It's
the equivalent of Pearl Harbor.
That's silly. It's no such thing.
Yes, it was a tragedy. Yes, it was an attack on US soil.
But it was a terrorist attack carried out by a small number of persons, not an act of war by a nation equipped with a full military and ready and willing to use it. The degree of destruction was much greater at Pearl Harbor; the peril to our nation was incredibly more serious.
The number of deaths was indeed terrible. But it does not, I think, minimize those deaths to note that in terms of other mega-disasters which have happened to other nations, the toll was not extreme.
I'm sure I will be accused of minimizing the impact of the attack by saying this, perhaps of being unsympathetic, unpatriotic, and the like. Realism in the face of patriotic fervor usually suffers such a fate.
But I still believe a degree of balance is needed. I don't think it is unpatriotic to note that while approximately 3,000 people died in the 9/11 attacks, in that same year, 2001, more than 17,000 people were killed and more than half a million injured in alcohol-related automobile crashes. Which is truly the greater long-term danger to our country? But where are the national memorials and marches for the victims of drunk drivers?
Our country is, despite its international power, quite insular in many ways. Where has been the outpouring of support and sympathy for the victims of tragedies in other countries, both natural and man-made, which have caused deaths far higher than those suffered on 9/11? The wars in Africa, the man-caused famines, the hundreds of thousands killed by cyclones, the numbers of deaths from these events dwarf the deaths America suffered on 9/11. This is not to mimimize the trauma and grief caused by 9/11. But it is to note that tragedy stalks many countries, many families, many people, young and old.
Perspective. That's all I'm asking for. Not to minimize the grief, or the anger. But to understand it within a perspective of the entire human family. |
