Collateral Damage

[Carrol Cox <cbcox@xxxxxxxxx>]

> Carrol Cox wrote:
>
> >_We_ were not attacked. And I include in the "we" here those who were
> >killed in New York. They were collateral damage, not the focus of an
> >attack.
>
> Collateral damage? The phrase is as creepy coming out of your
> fingertips as it is out of Pentagon flack's mouth, though thankfully
> you don't have state power to back it up. What in god's name do you
> mean? The point of the attack on the WTC was clearly to kill lots of
> Americans and create fear and shock among the population with the
> expectation that 9/11 was only an overture. People of all classes,
> races, and nationalities were killed. How the fuck that is collateral
> damage escapes me.

Perhaps, though I strongly doubt it, the purpose of the attack was "to
kill lots of Americans and create fear and shock. . ." but it was not
"clearly" the purpose. That is absurd. I think there is, in fact,
approaching a consensus among those who have thought seriously on the
topic (see Robin Blackburn's article now available from _Counterpunch_)
that the purpose was to draw from the U.S. government precisely the
response that it did draw.

It seems to me that u.s. critics of U.S. terrorist bombing, or of the
phrase "collateral damage," have maintained a fairly civilized
equanimity in their expression of that criticism. The tone has
essentially been one of intellectual distaste, really quite mild,
compared to the unending shrieks of horror at 911. This contrast in tone
is at least as creepy as the phrase.

>
> I suspect part of the problem is that many leftists are so alienated
> from normal human companionship and fellow-feeling that they can only
> operate at the highest levels of abstraction,

This suspicion is utterly uncalled for; I have encountered hundreds,
perhaps thousands, of u.s. leftists from all over the country over a
period of 35 years, and I really can't think of more than two or three
of all those thousands could conceivably be described as "alienated,"
and all of them (again perhaps two or three exceptions) certainly
enjoyed "normal human companionship." This whole paragraph certainly,
however, could be used to illustrate the atmosphere on pen-l which Doug
Henwood complained of.

One can, I think, distinguish a personal as opposed to a principled
attack by asking the question, "In replying to the attack, would one
have to speak of the world or would one have to speak of one's personal
character?" I think Michael should condemn this post as unprincipled and
merely personal.

Carrol