Iowahawk: Historically Speaking, S*** Happens

iowahawk | 1/31/07 | David Burge

[IowaHawk]

[Found in a dumpster behind the Encino Galleria: first draft of historian David Bell's gripping L.A. Times OpEd]

by David A. Bell

IMAGINE THAT on 9/11, six hours after the assault on the twin towers and the Pentagon, terrorists had carried out a second wave of attacks on the United States, taking an additional 3,000 lives. Imagine that six hours after that, there had been yet another wave. Now imagine that the attacks had continued, every six hours, for another four years, until nearly 20 million Americans were dead. Okay, I know we’re talking a fantasy here, but just roll with it. Guess what? This is roughly what the Soviet Union suffered during World War II, and I don’t remember Uncle Joe Stalin getting his panties in a bunch about it. Maybe these stoic Bolsheviks could teach us crybaby Americans a thing or two about perspective in our current “war” “against” “terrorism.”

This historical thought experiment raises several questions. Has the American reaction to the attacks in fact been a massive overreaction? Is the widespread belief that 9/11 plunged us into one of the deadliest struggles of our time simply wrong? If we did overreact, why did we do so? If we did so, why are we still doing so, and how can we best stop doing so?  By show of hands, how many of us have navels that are “innies”? Does history provide us any insight?

Of course it does, dumbass. Lucky for you that one of us has a Ph.D. in the subject.

Okay, certainly, if we look at nothing but the objectives of our “enemies,” I suppose it is hard to see any indication of an overreaction. The people who attacked us in 2001 are, admittedly, hate-filled fanatics who would like nothing better than to destroy this country. But let’s face it, so are the Boalt Hall law school faculty, and nobody is seriously talking about a pre-emptive strike on Berkeley.  Desire is not the same thing as capacity, and although professors can certainly do huge amounts of harm around the world, very few of us have access to chemical weapons or Volvo gun turrets; effective containment of any threat is usually a simple matter of inexpensive research grants, tenure, and campus parking privileges.

For the rest of the historical hysterics, spank here

[B.O. Plenty]

Bump for later

[dighton]

Why you terrorist symp, I oughtta . . .

Never mind! How's it going, Iowahawk?

[martin_fierro]

Teh Hawk is Teh Phunny.

[bmwcyle]

bttt

[aculeus]

Another gem!

[John Valentine]

I don’t remember Uncle Joe Stalin getting his panties in a bunch... The writer of this crap is obviously too young to remember much of anything about "Uncle Joe", and almost certainly hadn't started breathing on this earth when "Uncle Joe" passed his last breath.

I seem to remember Stalin and the Russians getting thier collective panties in quite a bunch about what is still called by Russians the Great Patriotic War.

[IowaHawk]

Oh, you know, this and that.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wsDO8zuZzzU&eurl=

[Billthedrill]

The good Professor was, after all, suggesting something pretty much along those lines. Were the terrorists to restrict their attacks to something sensible, such as the training camps of the Mariners' American League rivals, I'd be down with it. But noooo. They have to threaten the very core of American culture, breweries, strip clubs and the Ebay home servers. That's gonna hit a nerve, Jack.

The problem with shrugging this sort of thing of like BB's off an elephant's ass is that sooner or later the elephant ends up stepping on somebody's head. It isn't because of a lack of proportionality or appreciation for international law, it's because he's an elephant and the shooter is steppable. As you say, stuff happens. We can always apologize later.