I’m now back in New York, having completed a relatively uneventful trip back from State College. Everything seems pretty much the same as usual apart from a scarred skyline with a light plume of smoke where two towers used to stand. The city is fairly quiet, last night was more like a Wednesday night than a Saturday. People are pretty much going about their business as usual north of Canal – going on dates, chatting to friends (although there’s only one topic of conversation still), shopping.
My biggest concern at the moment is escalation. I’m working on the supposition at the moment that all this jinogistic war talk that’s happening is not, in general, a good thing. Thousands of innocent people have died and if we kill millions of innocent people in ‘retaliation’ then surely we’re just as bad as the people who did this originally? Colin Powell talking about how America is glad to have its allies, but if push comes to shove America will call the shots and do what it has to do. Surely if America does not answer to the rest of the world they are just being the same as whoever did this? What if another ‘Timothy McVeigh’ did this? And they are based in the heartland of America? Would America bomb the shit out of its own towns to kill the families that would be sheltering their loved ones? Even if they knew what they had done? This concept of ‘associated guilt’ – you are protecting them therefore you are guilty is pretty scary. It simplifies things for people bombing other places, but surely it just makes things worse?
I hope it never comes to this. I believe that New Yorkers, having being the worst hit and being, in general, more aware of the rest of the world’s attitudes than the rest of America, need to take a stand and say “What happened was awful. But we must not kill innocent people to try and make it right!”. Let us all hope for that peace to come for the world, not create more fighting.