War in Pieces: The Blood Feud
Lee Harris, July 8, 2005, Tech Central Station
When 9/11 happened, no one asked me to write an article about it the next day, because no one, outside my immediate circle of friends, had any interest in my opinion. This was fortunate, because I did not need to make a snap judgment about the significance of that fateful morning. Had I rushed my violent first impressions into print, I might have found it difficult to ever get around to having any second thoughts -- second thoughts like the ones that finally came together in the essay "Al Qaeda's Fantasy Ideology," published in Policy Review a full six months after 9/11.
This morning, after Nick Schulz encouraged me to write a piece on the terror attacks in London, I was tempted to put the project off until I had had time to reflect on the events. What else could I say in the immediate aftermath of such an attack than what every other decent man or woman would say about it, namely that it was an outrage against all human decency, and a violation of everything that civilization stands for?
When 9/11 happened, no one asked me to write an article about it the next day, because no one, outside my immediate circle of friends, had any interest in my opinion. This was fortunate, because I did not need to make a snap judgment about the significance of that fateful morning. Had I rushed my violent first impressions into print, I might have found it difficult to ever get around to having any second thoughts -- second thoughts like the ones that finally came together in the essay "Al Qaeda's Fantasy Ideology," published in Policy Review a full six months after 9/11.
This morning, after Nick Schulz encouraged me to write a piece on the terror attacks in London, I was tempted to put the project off until I had had time to reflect on the events. What else could I say in the immediate aftermath of such an attack than what every other decent man or woman would say about it, namely that it was an outrage against all human decency, and a violation of everything that civilization stands for?
posted by Gordon Stables | 1:12 PM
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