Now I'm just exhausted.

I want to say I'm tired of hearing about the attack, but that's not true. Half of me wants to go back to the way things were a week ago and the other half needs to hear more.

It's frightening and surprising, yet not so unexpected. Just this summer I was in a car with a friend of mine. We turned on the radio to hear about a bombing. Three or so dead, including at least one child. More injured. But when the journalist said the words, "...reporting from Israel," we both sighed--and then we looked at each other. We nodded, yeah. One of us--it might've been me, it might've been him--said, "Yes. We really are that shallow." We both knew (as many knew, as everyone knows now) that we lived in the same world as this news report, that we couldn't keep up this pretense that this wasn't our concern, that we couldn't pretend we were above terrorism forever.

It's this same false sense of security that makes me thankful that everyone I know (or keep in contact with, anyway) in New York or D.C. is apparently all right. As though this should help me stay objective when so many American citizens are dead. And among them so many firefighters and rescue workers--perhaps the noblest and best of us.

I cry when I hear about the heroism of the New York fire and police departments. I cry when I hear about their sacrifice, and the sacrifice of those on board United Airlines flight 93 (the flight that went down in Western PA) who discovered what was happening and took deliberate action to stop it at the cost--not the risk, the cost--of their lives. Prayer services joining Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Jews and Christians in unity and mutual support. The companies (media and airline companies included!) who shout profits-be-damned in the interest of keeping people informed and safe. People flocking to the Red Cross for blood donations in record numbers. There's a blood shortage about every summer! Maybe now that we have seen this need, there never will be these shortages again...

I want to believe that. But how can I look honestly at the above without also looking at the price-gouging of those Americans who seek to profit from this tragedy? The friends and co-workers who calmly suggest we deport all those who follow Islam or all those of a certain ethnicity? The World Trade Center rubble on sale on Ebay? The inability of our government to come up with any response to the attack other than an equal and opposite retaliation, complete with "acceptable" killing of "enemy" civilians? The harrassment of fellow US citizens on online bulletin boards when they become critical of our government or they suggest anything other than such a retaliation? The blaming of "the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians" for the attack by "man of God" Jerry Falwell? The attacks on Arabs and Muslims in the States by "patriotic" white Christian Americans? In Parma (Ohio), where I lived until July, someone drove a Ford Mustang through the front doors of a Mosque this morning. This wasn't the first such attack and I fear it won't be the last.

I believe this juxtaposition--the incredible good and the incredible evil of which this country is capable--is why we are a target. Why some in other countries can wish to covet what we have, yet detest what we are. They see the greatness and the evil that our freedom allows, but somehow they believe they can have the benefits of the former without the risk of the latter. This is in no way a complete answer to what's gone wrong. But it's so hard to think clearly when all I want to do is place the blame.

I'm reminded of a high school teacher my freshman year who was crowded by a large group of students on a stairs. She stumbled, but didn't quite fall. She turned to the students and said, "Who pushed me?" A kid standing close to her responded he didn't know, he didn't think anyone pushed. It was just crowded. She said, "Well, someone's getting a detention for this, so who's it going to be." One of my friends muttered what we were all thinking and then said, "Yeah, I'll go."

Placing blame is easy to do, but doing it correctly isn't. I--along with so many others--are more hungry for satisfaction than truth today. But what if getting that satisfaction now--attacking our opponents without thought of the long-term consequences--means we will forever lose our chance at finding out the truth? Is that any way to honor the victims of September 11?

I am not a political animal. But this problem, this situation, this crisis, goes beyond politics. So to the wealth of information and proposals out there, please allow me to contribute these reminders and ideas:

• Islam is not a violent religion. Though Muhommed (or Mohommed or Muhommad; our alphabets are so different that it's hard to find a standard spelling of many words) wrote that war was justified in extreme circumstances like defense or to right a horrible wrong, he more often urged tolerance and forgiveness. Every chapter but one of the Quran (or Koran) opens with a description of Allah (God) as "merciful and compassionate." The word "Jihad," usually translated in the West as "holy war" (which I believe began in use by Europeans as a description of the Christian Church's Crusades) more often refers to the daily striving (or struggle) of Muslims for higher moral standards within themselves. Look it up. Or, better yet, ask a Muslim. Better than harrassing one.

• There's a difference between religion, ethnicity, country-of-origin, and terrorist-tendency. Not all Arabs are Muslim. Not all Muslims are from the Middle-East. Not all people from the Middle-East are from Afghanistan (do we even know for sure it was Bin Laden yet?). And not all people from Afghanistan are terrorists.

  It works across the board. Not all people from the Middle-East are Muslims, etc. In fact, many of the Muslims and Arabs who have been harrassed in the past week have been United States citizens. And they deserve as much freedom and benefit-of-the-doubt as any white, Christian American under our laws. Do we really think there were no Muslims or Arab Americans in the World Trade Center towers when the planes struck?

  By the way, the harrassment of Arab Americans and Muslim Americans started day one before we (the public) even had any evidence of who the perpetrators might be (do we know even now? I've heard the words "prime suspect" thrown around in reference to Bin Laden). The same thing happened with the Oklahoma City bombing, for those who remember. And the terrorists turned out to be ex-military Caucasion citizens of the United States. What does that say about us if we can't learn from history?

• Tuesday's attack was the work of nutcases. We don't blame all Christians when a group of nutcases beats a homosexual to death or bombs an abortion clinic. We shouldn't blame all Muslims when their extremists do something horrible, either. Along the same lines, most serial killers in the United States have been Caucasion. We've all got our crazies and it has nothing to do with skin color or religion.

• Have we forgotten that it was The United States who trained Bin Laden and his friends how to inflict terrorism on the then-Soviet occupied Afghanistan? Have we forgotten how many other terrorists we've funded and trained and armed in Nicaragua, Chile, and other countries? Our country, too, has killed civilians (and profited from their deaths) both directly and indirectly for what we felt were justified reasons. And now we're vowing to do it again.

  If so, then what makes us better than them? The fact that "they started it?" The United States has taken precautions throughout most of its history to limit or avoid civilian casualties in its military efforts. This is a good thing. The cynic in me tells me that's as close to pacifism as our country can ever get. But is our hesitancy to kill civilians enough to claim the higher moral ground?

I can no more offer better solutions than the ones I criticize than I can explain how we can pray for our enemies at a time like this. I feel frustrated and angry. The fact that I cannot find a satisfactory scapegoat empties me and somehow relieves me at the same time. I am helpless but not quite hopeless.

I believe we, the people of the United States and the world, have a future better than a "global Vietnam conflict." I don't think we have to repeat Russia's doomed and prolonged conflict in Afghanistan, no matter how much better Russia knew the terrain (than we know it now). I know our tempers are hot. I know mine is. I know sometimes I turn on the television more anxious to hear that we've revealed the criminal and destroyed him than I am anxious to hear that more people have been rescued. I want them dead more than I want our people alive. It is to my shame that I have these priorities at this time of crisis.

So this is how America mourns. But it is when our anger subsides--that's when we must live with ourselves. And what we have done.

Just some thoughts.

Filed under Journal, World of Importance

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