Re: [Leica] Terror

["B. D. Colen" <bdcolen2001@yahoo.ca>]

Ran in the Miami Herald. It's a real old-fashioned
flag waver...which is always a bit scary, but on this
day does indeed seem appropriate. It isin much much
much longer form the apocryphal quote attributed,
first in the movie Tora! Tora! Tora!, and then again
in the excrable Pearl Harbor, to Admiral Yamamoto, the
Harvard-educated architect of Pearl Harbor:

"I fear that all we have accomplished is that we have
awakened a sleeping tiger."
- --- George Lottermoser <imagist@concentric.net> wrote:
> Hopefully this will be my last offering on this
> thread:
> 
> __________________________
> 
> Piece by L. Pitts addressed to terrorists
> Wed Sep 12 08:40:41 2001
> --
> 
> They pay me to tease shades of meaning from social
> and cultural
> issues,
> to provide words that help make sense of that which
> troubles the
> American soul.
> 
> But in this moment of airless shock when hot tears
> sting
> disbelieving
> eyes, the only thing I can find to say, the only
> words that seem
> to fit,
> must be addressed to the unknown author of this
> suffering.
> 
> You monster. You beast. You unspeakable bastard.
> 
> What lesson did you hope to teach us by your
> coward's attack on
> our
> World Trade Center, our Pentagon, us? What was it
> you hoped we
> would learn?
> 
> Whatever it was, know that you failed.
> 
> Did you want us to respect your cause? You just
> damned it.
> 
> Did you want to make us fear? You just steeled our
> resolve.
> 
> Did you want to tear us apart? You just brought us
> together.
> 
> Let me tell you about my people. We are a vast and
> quarrelsome
> family, a
> family rent by racial, cultural, political and class
> division,
> but a
> family nonetheless. We're frivolous, yes, capable of
> expending
> tremendous emotional energy on pop cultural minutiae
> -- a
> singer's
> revealing dress, a ball team's misfortune, a cartoon
> mouse.
> 
> We're wealthy, too, spoiled by the ready
> availability of trinkets
> and
> material goods, and maybe because of that, we walk
> through life
> with a
> certain sense of blithe entitlement. We are
> fundamentally decent,
> though
> -- peace-loving and compassionate. We struggle to
> know the right
> thing
> and to do it. And we are, the overwhelming majority
> of us, people
> of
> faith, believers in a just and loving God.
> 
> Some people -- you, perhaps -- think that any or all
> of this
> makes us weak.
> 
> You're mistaken. We are not weak. Indeed, we are
> strong in ways
> that
> cannot be measured by arsenals.
> 
> Yes, we're in pain now. We are in mourning, and we
> are in shock.
> We're
> still grappling with the unreality of the awful
> thing you did,
> still
> working to make ourselves understand that this isn't
> a special
> effect
> from some Hollywood blockbuster, isn't the plot from
> a Tom Clancy
> novel.
> 
> Both in terms of the awful scope of its ambition and
> the probable
> final
> death toll, your attacks are likely to go down as
> the worst acts
> of
> terrorism in the history of the United States and,
> indeed, the
> history
> of the world.
> 
> You've bloodied us as we have never been bloodied
> before.
> 
> But there's a gulf of difference between making us
> bloody and
> making us
> fall. This is the lesson Japan was taught to its
> bitter sorrow
> the last
> time anyone hit us this hard, the last time anyone
> brought us
> such
> abrupt and monumental pain. When roused, we are
> righteous in our
> outrage, terrible in our force. When provoked by
> this level of
> barbarism, we will bear any suffering, pay any cost,
> go to any
> length,
> in the pursuit of justice.
> 
> I tell you this without fear of contradiction. I
> know my people,
> as you
> do not. What I know reassures me. It also causes me
> to tremble
> with
> dread of the future.
> 
> In days to come, there will be recrimination and
> accusation,
> fingers
> pointing to determine whose failure allowed this to
> happen and
> what can
> be done to prevent it from happening again. There
> will be
> heightened
> security, misguided talk of revoking basic freedoms.
> We'll go
> forward
> from this moment sobered, chastened, sad. But
> determined, too.
> Unimaginably determined.
> 
> There is steel beneath this velvet. That aspect of
> our character
> is
> seldom understood by those who don't know us well.
> On this day,
> the
> family's bickering is put on hold. As Americans we
> will weep, as
> Americans we will mourn, and as Americans we will
> rise in defense
> of all
> that we cherish.
> 
> Still, I keep wondering what it was you hoped to
> teach us. It
> occurs to
> me that maybe you just wanted us to know the depths
> of your
> hatred.
> 
> If that's the case, consider the message received.
> And take this
> message
> in exchange: You don't know my people. You don't
> know what we're
> about.
> You don't know what you just started.
> 
> But you're about to learn. 
> 
> _L. Pitts_ 
> 
> George
> 
> 
> 
> 


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