Steve Williams Comments

received 9/16/2001

I very much appreciated Kent's forwarding an Afghani-American's very cogent explanation of what nobody, not even NPR or BBC, has explained well. Let's hope Lehrer takes the time to do it, but even that won't reach most Americans.

Trouble is, and you in New York may not realize this, and this is just my uninformed impression, not the result of exhaustive polling of people on the street, but the very scale of the attack means that many Americans not within eyesight of the World Trade Center have come to think of the whole think in rather cartoonish terms. The president and the media are contributing to that effect.

See, out here in California, after the initial moment of fear when the only air traffic was military jets passing at high altitude at 3 AM, for those of us who weren't caught away from home and who didn't lose family or friends in the attacks, the biggest inconvenience is the traffic tie-ups when kids set up impromptu demonstrations on the freeway overpass, leaping and shouting next to their flags and colorful posters. Some knuckleheaded drivers slow down to honk "in support," whatever that means, and a few bent fenders are added to the terrorist toll. See, we've already seen the White House blown up on a far bigger screen than CNN. We've seen the Chrysler Building come crashing down. We've seen Paris reduced to a smoldering hole. We cheered, because it was entertainment. That's fine, but we're so insulated that those are the ONLY images most of us have of destruction of this scale, so we have no emotional perspective on the real thing.

And so, when Bush or, worse, Powell (with his greater credibility, earned rather than bestowed in some fairy-tale succession) rattle sabers and Tom Brokaw speaks of Afghanistan only in terms of the Taliban, and the Taliban only in terms of "harboring bin Laden," most of us have no motivation to seek a deeper understanding. We sought none when aliens attacked. We're not primed to do it now.

If Bush starts bombing Afghanistan, the American people will eat it up. Right up to the point where our neighbor's 18-year-old comes home in a box. And then we'll be forced to march and demonstrate and get arrested and burn flags. How could we have forgotten all that in just 30 years?

A glimmer of hope: Perhaps Powell will be strong enough to keep the strikes focused on hard targets. Perhaps rules of engagement can be crafted that try to spare the innocent victims in Afghanistan as our ground troops advance on the Taliban. There will still be a lot of boxed 18-year-olds, but at least they won't have died on the path of mindless, tit-for-tat violence.

I hope.