If anyone caught Nightline last night, about 1/2 of the show was about the ongoing guerrilla war and pre-Taliban vibe going on in Afghanistan ... something written about here a couple of days ago.
Anyhow, Koppel closed the show with a bit I found especially true and poignant:
It's a tough call. When roughly 3,000 people -- most of them Americans, but people from all over the world -- are killed in four synchronized acts of terrorism on one bloody day, attention must be paid. The survivors, the mourners, deserve to know that millions of us grieve with them.
And yet.
By repeatedly emphasizing our sense of national loss, we also give satisfaction and encouragement to the architects of the next atrocity. When, early on, President Bush spoke about bringing Osama bin Laden to justice "Dead or Alive," it raised his visibility to that of an international superstar.
Terrorism is a strategy of the weak. To the degree that we magnify the importance of a terrorist leader, or emphasize the impact of a terrorist act, or tamper with our own civil liberties, we endow our enemies with the very qualities they lack.
We can grieve silently. We can hunt our enemies down without bravado. They will only have the power to undermine our values if we grant it to them.
The winner of last week's caption contest is Steve. Steve, if you're out there, drop me a line and I'll arrange for some RE or dack.com swag to be sent your way.
"George, we're going to make your Yale hazing look like your National Guard Duty."
posted by dackBetter yet, if we had paid attention when our state was slaughtering (or facilitating the slaughter of) millions of innocent Native Americans, Indochinese, Iraqis, Koreans, Central Americans, Indonesians, Palestinians, Japanese, Kurds, East Timorese, Colombians, etc., there surely would never have been a September 11.
Terrorism may be the weapon of the weak, but militarism -- the weapon of the strong -- is equally barbaric and despicable. To not include the likes of Bush, Clinton, Kissinger, Rumsfeld, Albright, Powell, et al. in the listing of those enemies of humanity whom we ought to "hunt down" -- with or without "bravado" -- is not only dishonest and irresponsible, but also fruitless.
Sorry to be so cynical. But it's well past time to begin taking responsibility for our own actions. That's the most elementary moral exercise in the book, but Koppel wants no part of it.