AMERICA ENTERS THE 21ST CENTURY
by Malcolm Brown, PhD
Sept. 18, 2001

Historians like to demarcate the beginning of the centuries of American history by keying them to events, not to dates on the calendar. Thus the 19th century begins not in 1800, but with the emplacement of the new Constitution and American government in 1789; the 20th Century begins not in 1900, but in 1877, with the end of Reconstruction in the South. Using this model, we have just witnessed the beginning of the 21st Century, which began on 11 September 2001 with the terrorist air assault which destroyed the World Trade Center in New York and heavily damaged the Pentagon.

The horror of this defining moment is so seared and ingrained in America's psyche that we are all to some degree numb. But we must remember although we as a people are horrified at what has happened, we are not paralyzed. We are far too mentally tough and resilient for that. Mourn we must, but eventually we will move on and find the evil men who have done this to us.

Our government is certainly not blameless regarding what it has been doing overseas, and its machinations have earned us many enemies. But to visit that anger on innocent American citizens who just happen to be traveling by air or working within buildings which symbolize American economic power and military hegemony is perhaps the most despicable "political statement" in human history.

It is my view that 90% of the suffering in war is inflicted on innocents, while the guilty often survive unscathed. I shudder for the hapless peoples living near Osama bin Laden and his operatives, because the death and destruction visited on America this past week will pale in comparison to the unimaginable suffering which could potentially be unleashed on Southern Asia by a relentless and pitiless U.S. military.

Aren't Middle Eastern terrorists familiar with American military history? Haven't they read what the U.S. Army did to a defiant but prostrate South in the American Civil War, or to the proud but technologically-backward Plains Indians a few years later? Don't they know about the hundreds of thousands of Japanese civilians killed by firebombs dropped by American B-29s BEFORE the A-bombs were dropped, or the utter wasteland left by USAF aircraft in Vietnam and in the Gulf War? Have they no comprehension what the U.S. Navy, the greatest, most relentless naval force ever to sail the oceans, can do to ANY nation within the range or its aircraft or missiles?

By striking at the infrastructure of the United States, bin Laden and his men have opened a Pandora's box full of dynamite. Wired for instant demolition by the U.S. military, this box will explode in the faces of Islamic innocents while the terrorists watch, enraged but helpless, from the safety of their strongholds in the Hindu Kush. They have, in effect, signed the death warrants of those they say they want most to protect — their own wives and children. And, of course, their solution to such American counter-attacks will be to kill even more American civilians, in even more sinister and unexpected ways.

So here we sit, calmly preparing for war as we stare half-blinded into the ruddy light of the dawn of the 21st century. Never before have Americans been so dependent on the secretive decisions of their government for their ultimate welfare, ironically cheering on the very people who might be actively engaged in curtailing their civil liberties. And never before has a generation of Americans been so collectively clueless as to the real nature of war. This will be total war, make no mistake about it — with conventional, chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons being used. Americans had better prepare themselves to watch their older sons and daughters march off to war, and their little children suffer and die in their arms.

so when we pray for victory, perhaps we should say some other prayers — for the lives of our children, for the lives of our enemy's children, and so that we as a people do not lose our humanity in the relentless pursuit of an ephemeral foe. And let us fervently hope that "government of the people, by the people, and for the people" will not perish from the earth.

God Bless America!

- Dr.B

Our government is certainly not blameless regarding what it has been doing overseas, and its machinations have earned us many enemies.

It is my view that 90% of the suffering in war is inflicted on innocents, while the guilty often survive unscathed.

Never before have Americans been so dependent on the secretive decisions of their government for their ultimate welfare, ironically cheering on the very people who might be actively engaged in curtailing their civil liberties.

So when we pray for victory, perhaps we should say some other prayers — for the lives of our children, for the lives of our enemy's children, and so that we as a people do not lose our humanity in the relentless pursuit of an ephemeral foe.