|
COPYRIGHT 2001 Newsweek, Inc. All rights reserved. Any reuse, distribution or alteration without express written permission of Newsweek is prohibited. For permission: www.newsweek.com
'And America Will Survive'
It's late. I'm tired. I didn't sleep much last night. Thank you. Thank you for publishing in your last three issues the pictures of the terrorist attacks and their aftermath that kept me from sleeping. I needed to see the reality of the horror. I am moved that you did not decide that your readers could not handle the reality of this unspeakable terror. Never has such a catastrophic event in history been so "cleanly" covered by the rest of the press. In this country we do not usually like to face the reality of suffering, death and destruction. We do not want to face the gruesome facts squarely. But we need to see what happened to our sons, daughters, mothers, fathers, countrymen and -women. Through your photos, they are etched in my consciousness for eternity. I don't want to forget. I don't want to push the searing images from my mind. Now I will not forget, because this horrible reality is burned into my brain.
Joan Fritzler
Waukesha, Wis.
I am a freshman at the college of Wooster, a small liberal-arts school in Ohio. Although physically I was not near the tragic events of Sept. 11, mentally I was. Our classes were canceled, and the campus was silent. We all frantically called family members and friends and spent hours glued to the TV. In the past two weeks I have seen more patriotism and love for our country than I have in my 18 years of life. I have found that I am privileged to live in a nation filled with heroes. Thank you for showing the youth of America how to pull together in a time of deep sorrow, pain, anger and fear. This could have torn the nation apart, but instead it brought America together. I truly am proud to be an American.
Abby Johnson
Wooster, Ohio
The Afghan people are the first victims, not the supporters, of the Taliban. If we bomb Afghanistan, the hundreds of thousands of starving orphans and war widows are much more likely to die than the relatively well-fed and mobile terrorists. The idea that American lives are somehow worth more than other human lives is wrong, but it is our ongoing assumption. After the Oklahoma City bombing, we tried Timothy McVeigh; nobody suggested attacking right-wing militia-training camps, let alone bombing the U.S. "states that harbor them." The revenge killing of innocent Muslims, Arabs or Afghans would be the exact moral equivalent of last week's revenge killing of innocent Americans. Any wholesale attack we may be contemplating would make us the very best recruiters for Osama bin Laden and his cause.
Karima Bushnell
Minneapolis, Minn.
I didn't know a single person who died in New York or Washington, D.C. I never met any of...
Read the full article for free courtesy of your local library.
|
Bookmark this article
Print this article
Link to this article
Email this article
Digg It!
Add to del.icio.us
RSS
