After reading Sontag's argue and comparison between 911 and Pearl
Harbor, there were a lot of things that came to mind. First off, like
many other’s comments and blogs I believe that this was not a fair comparison.
In both cases I believe the word "war" is very appropriate.
Yes, both were completely different but both had an impact on a country
in a way that no one was willing to let go unnoticed. I believe that we
did do everything we could to handle this attack in an appropriate way and
capture those who were in charge. I read another’s comment on how they
believed there could have been a more peaceful way of going about finding those
responsible. The thing that I immediately thought about was that this was
a horrible act that happened to our country and there was a lot of anger behind
on country, and rightfully so. To say that there was a more peaceful way
of going about the aftermath of this attack is baffling to me. Four
planes were intentionally hijacked and killed/injured our country. I do
believe that both 911 and Pearl Harbor were "just wars" but
definitely in their own ways. I do not agree with the author who
described 911 as a "phantom war."
The only problem that I see here, is the fact that a war is declared on a state by a state, but in this case you have a non-state actor involved, therefore, declaring a war on an organization by yet attacking a country is a very wrong way of goign about things. When a state decides to go to war, a representative state is on the other side of the conflict, whereas, in this case you have US (state) and an organization (al-Qaeda)on opposing sides of the "war". The way I look at it, is like this.(I, by no means am in favor of 9/11)... We say the attacks targetted innocent lives here in the states, yet we ourselves do the same, whereas, we, by NO means, are anti-Afghanistan, followed by Iraq... very ironic, in my opinion. If a country stands by theories of peace, freedom and life-liberty-happiness, I do not think the move of attacking a whole country in search of an organizations' leader and its 100 or however many memebers it has/had, is done according to this country's worldwide principles.
ReplyDeleteGood point, but do you see a difference between Iraq and Afghanistan? Many would argue that U.S. invasion of Afghanistan was justified, but not that of Iraq. Would you agree with that or would you say that both were unjustified given that al-Qaeda was not acting on behalf of the Afghani government?
ReplyDeleteI certainly think there is a difference between Afghanistan and Iraq, hence to me it is very ironic how Iraq comes into play. I do not quite understand how the search for Bin Laden leads into Iraq? I honestly do believe that the invasion of Iraq was more influenced by Sadam's regime and the prolonged US support of Israel. Although there is the sunni commonality that Hussein and Bin Laden shared, I do not think that such presumptions were legitimate enough for the US to invade Iraq. I do think that most acts that US has and still does carry out in the Middle East, "towards the Middle East" (i.e current santions against Iran) are done in high supports of Israel's possible hegemonic position in tha area for future US "privilages".
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