Darfur and 911: In Memoriam: The innocents murdered on September 11th 2001

[Asher Kelman]

In Memoriam: The innocents murdered on September 11th 2001

It is 5 years since the innocents were slaughtered, September 11th 2001, a bestial horror visited from the skies.

So many lives stolen, exploded, burned, trapped, crushed, terrified, tortured and lost.

Yet, so many humans entered the furnace to rescue a rare survivor.

The whole world united in condemning all this.

Now 5 years later, what have we learned? What are we teaching?

Children in religious schools are taught to hate or to believe that they have a special path to favor or heaven or a seat at some holy place. Some people are still converted by the sword, others by kindness. Why can't we just treasure people as they are? Why are we still in a race to capture souls?

Missionaries still believe they are noble in converting the poor and the vulnerable by offering their own particular bible at the other end of a loaf of bread or in the hand that delivers medicines.

Missionaries masquerade as teachers and healers. They have schools that train dictionary makers and language crackers. They build airstrips to gain access to isolated tribes with their own treasured culture and poems. In a year, half the people will be dead, transformed from being free in the rain forests to tending crops near a missionary outpost, teeth rotting from Pepsi, the worth of a weeks wages.

None of us has the right to murder people or, worse their stories, songs and poems.
Where does this arrogance come from?

If the memorial to the innocents to 911 can mean something, it must surely be some introspection.

I ask you to pledge to the need to respect all peoples and treasure our differences. As photographers, we can show the value of each other and the life on this planet.

The camera captures light. Make it shed light too.


Asher

 

[nicolas claris]

Asher
one more time, if I couldn't have write so well, I could have signed your above text. ALL.

Why are we still in a race to capture souls?

I managed not to have any soul. Therefore I beleive that I cannot be captured. Candid eh?
Well at least not by any priest ot missionaries from any religion.

Why can't we just treasure people as they are?

because of $ and €? maybe, no?

We better move to "Provocative Thoughts and Images" if we want to continue that way...

 

[Asher Kelman]

Asher
one more time, if I couldn't have write so well, I could have signed your above text. ALL.


I managed not to have any soul. Therefore I beleive that I cannot be captured. Candid eh?
Well at least not by any priest ot missionaries from any religion.


because of $ and €? maybe, no?

We better move to "Provocative Thoughts and Images" if we want to continue that way...

Nicolas, interesting how you and no other person saw fit to even comment!

Did I say it all or upset everyone?

Anyway, it is not our drive for money that causes us to hunt for souls, but a more primitive tribal imperitive.

Asher

 

[Sean DeMerchant]

Did I say it all or upset everyone?

Aside: I have no interest in a flame war or rationalizations of why I am wrong, I just feel and reason as I do. Polite and respectful discussion is acceptable. I say this as this is politics and religion mixed together and I have no interest in arguement as it is not value added to life.
​

The 911 emergency created by crashing planes was a nightmare. Sadly, my nations response was to go out and murder 3 times as many civilians in my name who had nothing to do with it all in the failed cause of stealing oil. When hundreds of thousands of troops should have been pouring into Afghanistan and Pakistan in search of the culprits, we instead undersupplied the troops doing something about terrorism and proceeded to commit the largest terrorst attack in the history of the world: Shock And Awe. Some may claim it was a military action, but what we did was tell others do what we tell you or we will bomb you and then follow through and do it just as al Queda did and does.

The loss of those thousands of innocents is horrific, but my nation has done far worse and ignores even greater attrocities on a regular basis. Instead of doing something about the genocide in Sudan, we took a stable reasonably secular nation, toppled its government, and then followed up with a total lack of security that has generated a budding religious civil war. The problem is not that the 911 deaths were not a tragedy, but that in truth they are just a small materially insignificant* portion of intentional deaths that occurred in the last decade.

This is not said to trivialize the matter or to say that such losses close to home lack value, but it instead marks the US's culturally imposed selfish indifference to that which does not affect them. I can still remember the days of eery silence as not a single jet flew overhead (I lived under an airports flight path about 20 miles out then). I remember the sickening obsession of the media having to air every last grieving person crying their hearts out they could find. What I never saw was a single day of television devoted to grieving Iraqi's who last their families to to collateral damage. A check on recent numbers yields that at least ten Iraqi civilians have died for every WTC death for failing to be in any way involved in the 911 plot or WMDs. This sickening killing done in my name shames and saddens me far more than a few thousand deaths.

Add in the lies by the EPA that air quality in Manhattan was safe long before it was and the number of people sick and dying from those lies probably exceeds the number of direct deaths (I am unsure of this). Those lies themselves are a worse attrocity as it was perpetrated on us by our own government.

In summary, yes the deaths are sad, but I am over them. I have not forgotten, but I have instead paid attention and seen far worse done by my government in the days since and it continues to go on. We cannot correct the past, but if we stop dwelling on it and do what is right now rather than using the past as an excuse to do whatever we please we would be better off. What we should be learning is to lead by example. In Iraq our goals should not be a reduction of violence, but a stable power grid, large screen television in every living room, a large reliable fully stocked refrigerator in every home, and a standard Iraqi standard of living identical or better than that in the USA. Heck, TVs, refrigerators, power plants and grids, and food are cheaper than equiping soldiers and people feeding others are shot at far less often than soldiers alone. We should be focussed on solving the causes of these problems in the world, not killing more people.

And these radical politics are why I kept quiet. My views are simple here, death and punishment are not solutions. Dwelling on past horrors rather than trying to prevent future ones does little either. First and foremost I am human. Not a US citizen, not a man, but simply human as that is my primary social identification.

may your day contain joy,

Sean (who tries to stay off of politics and religion as his views are his and not given nor prescribed to him by anyone else)


* i.e., in business an SEC (Securites and Exchange Commission) filing is not needed for materially insignificant multi-million dollar deals in a billion doller per year corporation. This point is meant to be taken as a measurement and not as a judgement.

