September 11 Digital Archive

tp157.xml

Title

tp157.xml

Source

born-digital

Media Type

story

Created by Author

yes

Described by Author

no

Date Entered

2003-03-03

TomPaine Story: Story

"here is a piece on Agenda Interrupted.


September 11 is an eminently forgettable day of disgrace, not only for what
a bunch of homicidal maniacs , treating the USA as a sort of totem pole of
evil that needed to be destroyed, did in New York and Washington, killing in
the process hundreds of innocent persons aboard the planes with which they
rammed the World Trade Center building and that housing the Pentagon, but
also for the equally heinous, though retaliatory, massacre of innocents in
Afghanistan by the Coalition Against Terrorism cobbled together by the
United States. Worst of all, the killings on September 11 and those that
followed as retribution, together, interrupted, nay shattered, the agenda
that humankind had set before itself with the formal end of the Cold War.
Mankind had hoped that it would mark the dawn of a Brave, not a brutal, New
World of peace and brotherhood, that human beings would stop killing their
fellows, and that governments out to put fear of God in the hearts of
wrongdoers would identify their quarries before going after them.
Nobody could have expected civilized behavior from desperadoes, especially
those indoctrinated with the belief that if they perished while carrying out
their mission they would go straight to Paradise! But governments are
expected to exhibit the normal restraints of civilized behavior even while
out to liquidate physically those who wrought havoc in their respective
countries, and killed and maimed their people. By being indiscriminate in
the bombing of Afghanistan, the Coalition Against Terrorism exhibited as
much of an atavistic urge as the terrorists had done in the USA. Neither
showed regard for innocent human lives. Thus viewed, didnt terrorists and
the Coalition complement each other in undermining humankinds wistful
visions of a peaceful future?

Citation

“tp157.xml,” September 11 Digital Archive, accessed June 28, 2024, https://911digitalarchive.org/items/show/621.