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October
9, 2001
Patrick
Cockburn
Bombs
Weaken Taliban
Lenni
Brenner
Powell
the Owl
Zha
Marginalization
and Terror
Steve
Perry
It
Begins
October
8, 2001
Zbigniew
Brzezinski
How
Jimmy Carter and
I Started the Muj
Philip Agee
The
USA and Terrorism
Mahajan
and Jensen
A
War of Lies
Patrick
Cockburn
Northern
Alliance
Builds an Airport
October
7, 2001
John Pilger
Hitchens'
Slurs
Tariq
Ali
Who
Said History
Stopped Being Ironical?
October
6, 2001
Vijay
Prashad
US
War Aims
Kevin
Gray
The
Trap:
Blacks and 9/11
October
5, 2001
Ronnie
Gilbert
Déjà
Vu: The FBI's War
on Civil Liberties
Patrick
Cockburn
Taliban
Cluster Bombs
Dave
Marsh
John
Brown, Woody Guthrie
and the Secret Music of 9/11
Babak
Nahid
A
Suspect's Perspective
October
4, 2001
David
Vest
Send
in the Cons
Robin
Blackburn
Road
to Armageddon
Noam
Chomsky
Chatting
with Chomsky
Tony
Blair
The
Dossier on bin Laden
Resources:
100s of Links
About 9/11
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Five
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Issue
Aftermath
Diary
Ashcroft's Onslaught
on
Civil Liberties
Ridge Long Groomed
for
Cheney's Job
Those CIA Killing
Bids
Never Stopped
The Not-So-Great
Mayor Giuliani
Crop Duster
Ban
Will Save Lives
Madeleine Albright's
Deadly Legacy
How the Bin
Laden Women
Fled Bel Air
Tom Ridge's
Vietnam
Same as Kerrey's?
A CounterPunch
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A Word About
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and Osama bin Laden
Whiteout:
CIA, Drugs & the
Press
by Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
A Pocket Guide to
Environmental Bad Guys
by James
Ridgeway
and Jeffrey St. Clair
The
Phoenix Program
by Douglas
Valentine
Al
Gore:
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by Cockburn
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October 16,
2001
Return to Normal?
By John Troyer
While I was thinking about a column
topic for today, a friend of mine suggested I write about something,
anything other than the events related to Sept. 11. People are
tired of hearing about it, she said; write something funny.
My friend's comments revealed
a sentiment I have increasingly noticed in daily life over the
last month. A visible weariness is beginning to emerge for an
American populace wanting the return of normal life. What I am
not clear on is how a return to normalcy (however normal might
be defined) is possible or advisable. I increasingly believe
an abnormal way of life is the only way the United States population
can undo the tyranny of normality that is pursuing a wholesale
forgetting of the historical moments connected to Sept. 11.
If the way things were before
produced the way things are now, then what benefits does the
return to normalcy offer? I presume the short-term yields involve
personal comfort, the expenditure of capital and perhaps national
pride. The long-term benefits are not so clear (if even possible)
and suggest prolonged dangers.
A return to normalcy guarantees
nothing but problems as the vast majority of the American population
resumes ignoring anything not bearing the made in the USA label.
To even assume the possibility of getting back to business normality
means forgetting the historical complications surrounding the
events post-Sept. 11.
I witnessed an apparent return
to normalcy on Sunday, Oct. 7 when the United States and Great
Britain began their bombing campaigns in Afghanistan. The national
television networks briefly interrupted their regular programming
to provide some important, albeit limited, information about
the military action. The Pentagon was predictably withholding
campaign details that might risk military security, so the information
was limited at best. Dan Rather, however, made a point of assuring
viewers the previously scheduled football game would soon reappear
on the television.
As a card-carrying member of
the counter-American club, I abruptly turned off my 10-inch black
and white television and begrudgingly realized how back-to-normal
life had returned. Even though the bombs were falling, at least
the American people could watch a football game. Could anything
be more menacingly normal on a Sunday afternoon? The raw spectacle
of Sept. 11 garnered unprecedented television coverage, and I
would hope any global war fought by the United States of America
would also receive unparalleled attention.
