I’ve bumped into a few articles reminiscing about how innocent life was prior to September 11, 2001. (Just the most recent example. There are others. Greg Mitchell, Editor & Publisher [link broken, 2014-01-25] [same gist e.g. here].)

I find them distasteful. No, it’s more than that. I find them offensive. Deeply offensive. Because what are they saying? That prior to 9/11/2001 we all lived in Eden?

I don’t think so. There were wrongful deaths before 9/11. Hundreds died in Kenya when the exact same group bombed the US embassy there. Thousands —hundreds of thousands— die, or worse, every day in violence committed against unarmed civilians. The purpose of the violence is to terrorize people into submission. The situation is exactly parallel, although the property damage is usually less when governments aren’t involved.

The only difference I can see is that the dead are not white, middle class US citizens.

Nobody should kill white, middle class US citizens. Neither should anyone kill anyone else.

Anyone who says everything was different before 9/11 is saying that all those other deaths, all the millions of them, mean nothing. All the hideous, infinite suffering of rape or amputated hands was irrelevant, is irrelevant, doesn’t matter.

What kind of a hollowed-out soul do you have, if you feel so little for your fellow human beings?

Technorati tags: 9/11, terrorism, exceptionalism, politics, current affairs