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January 31, 2007

9/11 VS. "OTHER" MASS MURDERS

This provocative story by John Hopkins's David Bell in the Los Angeles Times--and reaction elsewhere in the press--is worth a read: "Was 9/11 Really That Bad?" I agree with the Huffington Post's assessment that, in fact, the "mere" body count of 3,000 on September 11 doesn't take into account the thousands who have since perished in the ongoing war on terror, the first-responders who are now dying at an alarming rate, etc. Comparisons of war crimes, holocausts, terror death tolls are academic parlor games, at best; at worst, an invitation for diminishing the significance of the attacks of September 11.

UPDATE: After a hubbub earlier this week, the L.A. Times has changed its headline. "As we mentioned on Tuesday," writes HufPost's Eat the Press column this morning, "the L.A. Times stirred up a ruckus this weekend when its website posted an op-ed from the Sunday paper titled, 'Was 9/11 Really That Bad?' The incendiary headline drew an instant and furious response (including from commenters on HuffPo's main page) and as of this morning it had been changed to 'Putting 9/11 In Perspective.'"

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