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When the World Trade Center collapsed, not quite 3,000 people died. That's a big number, but not really inconceivably big*. It's human nature to generalize when the scope of death is that big. It's easier to get our minds around it when the numbers are rationalized into "a whole lot". But by doing that we collectively dull the pain and outrage by reducing it to a statistic.
Benton City, Washington. Population 2,790.
Could you make the decision to kill every man, woman and child in that town? The terrorists on 9/11 made just such a choice.
The victims that day weren't all American citizens. They came from more than a score of countries. They all contributed in their own way to the modern world, from the executives in the boardrooms to the illegal alien bussing tables in the restaraunts.** They shared one trait, they were collectively hated because of where they lived and worked.
Holden, Maine. Population 2,827.
Can you even conceive of something that would make you so angry that you would be willing to murder thousands? Not thousands of soldiers or another group of people who've wronged you, just several thousand randomly selected innocent targets.
Sedgewick County, Colorado. Population 2,747.
Imagine waking up one morning knowing that you were going to commit mass murder. How perverted is your worldview to even allow consideration of such an act?
The people who died in the attacks that day represented many varied belief systems and religions, and no doubt more than a few were followers of Islam. Not that it mattered, because the object was mass destruction and death, and the who that died mattered less than the why of it to the terrorists.
Today, followers of that same perverted vision of religion are intentionally murdering civilians in Iraq. Somehow, it's gotten all turned around that it's America's fault. If you can, please explain to me how anything America has ever done can make it morally acceptable to choose to walk into a crowded public place and detonate explosives strapped to your body.
And if those numbers are too large and impersonal for you, how about the latest car bombing in Iraq, where terrorists detonated a car bomb with two children inside it. The children were there to lure the checkpoint soldiers into letting their guard down.
Godless, subhuman savages. Anyone who believes that it is possible to negotiate with such as that is a fool. The terrorists have been clear about what they want, and you can make the choice for yourself. You can choose to live under their twisted form of slavery, or you can fight and keep fighting so that you and your children can live as free people. You cannot choose compromise, because the terrorists do not recognize the possibility.
* That number seems even less threatening considering the number of dead in the last tsunami, but that natural event points out that on our worst days, mankind is a piker compared to what Mother Nature can do to us.
** I guess the politically correct term would be "undocumented immigrants" but "illegal aliens" is more technically correct. There are substantiated reports that at least a few lost their lives that day. I mourn for them as I do for everyone who died in the attacks, but I'm not going to sugarcoat their legal status.
Posted by Ted at March 22, 2007 04:54 AM