Today is a sad anniversary, particularly because Nuclear weapons are still a major danger to innocent lives.
I have friends from my 9/11 group, Sept. 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows in Japan pushing the Stonewalk granite memorial to Hiroshima, they arrived today.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/235318_bombed.asp
The rationalizing mindset behind Hiroshima/Nagasaki, that the killing of innocents is "justifiable" to ensure "security", is of course still prevalent. The terrorist mindset that killing innocent people is justified for a larger "political/fascist" purpose is not dissimilar. And though innocent people are not "targeted" in Iraq, they have been the indisputable, primary victims of war from the mid-20th Centurty to present-- what some annoyingly call "the unintended effect". That is a convenient shedding of our responsibility. Of course 9/11 has been the central rationalization for deeming these killings "acceptable" because response the horrendous killing of our own people gives us "permission" to frame the killing of other innocent people as "acceptable" and "part of reality"....that is way too similar to the mindset of "violent extremism" for me to accept.
Myself and many others have heard the accusations that we are naive and idealistic way too often. It is such a detached argument. When our loved ones were murdered on 9/11 we had members of the Hibakusha (survivors of the A-Bomb in Japan) contact us immediately with empathy and a concern at the increased militarism that was inevitable with this Administration. People who lost loved ones to violence cannot so easily live in the world of detached intellectualism. We do not claim solutions to our complex security threats are simple (we leave simplistic solutions up to Neo-Cons), but we also set a new bar of what is ethical and humane, and acceptable, as we move forward to redeem the loss of our loved ones and our innocence. I always think of a colleage and friend who lost his son in the WTC on 9/11...he cannot bring himself to eat meat after seeing the photos of his son's remains...when you are affected this intimately, it is not some self-righteous political expression, but rather a neccesary form of emotional survival.
To honor the victims of Hiroshima today, and the many other victims of war and terrorism since, perhaps we should offer up ideas for non-violently "pre-empting" the threat that has triggered our current conflicts: terrorism.
Namely-- what can we do today, as a superpower with tremendous wealth and innovative ideas, to prevent the next Mohhamed Atta or London Bombers from becoming terrorists 10 years from now? How do we defuse the hatred and ideology that pulls young men into extremist groups?
Since our President only seems capable of responding to Al-Zawari's recent threats with equally vague and macho-infused promises to be resolute, what ideas can we-- the citizens who get caught up in this violence, come up with to make the prospect of becoming an extremist less attractive to people over the coming decade?
-Andrew Rice
Brother of David Rice, 9/11 victim, WTC.
http://www.andrewforoklahoma.com