2001-09-18 | 6:16 p.m.

This is a letter forwarded to me by my sisterfriend, Flavs. As of late I haven't bothered with reading a lot of email. It ends up going straight to the deleted folder. But I stopped and read, and in doing so I thought I should share it here. It's from a professor at NYU. I don't know his name or what he teaches. I do know that after reading it I totally understood what he meant and strongly agreed. Maybe that's why I'm sharing now. Here it is:

"Everyone is scared, but and, I have the same feelings, but we must find ways to inform ourselves better.... and draw analogies from other moments in history, learn from that and zero in on what's important.

There are loads of people who will also bring up the United States' arrogance around the world, our bullying aspects, our initial support of Bin Laden when Russia invaded Afghanistan, our use of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombs as immoral, many of our overt cultural excesses, our miserable foreign policy which forces other countries to be beholden to us or owe us money which we insist on being paid back in with dollars, our mega-cultural influence via the media, via movies and television, etc. etc. But given all the polarization that people can go through, we are still left with a grim and sobering reality that we must deal with... the fanaticism of the radical (often religious) terrorist in the 21st century. It was not high technology that brought down the twin towers, but commitment to martyrdom... combined with simple razor blades and two oversized Molotov cocktails in the form of our own airplanes. There are more immediate problems now for us, than rectifying our sins of the past or changing humanity.

My ultimate fear is the release of genetically altered biological agents developed in covert Soviet operations that have fallen into the hands of terrorists. Such an attack could result in not 10,000 casualties, but hundreds of millions - a true end to our civilization. I and others suspect that bin Laden is capable of such an act. If not that one, then some other equally horrific act.

Unfortunately, and it breaks my heart to say it, an extended effort to overthrow the Taliban in Afghanistan is mandatory, unless we get lucky and find Bin Laden by covert means. This is not a good option, but I believe that the other options are far more terrible. Remember that Ashara Shokou released anthrax (in two different attempts on Tokyo civilians -- before he released sarin nerve gas. Thank God he was incompetent). Osama bin Laden, however, has not shown himself to be incompetent. Should the Taliban fail to turn him over to international authority, we have few options. And believe me, if other terrorist groups are rejoicing now (and I am sure they are), they are also planning their own gestures, having been encouraged by this extraordinarily immoral and devastating act. I am afraid it is a war...against terrorism... and, yes, innocent people may be killed in the process. But in wartime that is what happens...the long-range goal becomes more important than the short-range saving of some lives. And the American people will not tolerate the immorality of this enemy.

This is not like when Palestinians blow up a civilian bus to force negotiation in peace talks (although that is immoral as well). It is not like when Israelis retaliate in response to a disco being blown up by a suicide bomber (that, too, is immoral). The scale of destruction, the magnitude of the WTC attack is way beyond those acts. The immorality goes beyond even those terrorist attacks in Israel. At the very least, if both the PLO and the Israelis sat down at a table and decided to absolutely cease all violence, peace could be manageable... doable...(assuming Mr. Arafat could actually exert influence over Hamas, Hezbollah and other militant factions under him). But the World Trade Center event is greater than that.

Why?

These particular terrorists have made no demands, they have not taken hostages for trade nor have they taken credit for the act nor are they exerting any pressure for any specific goals other than the destruction of our American culture and civilization...a Holy war of jihad. They are ignoring all the benefit from that culture and do not understand that in a free society such as ours, what they consider the BAD also emerges alongside the GOOD and that the strength of this society is for individuals to adopt the GOOD and ignore or tolerate the BAD... or change it by peaceful means. This kind of behavior blatantly ignores the process of adapting to or altering society through peaceful means, economic means, communicational means, educated means, respectful civilized means. It is anti-Life in general, and it is toxic to a democratic way of life specifically.

I am not a militarist generally. But if no one had stood up to the Nazis from 1936 to 1945, and World War II was lost by the Allied powers, I would not be around today because I would definitely have been rounded up and turned to ash as fine as that which presently covers downtown New York. It is indeed a sad time in which we live. But it will need sensitive people such as yourself to use your energy and comfort people, arouse people, reinforce or provoke people into continually engaging in Life. You need not take on the topic of the week; all you have to do is continue doing what you do best...to look at life around you and continue to express what you see."



p r e v i o u s // n e x t