Laura-

When you read flight 93’s cockpit transcript today and said we should listen closely in order to never forget the horrors of that day I agreed with you completely. You said we should see more often the images and sounds captured on Nine Eleven, and I agreed with you completely. You pointed to the inane, partisan boardroom we call a government and asked if we were insane and I agreed with you completely. Keep showing the videos of the women and children whose flesh was burned off, you said, and I completely agreed once more. We CANNOT allow THIS to happen again, and SHAME on US if we do, you demanded…and you’re right.

The only problem is this: While many thousands of innocent people died on Nine Eleven, many tens of thousands of innocent people have died in the ensuing months and years because of our response to it. Every death is tragic. EVERY SINGLE ONE. So I ask you, would you agree with me if I said we should show every tragic video clip of every innocent civilian caught in the crossfire of our war of retribution? Every image of every dead child? Every piece of video of every dismembered mother? And I also ask, would you refuse the right of those left holding the memory of those they’ve lost as “collateral damage” to mutter beneath their breaths, we CANNOT allow THIS to happen again, and SHAME on US if we do!?!?!

If we truly hold the cultural high ground, as you so often claim we do, wouldn’t responding to violence with kindness be our only real choice? Freaking peacenik go away, you’re muttering beneath your breath (if you’ve gotten this far)…but here’s three quick more questions…

1) Would you agree that a good way to define our “enemy” in this “war on terror” is ‘the total number of people alive on the Earth who are willing to die to kill an American’?

2) Do you think there are more or less such people alive today than there were on September 11th, 2001?

3) And do you think, on our current course, there will be more or less such people in 5, 10 or 20 years than there are today?

We can’t respond to violence with retribution unless we expect to once again wind up back at the beginning with blood on our own lips, and the lips of our children. I mean, if I pluck a gray hair out of my beard, and four more grow back…and then find sixteen more after plucking the four, it seems pretty clear to me that I’ve got to stop and rethink my approach, that is IF my goal isn’t to go completely gray as quickly as humanly possible.

Thanks!
Tim Ford