The problem is Afghanistan
is elsewhere _ somewhere between here and a far off place called
the Middle East. It is a country without militarily defined high-value
targets and was a source of chilling laughter when Secretary
of Defense Donald Rumsfeld explained Afghanistan is running out
of locations to destroy. Then again, perhaps laughter is appropriate
_ it is most certainly normal.
Even now, I seriously question
how many Americans can look at a world map and point to the country
allegedly responsible for assisting the suspected individuals
of unhinging normalcy in everyday Western life. Where on the
map does the free-flowing, invisible terrorist threat lurk passing
along supposed secret messages every time Osama bin Laden is
heard speaking on national television. Press Secretary Ari Fleischer
and National Security Council Adviser Condoleeza Rice apparently
received their secret decoder rings before anyone else in America.
Perhaps the point is irrelevant since a working knowledge of
world geography is abnormal for most Americans. Knowing about
the other places _ the elsewheres _ is too much labor and of
course the business of those external populations desirous of
American dreams. At least one group of roughly nineteen individuals
knew exactly where American memory might cling to the geography.
Maybe, maybe not.
Between maybe and maybe not
is a crucial shift involving a nationally-directed, personal
willingness to embrace the normal for the sake of forgetting
the abnormal. Herein lies the lesson most American people need
to learn: the highest value targets are rarely material locations
but memories of the past. Landmarks in architecture will come
and go with the passing of time or abrupt destruction.
Forgetting the circumstances
leading up to and beyond the destruction of American landmarks
is the real victory for any terror-based organization. America
has already successfully forgotten any lessons partially learned
in the U.S. historical past about terrorism's productive qualities
on the North American continent _ but that is normal.
Terrorism is inherently a practice;
a method of reaching ends that works most successfully against
a population unaware of its own past. The dual terror of Sept.
11 is the human damage done and the often repeated, unquestionable
goodness of America in a just crusade as suggested by President
W. Bush. The use of the term crusade should cause all Americans
great discomfort, although I predict most people will continue
watching the football game.
I am the first to admit it
is completely normal to wash the blood off hands that look all
too historically American _ more specifically, Anglo-American.
Red stains white with a great deal more ease than other colors.
An aggressive and methodic cleansing of the historical stains
is all too normal in everyday life. I do not presume to remove
myself from the accusation; I cannot. I have no interest in forgetting
any of the history leading up to and beyond the bombings of Afghanistan
on Oct. 7.
As the terrorists, a group
apparently easy to identify based on skin color, are smoked out
of their holes the world over (military strikes are rumored soon
to begin in the Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesia) perhaps
American troops will once again strike Iraq with a lionhearted
fury. Then and only then will I remember something I wrote ten
years ago about the Gulf War, "military occupation in the
Middle East by the United States will only cause problems in
the future."
Truth told, that statement
was considered abnormal for the times in my small-town Wisconsin
high school. My classmates did not have the term terrorist in
their everyday lexicon, so I was simply called a Communist. Marx
and Engels apparently inspired my small-town Wisconsin commie-rhetoric,
and I really believe the two terms are interchangeable for many
American citizens.
Winning the Cold War has made
finding the bogeyman really difficult for post-1989 Washington
administrations. At least the Berlin Wall gave American presidents
an object to suggest tearing down. Then again, it was the Cold
War that got the United States government involved in Afghanistan
the first time around the block but during those days the members
of al-Qaida were freedom fighters.
The infinite justice or enduring
freedom of the present historical situation will not reside in
a military reckoning but a prolonged remembering of the past
by the American populace. For the time being, however, America
needs to again forget everything that happened and return to
normal, it is by far the most comfortable way of life. CP
John Troyer is a columnist for the Minnesota
Daily, the student newspaper at the University of Minnesota.
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