I have trouble saying “we” dropped the bomb. But since we elected the officials who gave permission to the military to carry out this “mission,” we must accept a degree of responsibility even though we didn’t know what was being planned or, in my case, even know that it had been dropped. Trying to wriggle out is, to my mind, like trying to wriggle out of the fact that my great-grandparents on both sides owned slaves.
The justification for destroying human life is, I suppose, that it prevents more slaughter, but this is never the case. Violence breeds more violence. “We can’t physically eradicate an ideology,” as a recent article in The New Yorker states. And so President Biden’s vow to take vengeance is more than disheartening, as is his assertion that “We will never forget. We will never forgive.” This simply adds more fuel to the ongoing violence, persuading those who perpetrate it that they need to up their efforts.
It is too easy to forget after decades that the Afghanis had nothing to do with the knockdown of the twin towers on September 11th.
Our huge bomb did kill the first four emirs of Isis-K, a small group that has not until now posed much of a threat. But as in the fable, if we cut off the snake’s head, it rapidly grows another. When will we learn?
Since I raised three boys, I remember too clearly their undistractable fascination with guns. Sticks served when I tried to forbid toy guns. It was the era of the GI Joe dolls—never called dolls, of course—and I remember driving miles in upstate New York to buy the newest version as a reward for good behavior.
Girls scratch, pull hair and kick, but they have no interest in weapons. And yet, as the girls who didn’t care for guns grow into women and are elected to office, they are, with a few exceptions, as war-minded as their male colleagues. And, whenever the U.S. perceives itself as attacked, as recently, even the peace-minded fall into line with the escalating violence, as we did after September 11th. We do not even try to understand the role we play in every outbreak of war. To be strong means to oppose force with force without regard for the destruction of lives. And yet some of us call ourselves Christians.
How pertinent—and how courageous—it would be for some individual or group to undertake to study the character and motives of the suicide bomber who blew himself up at the Kabul airport. What kind of frustration urged him to take his own life? What factors in his background, religious training or education inspired him to become a martyr?
My father said once that everyone must have something he is ready to die for. What was it, in the case of the suicide bomber?
Very likely we will never know. And so the vicious cycle continues.
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