I’m sickened at myself. And after that sickness passes, I’m sickened at what some group of terrorists has done to me and my psychology. I’m afraid for my life and my family. I’m unable to sleep, unable to eat. I was afraid to get on the subway. These things I can deal with, and I know will pass.
But this morning on the train, I reached the limit. A man next to me was reading from an Islamic prayer book. Just seeing the language, seeing the strange alphabet spelled out on a page, seeing an olive skinned man reading them, I was enraged. I wanted to shake him and say “what the fuck do you think you’re doing?”
And then I had to stop and say the same thing to myself. It’s not the followers of Islam, or Jews, or Afghanis or whatever…it’s a small group of evil people, and their sole intention was to frighten and split us apart, to turn us against each other, against our government, our president. And I realized that when I felt that flash of anger, I had
given into it. And then I was sickened.
As I walked to work I looked up at the Hancock Building and thought of the dozens of people I knew inside it. I thought of the beauty of Michigan Avenue and how quickly it could be shattered.
My boss informed me this morning that several of our clients are unaccounted for. People I’ve talked to, people that have been in our office. They worked on floor 90 of Tower Two.
I’m sure his prayers were the same as ours. jarbabyj, don’t blame yourself for feeling less than honourable thoughts towards this man. We are all feeling such things. You did right to check youself, but I fear that many others will not have your restraint. But the terrorists have not won. They have brought us closer together, and have cast eternal shame upon their cause, whatever it may be.
A friend of mine used to work in the FBI Anti-Terrorist unit. He told me that the purpose of terrorism is to convince the people that their government can’t protect them.
I believe that both you and my friend are correct. I was watching the news last night, and they were talking with teachers at a school who said it was difficult explaining to the kids what was going on, and the kids were afraid. I thought, “What about me? I’m afraid!”
Ugh. I wasn’t going to admit this. But last night at the vigil I saw a group of muslim students standing together (I assume they were muslim because of their head coverings) and my first ugly thought was “Why are they here?” Then I wanted to punch myself. Ferchrissakes they were there to pay their respects like everyone else.
I hate that the bad events of yesterday let my worst knee-jerk bigoted reactions take hold for a moment. Lord knows I’ve got ugly sides to myself, but I’d prefer to squelch them. I was pretty disgusted that I, a good open-minded humanist who’d been bitching at people all day for overgeneralizing, became one of the narrowminded numbskulls even for a brief moment.
The purpose of warfare is to impose your will on others. The people who did this did it in an effort to impose their will on the United States, and the Western world in general - to force them to change its policies, probably towards Israel, although we don’t know that for sure. The distinction between conventional war and terrorism does not matter for the purpose of this definition. In conventional warfare, a state uses force to control land and the sea to impose its will. Terrorists uses force to frighten others in order to impose their will.
The goal of the WTC murderers was not to make you hate Muslims. They already think you hate Muslims - it would never occur to them that you didn’t, and the regret you’re expressing now would totally baffle them. The fact that most Americans (or Britons, Canadians, etc.) are tolerant and embrace cultural difference is completely alien to these people. They are hateful bigots, and they think you are too, since most people project their own sins onto others.
No, the goal was to frighten the U.S. and the West into conceding to the will of the terrorists. Perhaps they want the U.S. to be less interventionist or to stop supporting Israel, or perhaps they are madmen bent on the destruction of Western civilization itself. In any case, they most certainly have not accomplished their goals. The U.S., rather than shying away, seems to be preparing to slaughter its enemies. Support for Israel will now go up, not down. The U.S. remains strong and its people are supporting the government and cooperating to overcome these vile assaults. I would say that it is quite certain that the ultimate aims of the terrorists will be miserably failed.
No, they didn’t accomplish anything except killing people. I’m VERY glad to say that as a fed employee in DC almost ALL of us are here at work the next day. It’s the biggest F U I can think of and I’m glad the president said that it would be buisness as usual today.