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Re: Re: Re: Current events
In a message dated Tue, 11 Sep 2001 3:08:32 PM Eastern Daylight Time, john davis <eustacescrubb at yahoo_com> writes:
>
> --- Ysobelle at aol_com wrote:
> > Someone just said this is our generation's Pearl
> > Harbor. None of our
> > lives are ever going to be the same. Subtly or
> > radically.
>
>
> People keep saying that: this changes things
> forever... I don't get it. I woke up and saw the news
> and the first thought through my head was that I'd
> been epxecting this for quite a while... We've racked
> up quite a few enemies in the past 50 years alone, and
> I'm not surprised at all that somebody attacked us.
> I'm surprised it didn't happen sooner...
>
> What blew me away was the film footage of poeple in
> Palestine dancing in the streets, shopkeepers handing
> out candy to kids, all the kids holding up thier
> fingers in a "v" sign...
> One shopkeeper was astonished when a reporter told him
> there were an esitmaed 25,000 people working in the
> WTC when the planes hit...
> They have no idea over there. They think they've won
> some big victory, when sadly, all that's happened is
> fuel has been dumped on anti-Arab and anti-Islam
> sentinemnt. The backlash against Arab-Americans and
> Arabs in general is going to be severe, I'd bet...
>
> The whole thing is one big, sad, ugly mess... but it's
> not surprising.
>
> John
The thing that's going to be different is, simply, the size of the retaliation to come. I've already heard of Arab cab drivers being beaten up. It's only going to get worse from here. And if it's true that it's a Palestinian organisation that's behind this-- and let's face it, it probably has to be-- US fighter planes are going to bomb the fuckers back to the stone age. And I am TRYING to be compassionate about this, but I can't be. I don't _want_ more people to die, but I accept that it's inevitable and I'm glad there's nothing I can do about it. I'm glad it's a decision I don't have to make. Whatever happens is going to be brutal and horrific-- or, I should say, a continuation of something already brutal and horrific.
Joe Schmoe office courier had nothing to do with Palestine or Israel. This is someone, magnified by 50,000 (each tower, as I'm sure y'all know, had its own zip code. 25k people in each on an average day) who had nothing to do with ANY of this conflict. We're not talking about people living in a war zone. We're talking about my friend Christy, who's a media buyer in NYC. We're talking about my aunt's lawyer up in Manhattan. Christ, we're talking about ME! None of us have ANYTHING to do with this, and we're all affected. We're not living in occupied territories. We're not throwing rocks at soldiers. We're trying to meet our monthly sales goals, trying to get weekly reports done, trying to get dinner reservations made and doctor's appointments for the kids done and pencils sharpened and staplers refilled and printers unjammed. And now some of us are charred remains and dust that will never be identified.
It would be naive to hope that less than a thousand people died. All the people on planes, in the Towers, on the ground. It's a strike that has _never_ happened before on American soil. And we are the largest military power in the world, with the strongest allies, and whatever we do in what _no one_ can now say isn't _fully justified_ retaliation will visit the kind of horror we're going through now on people all over the Middle East, if not the world. You're right, it is going to be ugly. And nothing is ever going to be the same.
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