: a Realpolitikisch desire not to "jeopardize relations" with the aggressor country, covered up by a purely rhetorical vow to punish the guilty, along with an occasional pretend bombing. By now, the world knows that we are indeed a paper tiger.
We have not only appeased terrorists, we have actively created them. The Reagan Administration--holding that Islamic fundamentalists were our ideological allies in the fight against the atheistic Soviets--poured money and expertise into Afghanistan to create an ever-growing band of terrorists recruited from all over the Mideast. Most of these terrorists knew what to do with their American training; their goal was not to save Afghanistan.
The final guarantee of American impotence is the bipartisan proclamation that a terrorist is an individual alone responsible for his actions, and that "we must try each before a court of law." This is tantamount, while under a Nazi aerial bombardment, to seeking out and trying the pilots involved while ignoring Hitler and Germany.
Terrorists exist only through the sanction and support of the governments behind them. Their lethal behavior is that of the regimes that make them possible. Their killings are not crimes, but acts of war. The only proper response to such acts is war in self-defense.
We do not need more evidence to "pinpoint" the perpetrators of any one of these atrocities, including the latest and most egregious--we already have total certainty with regard to the governments primarily responsible for the repeated slaughter of Americans in recent years. We must now use our unsurpassed military to destroy all branches of the Iranian and Afghani governments, regardless of the suffering and death this will bring to the many innocents caught in the line of fire. We must wipe out the terrorist training camps or sanctuaries, and eliminate any retaliatory military capability--and thereby terrorize and paralyze all the tyrannies watching, who will now know what is in store for them if they choose in any form to attack the U.S. That will be the end of the terrorists.
Our missiles and occupation troops, however, will be effective only if they are preceded by our President's morally righteous statement that we intend hereafter to defend by every means possible each American's right to his property, his liberty, and his secure enjoyment of life here on earth.
To those who oppose war, I ask: If not now, when? How many more corpses are necessary before this country should take action?
The choice today is mass death in the United States or mass death in the terrorist nations. President Bush must decide whether it is his duty to save Americans or the governments who seek to kill them.
By Leonard Peikoff
I'm a canadian - and you embarass me. Here is an excellent statement made by Gordan Sinclair that sums things up. Yes the US *isn't* perfect..... but they do a hell of a lot more and put up with a hell of a lot more than anybody else out there......
TRIBUTE TO THE UNITED STATES
This, from a Canadian newspaper, is worth sharing.
America: The Good Neighbor.
Widespread but only partial news coverage was given recently to a remarkable editorial broadcast from Toronto by Gordon Sinclair, a Canadian television commentator.
What follows is the full text of his trenchant remarks as printed in the Congressional Record:
"This Canadian thinks it is time to speak up for the Americans as the most generous and possibly the least appreciated people on all the earth. Germany, Japan and, to a lesser extent, Britain and Italy were lifted out of the debris of war by the Americans who poured in billions of dollars and forgave other billions in debts. None of these countries is today paying even the interest on its remaining debts to the United States.
When France was in danger of collapsing in 1956, it was the Americans who propped it up, and their reward was to be insulted and swindled on the streets of Paris. I was there. I saw it.
When earthquakes hit distant cities, it is the United States that hurries in to help. This spring, 59 American communities were flattened by tornadoes. Nobody helped.
The Marshall Plan and the Truman Policy pumped billions of dollars into discouraged countries. Now newspapers in those countries are writing about the decadent, warmongering Americans.
I'd like to see just one of those countries that is gloating over the erosion of the United States dollar build its own airplane. Does any other country in the world have a plane to equal the Boeing Jumbo Jet, the Lockheed Tri-Star, or the Douglas DC10? If so, why don't they fly them? Why do all the International lines except Russia fly American Planes?
Why does no other land on earth even consider putting a man or woman on the moon? You talk about Japanese technocracy, and you get radios. You talk about German technocracy, and you get automobiles.
You talk about American technocracy, and you find men on the moon- not once, but several times - and safely home again. You talk about scandals, and the Americans put theirs right in the store window for everybody to look at.
Even their draft-dodgers are not pursued and hounded. They are here on our streets, and most of them, unless they are breaking Canadian laws, are getting American dollars from ma and pa at home to spend here.
When the railways of France, Germany and India were breaking down through age, it was the Americans who rebuilt them. When the Pennsylvania Railroad and the New York Central went broke, nobody loaned them an old caboose. Both are still broke.
I can name you 5000 times when the Americans raced to the help of other people in trouble. Can you name me even one time when someone else raced to the Americans in trouble? I don't think there was outside help even during the San Francisco earthquake.
Our neighbors have faced it alone, and I'm one Canadian who is damned tired of hearing them get kicked around. They will come out of this thing with their flag high. And when they do, they are entitled to thumb their nose at the lands that are gloating over their present troubles. I hope Canada is not one of those."
Stand proud, America!
Wear it proudly!!
Gordon Sinclair
As much as I hate terrorism and the loss of lives, I must agree with you. NOTHING can begin to explain or excuse loss of lives, but the truth is that the US were attacked for a reason. An insane reason, but a reason nonetheless.
As much as it sounds good, it was not because the US are "the land of freedom". It's because the US government cannot stop messing about in other country's affairs and cannot stop trying to be the "World Police". If this is right or wrong, I'm not the one to answer that, but it makes the US a prime target for those who don't want some country telling them what to do. Would you?
Take note that I wrote "The us gov.". Civilian casualties are inexcusable, people are not to blame for the gov.'s actions, but still, the people put the gov. in place and give it power and support. When the us gov. wanted to take Milosevic down, what were the US's targets? The people, civilians.
So now we're seeing the media instigating a blind war. But you don't see them reporting Israeli moves on the palestinians yesterday. You don't see them monitoring Asia's military reactions to this. It seems everything around the world ceased to exist but for the US and the Arabs.
I just hope you stop and think a bit before coming out guns a'blazing. Because like a 47-yeard old guy who watched it all from a building in front said: "I just hope that a 47-year old afghan man doesn't look out his window one of these days and see what I've just seen."
Shana
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shana