Friday, September 14, 2012

9/11: The Time for Pacifism has not yet Arrived


By Tom Kando

Just a few days after the anniversary of 9/11, I join Madeleine in her American patriotism (see her recent The American Way). On September 11th , I watched a lot of  footage on the History channel, documenting the monstrous attack eleven years ago.

So I’m thinking: The enormity of this event inevitably enters it  into world  history, not just US history. Today, the average Dutchman or Senegalese may  not be glued to the TV watching documentaries of what happened on 9/11/01.


BUT: Two thousand  years from now, the world will still watch these news reels,  as today we read Homer’s Iliad and we read about the Vesuvius eruption which buried Pompeii in the year 79 A.D.

9/11/01 was such a monumental event, it has been so well documented, it has had such enormous impact, that it will forever remain a world event.

However you interpret it. I, of course, take the standard view that it was a monstrous act perpetrated by evil people. Others add all sorts of dimensions - it was a stab at the heart of the world empire, Wall Street, etc. It would be the same  if rebels had  burned down  the Roman Colosseum two thousand years ago, or something like that.  I suppose  from the vantage point of those who want to overthrow the existing world order, you can see the US, New York and Wall Street as the “head of the snake.” But let’s cut down on the  bs.

When I see the 9/11 footage, innocent office workers  and clerks jumping hand-in-hand out of  windows  1000 feet up, I’m thinking: Thank God that Americans are not going quietly. Thank  goodness that they can still get mad.  I want to tell Phil Donahue and Norwegian intellectuals  that the time for pacifism has not yet arrived. 

Marshall Montgomery once said, “We British fight our wars overseas. We prefer it that way.” Well, I’m sorry folks, but I also prefer it that way. When they came to kill 3000 innocents in New York City, they managed to bring the war home to America. But that was an exception.

Since then, America has done enormous mischief in the other guy’s backyard  (not just the two  major wars in Iraq and  Afghanistan, but also in  Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, and elsewhere). It’s been ugly. To some extent, America has been flailing, sometimes attacking the wrong targets (Iraq), causing incredible mayhem, exhausting itself for no clear benefit.  But hey, the other guy hit  first. If 9/11 was not a casus belli, I don’t know what is. The time for pacifism has not yet arrived.

Now, just about on  the anniversary of 9/11, a rampaging mob has murdered another four  innocent Americans, including an ambassador, and massive anti-American rioting is spreading across the Muslim world. All this allegedly over a tiny,  idiotic anti-Muslim video (By the way, have you noticed that 100% of the rioters are men?).

It’s surreal. Most of the rioters  haven’t seen the video. Its existence is protected by the 1st Amendment. The US Government and the American people (except for the 5 individuals who produced the allegedly blasphemous film) have nothing to do with it. So there is nothing to apologize for. The video is irrelevant to the real agenda behind the attacks. Must I continue to list the obvious?

The real disease and abomination in the world today is religious fundamentalism. Christian fundamentalism in the West is ugly and it is poisoning  politics. But Muslim fundamentalists overseas are something else! The politics of the “Arab Spring” are now largely driven by “Islamicists.” We have come to accept “Islamicism,” as long as it is not too “extreme.”

But isn’t  even “moderate Islamicism” wrong? Doesn’t it  violate the fundamental separation of church and state? The Western World is suffering from battle fatigue.  It has resigned  itself to something which should be unacceptable:  the merging  of religion and politics in the  Muslim world. leave comment here