I wrote the following as an unsigned editorial in the September 14, 2001 editions of the News-Journal, under the headline: “No, This Country Is Not at War and Shouldn’t Be.”–Pierre Tristam
It is hell in Manhattan and Arlington. It is not war.
And if the nation continues to rattle its sabers as it has since Tuesday’s attacks, then something potentially more dangerous than war could develop — a misunderstanding of what war is, and a response to the attacks so overwhelmingly out of proportion with Monday’s terrorism that the United States could plunge itself and the world into a nightmare both will regret.
War is a relentless march of brutality, a devastation that doesn’t begin and end with two or three deadly impacts but a death machine that drafts and bloodies, willingly or not, entire populations and industries. “War,” as Ernie Pyle wrote two years before his own death at war, “makes strange giant creatures out of us little routine men who inhabit the earth.” The White House, aided by commentators and the military and abetted by collective anger, is veering prematurely toward making strange giants out of routine men.
An unintended consequence of Tuesday’s attacks is that the country’s moral authority around the world is unequaled since the end of World War II. But America’s misuse of its own might, conventional or nuclear, could wipe that out in a flash while inviting even more evil rogues to retaliate. It would open the era of terrorism by suitcase weapons of mass destruction, whether they be nuclear or biological (it wouldn’t matter to the victims).
Even short of all-out retaliation, the political misuses of the situation could have bewildering consequences for the nation’s budget and its sense of itself as a free and peaceful society. Senators are scrambling to outscream each other for a new war against terrorism, for a blank check to the nation’s secret services and military, for a new and improved national security state that would make Harry Truman’s Cold War infrastructure look quaint in comparison. The Pentagon, the CIA, the FBI are sitting back, waiting to reap the windfall.
It is all an abuse of an extraordinary situation. New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani has repeatedly warned city merchants and hospitals against taking advantage of Tuesday’s disaster and gouging consumers and victims. But no one is warning against gouging by the Pentagon and the nation’s already-gigantic national security establishment. No one is warning against gouging the national treasury and the national trust at such a vulnerable time.
We are not, or ought not be, that sort of giants.
No one is arguing in favor of doing nothing. Retaliation is inevitable and necessary. No need for moral relativism, for “sensitive” treatment of a truth naked enough to be told as it is: The nation was attacked by backward, anti-Western fundamentalists to whom civilization is an affront, for whom repression is an edict from whatever twisted deity they pretend to serve. Few will mourn their loss should they be found and destroyed. But there will be plenty to mourn if, as so often happens in these cases, retaliation becomes a carnage of innocents different from Tuesday’s attacks only in hardware and location. And if war is the result. We are not there yet, and we should not let cowardly fanatics with Khyber Pass addresses take us there. They want our war. Let us, rudely and violently, decline.
There are better things to do, and they’re being done. The only people pouring into lower Manhattan are rescuers and volunteers and anonymous heroes already chipping away the devastation of an evil act with a million daily acts of humanity. They are relentless, as the nation will be, to set things right again. But they’re not at war.
Pierre Tristam is the editor of FlaglerLive.
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Jimbo99 says
2001 was a strange year start to end. We had a trilogy of events that triggered instability. 2000 was a Gore vs W election that was very much like Trump vs HRC & even Biden vs Trump. The election recount, I lived in Miami, FL and the D’s were trying to turn Broward county to gain a Gore election win. The trilogy of 2001, we saw domestically a Clinton economic recession as a Dot com bust with that election recount. No sooner had Bush gotten into office there was a US spy plane that the Chinese caught in what they claimed was their air space (a lesser publicized military/civilian interaction was a US nuclear sub collided with a commercial fishing boat that created a little friction between the Japanese & US relations. At that time, I had predicted the US would be at war within a year. Also militarily, Bush had started enforcing the no fly zone with Iraq. All that remained was the WTC & Sept 11 to get us into war and that happened.
How fragile was the economy ? Well by Spring 2001, Bush was doing his tax rebates because unemployment was as high as it was. Sept 11 and the stock market crashed. So what it vastly different about the pandemic 2020. The stack market crashed bigger at the front end of the pandemic, 27K became 19K Dow plunge. If you think about the stock market crashes of 2001 recessions and even the 2008/2009 recessions. One was Clinton’s dot com bust, the other was the lies of Bush prosperity (property flipping, bank crisis & anything else that was part of the Bush-Obama bailouts). Actually,Trump had a pair of stock crashes. 2018Q4 was a 5K stock crash that by July 2019 had rebounded. The other crash was the pandemic drop of about 10K points that has rebounded. Timing is everything in this world. End of the day here the swamp created this money grab across the board and the millions that have been left behind, well, they were left behind in poverty & unemployed. So for US prosperity to have been what it was War on Terrorism was the game plan to make that happen. Pretty sad we have the same politicians around that traded out on misery of too many to profit. Oh, and you know when the Made in China thing took off, that was the Clinton & Bush eras, 16 years of anything NAFTA (Mexico) to where it is today with China being the global manufacturer. I recall everything in W’s 8 years was a push to get US manufacturing pollution over to China, even call centers were being moved off shore (India, the Caribbean Islands). That was the solution, get everything cheaper, still charge as though US labor was doing the work, profits were absurd levels of greed and the executives stuffed that into their bank accounts, off shore to avoid taxes too. Why did Obama go after off shore accounts ? He knew exactly where the money was going, where the next financial harvest was.
Operation Prometheus says
Oh, there will be another war soon. Perhaps We the People should understand the real reason we get into these wars that last for decades………. Two words : ” DEEP STATE “…………. The 1% Elite on this planet want their money and power. And will continue the tradition of keeping the “peasants” occupied while they enjoy the life of the Royal Bloodline of Large Skull entities . Its been going on for 6000 years.
trailer bob says
Sadly, our “freedom” has also brought us the internet and more radical journalism, both of which pretty much make it possible for ANYONE at ANYTIME to perform as newscasters and what any of us say is spread sometimes immediately, to anyone, on tons of electronic forums.
If anything changed in our world so quickly and spread so widely, it is the disturbing fact that it has became almost like a board game. Unfortunately, we no longer simply tune in to the news and see what the newscasters have on the menu for us, no…now we hear from every single person, and the accuracy and reality of our new “news”, 24/7, true or not, real or not, is on our phones, watches, computers, radio, and televisions. I think you get what I am trying to say.
The sad part is that in 66 years on earth I have never experienced the hate and separation of our people going down a very slippery slope. And it gets worse every single day. All you have to do is read or listen to see how divided we now are.
Unfortunately, maybe the only thing that will snap us out of our demise is another catastrophe. Unfortunately, maybe that will not come in time enough to save us from our selves. There used to be a saying that we have more things that unite us than divide us. What happened?