NP - Fighting the Forces of Invisibility

[Thomas Eckhardt]

Henry Mu wrote:

> Overall, I thought the essay was rather reasonable. When emotions are
> running high, people confuse explanations, their own or by others, with
> excuses. Except that it echoes the obvious, i.e. that the attack was
> inexcusable, I'm surprised that Dave brought this even-handed piece to
> our attention. Thanks, Dave.

I'm surprised, too. I had begun to suspect that Dave had fallen victim to
some sort of body-snatcher. Generally, I think there is a strong tendency to
perceive statements that mention the conditions that perhaps contributed to
make these attacks possible as excuses for the terrorists. Mostly, I
believe, this is not the case. To speak for myself: The terrorists were
responsible, no one else. They decided to do this, and they are the ones to
blame for this. Not US foreign policy.

Yet, these terrorists obviously thought they had a good reason for killing
thousands of people. This is important, and it may indeed have to do with US
foreign policy. It is of the essence now, I believe, to think about the
political, economical, psychological conditions which made an atrocity like
this possible (please note that this is not the same as "which led to an
atrocity like this" or "which caused an atrocity like this). Up to now, and
I agree with Terrance here, the US-government seems to be acting prudently.
And despite some rhetorical lapses ("crusade" and the like, but probably his
ghostwriter was reponsible for this) Bush definitely did the right thing
when he visited a mosque in the aftermath of the attack.

Thomas