Amidst all of this wreckage I'm sure we've all come to some of our own private epiphanies. One I experienced, which I'll share, came when I saw footage of some of the citizens on the West Bank cheering the news. I was deeply saddened by this shameful display of schadenfruede. People cheering the death of thousands of innocent citizens and the destruction of American emblems.
I'm not indicting those people specifically. For the past week I've been reading the autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr. I've been thinking alot about civil, non-violent action and disobedience and how wonderful King, Ghandi (and Thoreau do an extent) would react to this situation. News coverage has stressed much of the togetherness this disaster has created. People finally working together on a cause big enough to make us all forget our petty concerns. However, will we allow this togetherness to continue or are we damned to create further carnage and thus expressing the same joy as those West Bankers who anger us in this disatrous time? America (Bush and cronies) seems bent on retalitaing a "punishing" blow to the "faceless cowards" responsible for this. This hypocrisy would deeply trouble me.
My question: do we live in a world where military retaliation and violence is necessary?