September 20, 2001

7:34 AM

Missing, presumed dead in NYC.Dead at the Pentagon. While we talk about understanding the terrorist's reasons for the attack, please remember that each number we see scroll across tv is associated with a human being - who's only crime on September 11, 2001 was having the nerve to go to work or visit an international landmark.
posted by owillis (20 comments total)

It is still important to understand the reasons why someone would do this in order to prevent it from happening again. I'm not saying their reasons are at all rational, but we need to understand what would motivate such fanatical and militant behavior. These past events have shown that our enemy knows us well enough to circumvent the INS, CIA, FBI, and airport security. How well do we know our enemy?
posted by zanpo at 8:00 AM on September 20, 2001

It is still important to understand the reasons why someone would do this in order to prevent it from happening again. I'm not saying their reasons are at all rational, but we need to understand what would motivate such fanatical and militant behavior. These past events have shown that our enemy knows us well enough to circumvent the INS, CIA, FBI, and airport security. How well do we know our enemy?
posted by zanpo at 8:00 AM on September 20, 2001

It is still important to understand the reasons why someone would do this in order to prevent it from happening again. I'm not saying their reasons are at all rational, but we need to understand what would motivate such fanatical and militant behavior. These past events have shown that our enemy knows us well enough to circumvent the INS, CIA, FBI, and airport security. How well do we know our enemy?
posted by zanpo at 8:00 AM on September 20, 2001

What a stark reminder, owillis, that what this is all about is people.
Not politics or religion or power. Only when we've heard all 6000 life-stories will we even begin to realize what happened and be able to grieve in earnest.
Thanks for bringing us back to the core of the discussion.
posted by MiguelCardoso at 8:08 AM on September 20, 2001

Can we get lists of those people whose only crime was to, say, be born in Iraq during the past decade? Or being a Protestant or a Catholic in Northern Ireland, in the wrong places at the wrong time? Could yearly assessments of policy come with a sheaf of 500-word obituaries?
posted by holgate at 8:10 AM on September 20, 2001

Why do people keep pulling this in different directions?

It's not all about people. It's not all about politics. It's a complex situation that people should be trying to understand as much as possible, not making underhand comments about one facet or another.

It is possible both to recognise the horrible tragedy of what happened and to try understand why.
posted by andrew cooke at 8:14 AM on September 20, 2001

Despite your beliefs on the issues (I'm very concerned about what the US response will be as we can't save the dead, but we don't need to kill the living) a memorial is not the appropriate place to be political, especially if you're making the same post three times. Please temper the rhetoric when someone is trying to be solemn.
posted by wsfinkel at 8:14 AM on September 20, 2001

holgate: you can lay the bill for the death of innocent in Iraq at the feat of Saddham Hussein. America is not the problem there, no matter how much it bothers the left.

I've always considered "the troubles" in NI as a more sophisticated version of the Hatfields and McCoys of American lore. very sad, but pretty silly in comparison, really.
posted by justkurt at 8:20 AM on September 20, 2001

also, don't forget that some of those "numbers" are the "folks" that actually committed the act.
posted by cheesebot at 8:37 AM on September 20, 2001

please see the incomplete list of dissapeared in Chile (+1500), one of the existing lists in Argentina (+10 000), there is not a list of the 45 000 people dissapeared in Guatemala.... This people had a name too. They were sons, daughters, and their lives were as valuable as the ones that were taken last week.
Do you know what government financed, trained and encouraged these acts of sustained terrorism for years and years? The US is not alone: the rest of the world has also been suffering from terrorism for a long time.
posted by papalotl at 8:48 AM on September 20, 2001

"It's not all about people" ?. Justkurt, I think holgate was being cynical. We have lists, huge lists. Ive come across twenty iraqis in my city, (give or take) most run a gas station or party store, ive seen one openly display military manuals in Arabic concerning U.S. military hardware(training manual to come to find out) ya know, i want to confront this guy. But the Chinese restaurant, right next door to the iraqis place, has Glock posters in the kitchen...so i suspect the iraqi but not the chinese-american?. which means im bias. But, is this just a gun fetish these two have living in an extremely high crime area. we have fears of fifth columnists sprouting up, this always stretches the constitution. I think shes holding.
posted by newnameintown at 9:00 AM on September 20, 2001

Not cynical, just weary. Right now, strategists in the Pentagon will be working out "the price America is prepared to pay". I wonder if they graph out acceptable casualties on an Excel spreadsheet; I suspect that they don't prepare lists.
posted by holgate at 9:22 AM on September 20, 2001

twin sisters on the "E" page. one picture of them back to back cut in half for their pics.
posted by th3ph17 at 9:58 AM on September 20, 2001

Worse, a little kid on the "T" page, visiting the WTC with his parents and they were separated as they ran from the building. His parents aren't listed, they apparently got out and he was lost.
posted by Dreama at 11:00 AM on September 20, 2001

God forbid we should ever try to understand the reasons someone attacked us. How much better to turn off our brains and just think whatever FoxNews tells us to. That's what being a good American is all about.
posted by Allen Varney at 11:46 AM on September 20, 2001

It's a shame that almost every thread veers away from the link at hand and towards the main content of other threads. Perhaps we should try to limit our discussion to the link provided and talk the other issues in threads which are more focused on them.

Just a thought...

As far as the topic of this thread (Oliver's editorializing aside), I really appreciate the presentation (with pictures) provided. (Bravo to CNN and the Washington Post). It was a small comfort to me to confirm that I knew none of these people. A small selfish comfort in a situation so full of sorrow.
posted by fooljay at 12:31 PM on September 20, 2001

DallasNews.com has a better memorial than CNN. You can search for people by age, hometown, etc. It was a moving experience for me, much more than CNN's huge snapshot pages.
posted by fleener at 2:01 PM on September 20, 2001

With all due respect:

First, let me say that yes these pictures are incredibly moving. And yes, I stare at these missing posters every day in my neighborhood and I think they are the most awful thing ever.

But actually, I feel that people are discussing the thread, at least as it was editorialized and presented by the poster.

Asking us to remember that each "number" we see is a murdered person suggests that "we" may have forgotten that people died in the attack. What shows that we forgotten, the poster asks? Because we are discussing "understanding" reasons for the attack.

So if I feel it is important to discuss the relation of terrorism or the third world resentments to America's foreign policy, that means I don't give a damn about the WTC murder victims.

Laying this baggage on the photos of the missing and presumed dead is not okay with me.
posted by RJ Reynolds at 2:13 PM on September 20, 2001

I agreew about DMN's presentation. Very nice work.

But actually, I feel that people are discussing the thread, at least as it was editorialized and presented by the poster.

Yes, I understand that. That was at least in part a rebuke to all of us to present links with appropriate commentary.

I'm not suire that I understand what you're trying to say in the rest of your post, though.

My plea was simply more about the modus operandi of Mefi. Present a link and discuss it.

The way things are going now, we have the same exact conversation going on in parallel in four or five different threads. It would be really nice, in my opinion to be discussing similar topics in one thread, because some really eloquent things have been said which the other threads completely miss out on, judging by the repeating arguments...

Anyway, just my two cents. This post actually belongs in Metatalk but it doesn't seem like Metatalk is doing a whole lot of good these days.
posted by fooljay at 4:44 PM on September 20, 2001

please remember that each number we see scroll across tv is associated with a human being

That's pretty damn patronizing...
posted by rushmc at 4:55 PM on September 20, 2001