We’ve been watching BBC at the hotel here this week. It’s far superior to CNN in any number of ways, but one of the most important is the news service’s distinctly worldwide reach, honed from decades of reporting the news around the globe without assuming, as CNN does, that the United States is the absolute center of virtually everything that matters.
And in the BBC’s coverage, something has been coming through that should make the murderers of Sept. 11 very, very worried about their cause, not just their lives. The dead and missing in New York were from many nations, which stands to reason — New York has become a global mix of humanity, and the terrorists attacked the World Trade Center.
More British citizens died there, I gather, than in any terrorist outrages in the U.K. Hundreds, maybe thousands, of non-U.S. citizens will be in the final toll, from nations around the world.
Governments do not like having their nationals slaughtered. They get angry, and that’s one reason why there’s an unprecedented degree of unity among governments this week.
Now we have to hope that the response, which will certainly be fierce, does not go too far. If we revenge ourselves by creating a host of new innocent victims, we will not win this conflict. We will only prolong it.
A few brave commentators are asking uncomfortable questions this week, and being pilloried for their trouble. They are asking America to ask itself why we are so loathed in much of the world. President Bush’s statement that the terrorists hate freedom is probably true, but it’s incomplete.
To ask those questions is not to assume some kind of bizarre moral eqivalency. The United States has many flaws, but on balance it’s a beacon of light on this troubled planet. The people who organized and supported Tuesday’s atrocity are beyond the pale. I have almost nothing in my heart for them.
A friend noted the other day that when President Bush was contemplating what to do about federal funding of stem-cell research, he consulted ethicists and religious leaders, not just scientists and politicians. This week, for very good reasons, he’s been surrounded by the national security establishment. The president will do himself — and us all — a favor if he widens his field of thinking this time, too.
Some of the most interesting coverage of this terrible event has been found through weblog links. Check out, among others, SiliconValley.com and Dave Winer’s Scripting News.
Note: I’ve noticed the the past several days that CNN has stopped its repeated showing of the Trade Center destruction. The incessant replaying of the plane exploding through the tower was, in almost the purest sense of the word, pornographic. I don’t know if the other networks are exercising restraint in the U.S. I hope they are.
Note 2: Is America’s cargo-airline fleet any less a potential weapon? Fedex flies big jets, too. What’s being done to secure them?