Not a tragedy

What happened at the World Trade Center was not really a "tragedy." I am getting progressively more annoyed at having the events of 9/11/01 described as a "tragedy." The word "tragedy" indicates sorrow and loss, but it also contains overtones of randomness, unpredictability, perhaps even inevitability. A car accident where a family loses a child or children is a tragedy. On a greater scale, the Tsunami in Southeast Asia was a tragedy. When a bridge collapses during an earthquake and people lose their lives, it is a tragedy, or when a building collapses during an earthquake, it is a tragedy. There is a subtle subterfuge at work when the events of 9/11 are called a tragedy, a subterfuge with a motive.

A tragedy is something that due to its randomness and unpredictability, it is something that we can grieve for, but something that is a part of fate that we must simply move past. A tragedy may or may not call upon the survivors to take action; it is dependent on the specifics of the event. Even if that tragedy calls for lessons that can be implemented to prevent future tragedies, there is no moral component which requires retribution. The word "tragedy" is morally neutral. This is the reason that the mainstream media and those politicians who prefer moral relativism with inaction, drone on with the repetitive, soothing, mantra of the word "tragedy". They seek to lull the American public into acceptance and resignation, rather than allow them to maintain the fast-fading moral outrage that followed the events themselves. That moral outrage was the correct response, not an overreaction. That moral outrage and chest-expanding impulse, demanding swift, absolute, and merciless retribution, was the healthy response to what the events of 9/11 truly were. Not a "tragedy", but an "atrocity".

An unknown number of Islamic fanatics, unable to fulfill their desires to completely destroy Western Civilization, had 19 of their agents succeed, in seizing civilian airliners, packed with men, women and children passengers, only to slam them into buildings packed with office workers. This is the very definition of atrocity. The largest casualties occurred in buildings of a completely civilian nature. A horrific atrocity. The fanatic’s efforts were encouraged and cheered by the large number of their co-fanatics throughout the Muslim world. This intentional, diabolic, murder of civilians was not tragic, it was an atrocity. Worse still, it was an atrocity lauded or at least excused by the breadth and depth of the members of a specific religion. It was not a tragedy they celebrate, it was an atrocity. It should be repeatedly called such, by any responsible speaker or writer. The western world should not be sad, we should be outraged, and we should remain so, for as long as a single mullah, Imam, or cleric continues to praise or excuse this atrocity that opened our new millennium.

by David Roth
July 12, 2006

David Roth is a Generation X, former political science professor, now practicing law in Phoenix.

Posted July 12, 2006 06:12 PM
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