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The disconnect between last Tuesday's monstrous dose of reality and
the self-righteous drivel and outright deceptions being peddled by
public figures and TV commentators is startling, depressing. The
voices licensed to follow the event seem to have joined together in a
campaign to infantilize the public. Where is the acknowledgment that
this was not a "cowardly" attack on "civilization" or "liberty" or
"humanity" or "the free world" but an attack on the world's
self-proclaimed superpower, undertaken as a consequence of specific
American alliances and actions? How many citizens are aware of the
ongoing American bombing of Iraq? And if the word "cowardly" is to be
used, it might be more aptly applied to those who kill from beyond the
range of retaliation, high in the sky, than to those willing to die
themselves in order to kill others. In the matter of courage (a
morally neutral virtue): whatever may be said of the perpetrators of
Tuesday's slaughter, they were not cowards.
		-- Susan Sontag, The New Yorker,
		   2004-09-24
		   http://www.newyorker.com/talk/content/?010924ta_talk_wtc

Tags: voices courage civilization virtue alliances acknowledgment slaughter newyorker superpower retaliation commentators perpetrators deceptions lasttuesday drivel cowards doseofreality cowardlyattack highinthesky susansontag