Commentary By Ron Beasley
I for one will have my TV box turned off on Sunday, 9/11/11. It will be anything but a "commemorative" but a political feeding frenzy. Now it's not surprising that a really offensive article on 9/11 should appear in the Weekly Standard but this one by Charlotte Anderson really stands out on the offensive scale.
Instead, the campus commemorations, many of which will be spaced out for days and even weeks this fall, will focus on, well, understanding it all, in the ponderous, ambiguity-laden, complexity-generating way that seems to be the hallmark of college professors faced with grim events about which they would rather not think in terms of morality: �Historical and political representations,� whatever those are (Harvard), �How do we determine truth and reality?� (more Harvard), and �Imaging Atrocity: The Function of Pictures in Literary Narratives about 9/11? (St. John�s University in New York).
So yes, it's immoral somehow to understand it all. We should only pay tribute to all who lost their lives on 9/11. While that may be appropriate for for those who lost loved ones it is not appropriate for those in an academic setting who are supposed to be studying history. They should be looking at who did it - why they did it - and why they were able to do it. Why did the US response result in more deaths and a greater economic impact on the US than the original incident.
As for who did it - James Joyner explains it well:
For example, a freshman might well come to campus with half-baked thoughts like �Muslims were the perpetrators of the attacks.� It would be a disservice for them to graduate without understanding that the attacks were actually perpetrated by 19 particular Muslims who were part of a terrorist organization motivated by a mixture of radical theology and a set of policy goals and that the world has some 2.25 billion Muslims, very few of whom are interested in blowing them up.
Why did they do it? bin Laden himself said it was because the US infidels had military in Saudi Arabia - it wasn't about who we are but where we were.
Why were they able to do it? The greatest intelligence failure in US history.
As for the response........? Something that should be studied.
To truly respect those who were lost on 9/11 it is important to look at all these issues.
Hoping that the masses in the West will understand the "why" of the suicide attack on September, 11 2001 likely has to be left for a while yet. I suspect it might still be too dangerous for ones career as a journalist, academic, politician etc. to delve into the reasons in any depth. Besides, for some journalist and, seemingly, all politicians the event is still fresh enough to milk for any number of parochial reasons. Me, I'm already suffering from 9/11 anniversary fatigue. If I hear one more moving personal account or read one more "how the world changed forever" analytical piece I'll leave the room. Thankfully, usually after the 10th anniversary of any event no one really wants to remember en masse 'til the 25th one so, we, only indirectly effected, will be spared the media blitz & political hype for 15 years. After 25 years I hope the event will be able to be talked about in a dispassionate, truly analytical, way and least those still able to think for themselves, in that future, might have some inkling as to why the event happened.
ReplyDeleteI'd trot out the old canard regarding not learning from history, but in this case, these hacks are more interested in rewriting history to suit their own purposes and are therefore more concerned that no one have the opportunity to learn the actual facts and show their narrative to be the self-serving fantasy it is.
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