America Under Siege (a rant)
Provided flights are then on schedule, I will fly to Amsterdam on Monday, September 17, and return on September 26, for a little respite from all the turmoil. I speak of the dislocation of my being recently laid off, rather than the vast human tragedy of the skyjack air-torpedoing of the twin-towered World Trade Center and the Pentagon yesterday.
But, like millions worldwide, I now have images indelibly etched for life—mostly faceless—of a surreal passenger jet plowing through an upper floor of one tower, the other’s topmost plume of acrid smoke symmetrically opposed by this one’s blossoming orange fireball below, and then in succession each Promethean structure, like an accordion folding in on itself, collapses in a debris chaos of steel, stone and glass, rendering countless small heroic human lives nameless.
So far I know of no one directly impacted by the horrific events—though California seems distant, the media provides a visceral if disassociated awareness. While few people have yet been named, I know thousands suffered. At some point I’ll be able to feel deep sympathy for the loved ones mourning. Yet, I’m aware that we are all affected by these events.
A minority-elected, irrelevant President, yesterday in some Omaha bunker, is seeking wide powers to prosecute a war against unidentified terrorists, and I fear now for the rapid erosion of personal liberties we largely take for granted. In the face of such inexorable events, condolences ring hollow for those who have lost loved ones, as they will for the innocents who suffer soon our (likely) indiscriminant reprisals. Why, as a country, can’t we grasp that the bald, hegemonic use of American power—both economic and military—spawns such terrorists, against whom we cannot protect ourselves without sacrificing those things I still love about this country. These historic events, besides rescuing the foundering Bush Presidency, may change us forever. With the economy teetering on the verge of worldwide recession—Will the Saudis cut off our oil if we hit Osama bin Laden? Or will a war footing secure us for the outright American Empire phase of history? —the outcome’s yet unclear.
OK, I need to step back from millennial speculations, even as we face such dire events. I’m hoping Amsterdam will give me that respite. Yet, even as I board an intercontinental commercial jet, it enters my awareness—inevitably now—how others have been deflected from their vacation course for use as weapons of vast destruction.
Let us pray.
posted by Paul at 6:36 PM
