Blankenhorn loses a Clue

In Serrendipity (sic) and Suffering, Dana Blankenhorn asserts that Americans haven't suffered (either at all, or enough).

There is a myth abroad, throughout America, that we have suffered grieviously from 9/11, and that everything we do now is justified by the needs of a "War On Terror."

But have we suffered? Deanistan lost a primary race. His voters retain their vote, their voices, and their lives. Unless you were in downtown Manhattan on 9/11, or very near to it, then 9/11 for you was a TV show, as it was for me.

Real people are being killed right now, in Iraq and in Israel. Most are innocent. Israelis have the advantage of at least knowing why they die, of having a cause. What is the Iraqis' cause? Freedom? Elections? America? Islam? I have no answer for that, but I strongly suspect it is our cause, and not their cause, they die for.

And they die in great double-handfuls . We don't even count them. We don't even think about them.

What does this mean? It means we haven't really suffered, we don't even know what suffering means. We have, instead, dealt suffering, in great double-handfuls. As a people we remain, on the whole, untouched. And when we are touched, it's like the long arc of an electric shock. Our pain becomes the world's pain. It is magnified, 10-fold, it's the only pain that counts.

Yes we did suffer grievously in the attacks on September 11, 2001. Almost three thousand people died. Dishwashers. Secretaries. Program managers. Over a hundred military personnel died, people working in one of the most protected buildings in the world. So don't feed me this bullshit about America "not suffering." And don't laugh at the "war on terror" label. You attack known military headquarters, that's called a war.

As for the real people being killed right now, yes they are. And look who is doing the shooting, bombing, murdering- apparently not these guys.

If the Israelis and the Iraqis want peace, well then, they need to win their wars, right? The Israelis need to "solve" their "peace problem" with the Palestinians, and the Iraqis need to hunt down and kill the terrorists flooding into their country. And the ones already in their country. And every fellow Iraqi who wants to settle a score. Funny how many innocent Iraqis are dying at the hands of their fellow citizens and those ostensibly of their own religion.

Actually, it's not funny at all.

Mr. Blankenhorn, your Clue still awaits. I suggest you read some newspapers and first-hand accounts (you know how to work a search engine) to learn what you "...have no answer for..."


Written by Andrew Ittner in misc on Sun 07 March 2004. Tags: commentary