Thoughts on September 11

(9/26/01)
Thoughts on September 11

For someone who was a fringe participant in World War II, the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center brings back some uncomfortable memories. Suicide attacks by relatively few Japanese in small airplanes did more damage to our big warships than all other attacks on them. Almost all successful insurrections of the past two centuries have been carried out by ill-equipped fighters who captured the technologically superior weapons of their enemies. And the terrorists proved how advances in technology make it possible to turn artifacts not thought of as weapons into effective means of destruction. We should not conceal from ourselves, moreover, that in so doing they completely fooled the military and intelligence people who, having spent billions of dollars on inappropriate defense systems, are now charged with destroying the terrorists.

There is much to be gained by admitting the extent to which our experts were humiliated by the attack of 11 September. Not only were two symbols of U.S. economic dominance destroyed and the center of our military power damaged and several thousand people killed, but all commercial aviation was brought to a halt, and damages to many areas of the economy will run into billions of dollars. The political and social-psychological effects promise to be even more impressive. As the president and his advisors have said, the priority of the federal government's agenda has entirely changed: Instead of concentrating on issues such as education and health, first attention must be given to putting the nation on a war footing, and citizens must be prepared to surrender many of their freedoms and civil liberties. A remarkable victory for less than fifty people, at the cost of a few thousand dollars.

Columbia students who have all studied Herodotus in Lit Hum will recall that his Histories display the fact that very small, impoverished peoples frequently have humiliatingly defeated nations superior in wealth and population and economic power. His climactic illustration of how such improbabilities are achieved is the wonderful description of how three hundred Spartans at Thermopylae facing Xerxes' army of perhaps a million, instead of seizing the opportunity to retreat to safety, chose to stand and face certain death. They committed suicide as surely as the terrorists of 11 September—and are celebrated as founders of our civilization.

Leonidas and his long-haired Spartans of 2500 years ago are worth recalling, because President Bush explains the reason for the terrorists' attack so unhesitatingly and without any qualification: They are simply evil people. As a teacher of Literary Humanities and a veteran of World War II, I deny that people who are willing to sacrifice their lives for a cause in which they believe thereby prove themselves evil. Throughout history, good men have sacrificed themselves for bad causes and bad men for good causes. I have always believed it was good for our country and the world that we fought and won World War II, but that does not require me to regard every German who fought bravely and skillfully for the Nazi cause as an evil man. Here Erwin Rommel is exemplary. He fought brilliantly in both World Wars and was responsible for the death of many Allied soldiers, but everything I know about him testifies that he was a good and honorable man, proved finally by this most patriotic of professional German soldiers turning against Hitler and, when the plot failed, committing suicide to protect his wife and son.

Merely condemning the terrorists as evil is to indulge in mindless self-righteousness that can make us into what we accuse others of being. Two recent prime ministers of Israel were former terrorists, Begin having masterminded a particularly atrocious killing of innocent people; so are we to call these Israelis evil? Fifteen years ago, fanatical Afghanistani fighters were praised by our government and press for their heroic resistance to the evil Soviet empire. If we...