Looking forward from the past

 
So, it’s that day again.

On December 7th, 1986, I stopped into the office of a co-worker in an administrative department at my university. She was an older lady, so I was confident that she would know my meaning when I asked, “Do you think anybody else around here has noticed the date?” She had, of course: the 45th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor. After we’d discussed it for a few minutes, I said, “That was the unforgettable moment for your generation. For mine, it was the Kennedy assassination. I wonder what will be the day-they’ll-never-forget for today’s school kids?”

Fifty-two days later, the Challenger exploded barely a minute into lift-off, and I had my answer.

And, fifteen years later, just in time for another generation, we got another moment.

That moment is still with us, though many disagree what it means. For me, there are no doubts. What we’re doing in the world right now? It’s not about getting cheap oil. It’s not about Bush Junior finishing Bush Senior’s grudge against Saddam Hussein. It’s not about American imperialism or a neo-con power grab or a vast right-wing conspiracy. It’s a war, and we weren’t the ones to declare it.

I’ve dealt with some of those people. They’ve tried to kill members of my unit (and me) with bullets and RPGs and mortars and rockets and IEDs and — once — hand grenades. In the field, they’re resourceful and adaptable and never short of determination or ingenuity. Wounded and captured and in the hospital, they’re stoic and defiant. Under long-term imprisonment, they keep resisting and praying and sharing information with one another and doing whatever they can to further their cause. I will never, absolutely never, underestimate their commitment or their courage.

Of course, there’s also the fact that they and their fellows have killed far more Muslims than we have.

The point is, these are serious people. They’re not playing. They believe in what they’re doing. They’re dedicated to a long-term vision of what they want the world to be. They mean it. There is much, very much to admire about them.

At the end of all other considerations, however, a central fact remains: all these undeniable virtues operate through a world-view not only alien to us, but loathsome. Every time we use pinpoint missile strikes to hit a leadership cell, their propaganda machine instantly reports — and often invents — how many women and children were killed; then they blow up a school or a marketplace (filled with their own people!), and celebrate it with shouts of, “God is great!”

I certainly hope I’m following God’s path. I doubt that I’m as devout as the mujahadin are. Somehow, though, I can’t believe that He’s telling me to murder civilians, in the greatest possible numbers, as the proper fulfillment of my faith.

That was the purpose of September 11th, 2001. The Pentagon could be considered a military target, even if killing a plane-load of noncombatants in order to hit it would still be a despicable act. If United 93 was in fact intended to strike the White House, that too could be seen as a valid target, though with the same disclaimer. Crashing into the Twin Towers, however … the only reason for that was to kill, to kill as many as possible, and to kill people who weren’t their enemies, except through the questionable claim that ALL Americans were their enemies.

I wish that last were true. I wish all of us were as hell-bent on defeating them as they are on destroying us.

But — as long as we’re allowed to do the job — enough of us are.