The fact remains that many on this list have taken the mass murder of innocents at the WTC as a chance to repeat the same litany of accusations against the US government, and implying the culpability of American citizens in those actions, as they have any other day of the week. To do so in the context of this mass murder is not to make an abstract point but to de facto, might I say semiotically, justify the attack, for communication is not just the supposed intent of a speaker (the refuge of all propagandists) but of how it will be received by audiences.
What is shocking is that people on this list have less respect for the dead than the Taliban leadership and the Palestnian leadership which felt that no decent people should even attempt to link this act to even justified grievances to which it might be linked.
There is a way to approach these issues in a respectful way, to note that a military response would be both wrong and ineffective and that the most effective security for the American people is a just world. The best defense of US citizens is analogous to public health- the best way to prevent madmen and political parasites from destroying the body politic is to heal the injustice which fuels the hate they feed on. We can waste money on an inherently leaky missile shield, which would have been useless in this attack, or we can spend the same amount of money promoting economic development and ending the misery which creates the conditions of despair which these inhuman terrorists exploit to both recruit their tools and attract misguided support.
-- Nathan Newman
----- Original Message ----- From: "Carl Remick" <carlremick at hotmail.com>
I haven't noted expressions of justification or joy here so much as mere acknowledgement of cause and effect. The concept of blowback isn't just fodder for academic discussion; it points to very real domestic agony that is the certain consequence of America's global military adventurism. Expressions of righteous wrath and indignation about this terrorist attack tend to obscure how utterly predictable such an attack was at some point and will help assure that the US's inevitable misdirected reaction will be even more excessive than can be expected.
Carl
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