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This morning, conveniently '9/11/01', what could be considered a ten year legacy found it's place in the annals of terrorist history. The World Trade Centers towers - both of them - remain nothing but ruin, and little is known as to how many lives have been lost. The Towers could have contained as many as 50,000 civilians, we're told.
Americans on the West coast, conveniently seperated literally by space and subjectively by time find themselves wandering in a stupor. Confusion is apparent, shock is the only manifest expression carried on the faces of typically unconcerned, all-consuming adults.
John McCain (Sen.) tells the world that this constitutes an act of war, while Bush Jr. defaults his chair to Cheney, presumably to fill a more critical role as commander-in-chief.
Airports are shut down, borders are closed, suspicions burn like magnesium, and tensions are bizarre. Americans and Europeans find themselves stunningly unsurprised ; some even suggest it was in some way deserved - a readily observable causal chain ending in five hijacked planes no one knows how many lost lives.
Naturally, these events leave a bounty of questions. Was this terrorism? Was this an act of war? Should the US respond? Is it over?
The US is adolescent in compare to many of our world's countries. As such, the US has often been seen as an obnoxious teenager whose certainty in it's own invulnerability is rivalled only by it's arrogance. Today, many Americans feel both humbled and quite vulnerable. And just about everyone, just about everywhere, is filled to the brim with questions.
What constitutes terrorism?
As the US is the present target of aggression, whatever we label that aggression, it might be appropriate to use the US Department of Defense definition of Terrorism to gauge these events. According to the US DoD, Terrorism is :
"the calculated use of violence or the threat of violence to inculcate fear; intended to coerce or to intimidate governments or societies in the pursuit of goals that are generally political, religious, or ideological."
Were we to create an itemized list of qualifiers, that list would most certainly include the following :
a) Fear
b) Intimidation
c) Ideological Goals
One might logically conclude that fear and intimidation are typical consequences of violent action - most specifically, violent action directed to a nation's civilian population.
One might logically conclude that ideological goals are generally the primary point of contention on the surface of most wars. Certainly, wars are also driven by economic motivations, egoist motivations and political leveraging - but to call a war a matter of politics, economics, or personal pride would certainly bring the protest raining down. That is to say, more so than it already does when a bunch of boys pick up their boom sticks and step up to the front of the line.
The question is, what differentiates "Terrorism" and "War"?
The answer, of course, is "Opinion".
The only opinion that counts, then, when someone intimidates the US executive branch, is of course that of the US executive branch. What tact does a country take to respond to these sorts of threats?
Perhaps a (yet another) metaphor is required here. How does a testosterone laden teenage boy respond to threats and the occasional pummeling from nameless, faceless peers in the hallway en route to AP English in room 151?
Like everything else, any assumptions we might make along these lines are driven by contigencies we can't see or understand - not unless we sit in the war room. Nonetheless, we can make the attempt.
That teenage boy is going to do his best to identify the nameless, faceless tormentors, and draw them into a public reckoning. Naturally, if they are unavailable (generally due to political allies and careful arrangement of certain resources), the teenager will logically seek the next best thing. An associated individual, a supporting individual, an easy target.
Like most humans, one who feels wronged is compelled to find a vessel within which to place the blame.
It's unlikely that this event will be permitted to pass unmanaged. Even if such "Management" is wholly inappropriate, it will be seen as a necessary imperative by those in the executive branch.
It may not be this week, or this month - but it will occur. If the US doesn't go to war, we can at the very least expect a massive balooning of the alphabet-soup budget-machine. The NSA will be cracking more codes, the CIA will be infiltrating more dissenters. The world is going to take a turn down a road which hasn't been maintained for fifty years. The potholes could pose a serious threat to more than just the US.
It doesn't matter if it's a terrorist action or an act of war. The course of action is clear reguardless. How fast and in what order remains to be seen, but the direction is a matter of inertia without friction. This object will tend towards motion - in a given direction. The US is sealed, and something is about to give.
My answers, then, to the questions posed above can only be rhetorical - but here they are.
Was this terrorism? The distinction is irrelevent.
Was this an act of war? In the eyes of those who're calling the shots for the US, it could be nothing else. Any other avenue leaves only wholly inadequate methods for response.
Should the US respond? The US will respond.
Is it over? No.
I hope we're all up for the ride.
This is my third attempt to post this message. |
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