Anne’s Diary (Page 90)

War is tragic, we all know that. Soldiers are struck down in their youth before they have a chance to do more than dip their toes into the adult world. Civilians (children and mothers, the elderly) become innocent victims when they find themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time. Some people die due to secondary causes since during wartime, many of the ordinary functions of government are suspended, leading to starvation and disease.

Wrong choices are made in the heat of the moment, which warring nations regret for decades afterwards. During the Cold War, we supported almost any dictator who would declare himself anti-Communist. The harsh face of Africa today is partly due to these decisions.
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In the past few weeks, our TV screens have been filled with Muslim fanatics telling us that America should feel guilty for exploiting the peoples of Islamic and third-world countries. Now, there’s no question about whether we deserved what happened to our nation on September 11: We didn’t. No one “deserves” a terrorist attack. But do we have anything to feel guilty about when it comes to the rest of the world?

Some people say it’s unpatriotic to even ask this question. But I think Americans should always be cautious when we’re told what we should and shouldn’t say, because our country is based on freedom of thought and speech. If we censor ourselves, then what are we fighting for?
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The War between the Palestinians and the Israelis has been going on for a very long time and is being fought–with words–all over the world. We recently posted a story about a group of Orthodox Jews who want to build a new temple near (or on) the site of a major mosque in Jerusalem, while at the same time a group of Palestinians is trying to eradicate all presence of the remains of the original Jewish temple that lies underneath the Dome of the Rock.
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The September 22, 2001 issue of the British weekly magazine The Spectator is filled with insightful articles about the recent terrorist attacks. Most important, its articles explain the background of the conflict in a way that no American publication has so far managed to do.
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