9/11 - lessons ignored
This great evil. Where does it come from? How'd it steal into the world? What seed, what root did it grow from? Who's doin' this? Who's killin' us? Robbing us of life and light. Mockin' us with the sight of what we might've known. Does our ruin benefit the earth? Does it help the grass to grow, the sun to shine? Is this darkness in you, too? Have you passed to this night?
- the thin red line
five years have passed since the towers have collapsed and still we have not learned one of the greatest lessons from this tragic event. we still do not comprehend and acknowledge the lesson of 9/11 and all of history that evil begets evil. we want to point out the evil, but don't want to ask where it came from.
on one end of the spectrum is president bush and his neo-con cronies. though they constantly cry out against terrorism, they ignore the roots of it's evil with an idea of evil ex nihilo. they pretend the evil had no cause, exists on its own, and repay it with more terrorism. two wrongs don't make a right, they make a third wrong. by repaying evil with evil more evil ensues.
on the other end of the spectrum is steven jones and other conspiratorial kooks. instead of acknowledging the terrorsim, but ignoring the root of it's evil, the conspiratorial kooks pretend the terrorism wasn't real and ignore a lesson that needs to be learned.
evil didn't just happen. terrorists just don't create themselves. unless we learn to value evil for what it is and where it grows, it will just continue to perpetuate itself.
Where did terrorism spring from? I have my ideas, but I'd love to hear yours, too.
ReplyDeleteLoyd,
ReplyDeleteEvil may beget evil but ignoring evil also begets evil. Osama bin Laden was a known anti-American terrorist long before Bush and his cronies came to power. He was bombing U.S. embassies in Africa and the Middle East during the Clinton administration. In fact, he was once captured and offered to the U.S. for a reward and Clinton chose not to bring him in. As a result, he was let loose and 9/11 happened. Clinton approached international affairs by pouring out U.S. aid money and avoiding conflict. Although seemingly admirable, his approach didn't work. In a post-presidential interview he once admitted that his biggest regret while president was choosing not to intervene in Rwanda during the genocide wars. The lack of international intervention is arguably one of the reasons that we're still seeing such cases in Sudan and other parts of Africa. The reality of the situation is that violence and terror has been brewing for much longer than Bush has been around, but having been ignored, has left him with a big mess to clean up.
No, I haven't become a Bushie, but I'm also not opposed to the war on terror. There are people who want to kill us just for being American, and I'm bothered by those who refuse to accept that as a reality. I agree that history has taught us that evil begets evil, but the history of 9/11 has taught us that trying to repay evil with good also escalates evil. Given those two factors, the only choice we have is to combat evil with evil and hope we come out on top. I don't really think anyone wins or loses in such a case, unless "winning" is simply a matter of who lives and who dies. And I don’t want to die.
P.S. I do not equate the war in Iraq with the war on terror, in fact I think it’s hurting America and distracting us from the real war. As such, I still hate Bush.
becca!!!! how are you? you need to come online so we can chat.
ReplyDeletei really don't know much about the clinton/osama discussion. i know that last night he sharply defended himself from the critique, but i haven't had time to watch it.
I didn't realize that they were debating this very issue in the news right now until I turned on Tucker Carlson (no mean comments please, I love him) today. I should clarify that don't blame Clinton for 9/11. But there are so many people here shoving their pamphlets in my face, seriously comparing Bush to Hitler, blaming every problem in the world on him, and recruiting my help to overthrow the White House. I just don't do crazy. There are simply more facets to this problem than the fact that Bush is a bad president.
ReplyDeleteI've discovered that political identity is partially a matter of where you're located. In Utah County those who don’t accept “Gods party” are liberals, but here, the left are just as irrational as the right can be there. So I guess I’m a moderate now, even though my views haven't changed much.
Anyway… I’ll definitely get on-line so we can chat sometime.