The Guardian's Seumas Milne on the roots of the WTC atrocity

[ciphergoth]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,551036,00.html

Shock, rage and grief there has been aplenty. But any glimmer of recognition of why people might have been driven to carry out such atrocities, sacrificing their own lives in the process - or why the United States is hated with such bitterness, not only in Arab and Muslim countries, but across the developing world - seems almost entirely absent. Perhaps it is too much to hope that, as rescue workers struggle to pull firefighters from the rubble, any but a small minority might make the connection between what has been visited upon them and what their government has visited upon large parts of the world.

Comments

[keith-london.livejournal.com]

It's a fair point to try and look at the view from the "other side". But what kind of morality do the Bin Ladens of this world offer? Would the world really be a better place if say America suddenly disappeared? In a lot of ways, it's a battle of values and ideology, and both sides, it may be argued, see fit to use any means to justify their own ends. Maybe the US should use suicide bombers too?

I wouldn't credit the terrorists in this particular episode with any form of what we in this society (West in general)would consider "rational" thought. Anyone can have some grievance (real or otherwise), and then take it out on somebody else. I would hazard a guess that if the US played by their rules, a nuclear war would have broken out by now!

Even if the "United States" really were that hated, does it then follow as a matter of logic that US civilians too are hated, and deserve all to be slaughtered (as so-called fatwas have called for in the past)?

(PS You don't have to answer these question - I'm just thinking it out in words, in response to your entry)

at last...

[tempaccount99]

Cheers for posting that... I'd been trying to find something that actually described a little background to the situation, rather than just showing pictures of explosions...