 

[Asher Kelman]

Yes, Sean,

Darfur is on my mind! It is a disgrace! We have an excuse to be in Iraq but the valid reasons to go into Darfur do not, it seems, outway the risk of further angering muslims in invading another Muslim country.

All your sentiments I agree with.

However, none of this diminishes the importance of 911 since it brought this too common horror, for the first time in recent memory, to the U.S. continent.

This, I hope will eventually bring some compassion and responsibility in out policy to Darfur! I just wish someone would discover oil there.

We are still hunting-apes! Only we delude ourselves more than they do!

Asher

 

[Mary Bull]

Dear Sean,

As Nicolas said to Asher, so I say to you:

If I had the writing skills, I would write exactly what you wrote (except about how far from the airport--I am several miles from there--all the same, regularly scheduled planes go over my house several times a day--one you could set your watch by--and you are right, the silence was eery)--

I would write exactly as you wrote and sign my name to it.

When the Bush Admin invaded Iraq in my name (using my taxes), I was so appalled that I did not post one word to an international mailing list I was posting frequently to, for about two months. Finally had to go back and confess what was wrong with me (well, partly at least; I dissembled a bit not to bring on a flame war), when one or two PMs inquired about my absence.

If something touches me very deeply, I tend to go very quiet.

But I cannot keep quiet in the face of your eloquent post, which expresses so well my own take on things--and my own emotions about them, as well.

With profound respect,

Mary

 

[Mary Bull]

Dear Asher,

I disagree with you on the point where you say "we have an excuse to be in Iraq."

In my considered opinion, we (the government of my country) have absolutely no excuse to be in Iraq.

Troops were deliberately diverted from Afghanistan, at a time when, a considerable body of evidence now shows, supplying them to the third point of a logistical triangle would with a strong probability have made the capture of Bin Laden a done deal.

A deliberate policy decision was made, by Cheney and Rumsfeld, who were running and are still running the U.S. military, to divert those troops into the invasion of Iraq.

We did not go after Saddam when he first began his genocide on the Kurds. If we were to make a decision to topple Saddam, it could have waited until after we toppled Bin Laden.

There was no credible evidence of a link between Saddam and Bin Laden, so far as Saddam's support is concerned, then, and there remains none now.

But it's all out of my hands, is now, always has been, and so far as I can see forever will be.

Shutting up and going off to weep.

Your friend,

Mary

 

[Asher Kelman]

Mary,

I chose my words carefully. An excuse is not a reason. It is, what it is, merely an insufficiently, just an excuse.

We have a reason to go into Darfur. We have no excuse not to.

To merely take the oil, we could have done that in the first gulf war. It is not as simple as that and not as important.

There are other problems to be conerned about of at least equal importance that no one cares about.

These other issues might arguably be an even harsher reflection on our so-called civilization: 45 million children have no education, 20-20% of all bird and amphibian species are expected to die out during the next 10-40 years.

Our societies just produce children, excretory, chemical and thermal waste that hurts people, cause suffering and damage our world.

Well why discuss all this here? After all, OPF is a photography community!

I feel that as photographers doing technically excellent and emotional work, we can and should also reflect the value of what is good about life, all life. That is how I feel.

That is why I love photography: it entertains, stands witness, gives testimony, stuns, disturbs, raises questions; a powerful currency that transcends all cultural barriers.

It is iconic photography, like those of 911, that will inform future schoolchildren about our world. We need bibles that reflect such truth about us more than those which claim the "truth" about heaven.

Asher

 

[Sean DeMerchant]

However, none of this diminishes the importance of 911 since it brought this too common horror, for the first time in recent memory, to the U.S. continent.

There is that historical significence from a historical perspective. But that was merely one of the latter events on this continent. There was the first bombing of the WTC parking garages years earlier, and the Oklahoma City Bombing. And I would mark the latter as worse as that was a homegrown plot. The 911 attack did bring down the WTC which greatly increased the scale, but it was not a first historically.

But our Shock And Awe attack in Iraq was of even greater scale in civilian deaths alone. This does not include the new version of shell shock the military had to deal with when the Iraqi army refused to surrender and they had to call in air strikes (thousands dead due to their voice alone) and looking at the leftover pieces of bodies.

My interest in my attitude here is to move the focus away from pain, hate, and suffering and try and focus my reasoning on love. There is no other valid reason beyond love. One kills to protect what one loves from danger (think of a rabid dog), not to force others to do as one says.

We are still hunting-apes! Only we delude ourselves more than they do!

I agree. But I think it is the hunting that is more of the problem than the delusion. Building and creating (why I love the camera) are so much more meaningful and helpful.

all the best,

Sean

 

[Sean DeMerchant]

If I had the writing skills, I would write exactly what you wrote (except about how far from the airport--I am several miles from there--all the same, regularly scheduled planes go over my house several times a day--one you could set your watch by--and you are right, the silence was eery)--

I would write exactly as you wrote and sign my name to it.

Dear Mary,

Thank you. I may have gotten the airport distance wrong, but it was a 20-25 minute drive mostly at highway speeds so it could be less. But they came by all the time very low and I stopped noticing them. Then they were gone. So in a way, Asher's comment on 911 being a first, yes it was the first that affected our nation directly as whole.

As to reasons, we had one valid reason to invade Iraq and the government ignored it and chose rationalizations and specious lies. We were still technically at war with Iraq and could have simply stated we were continuing our UN approved invasion due ot a failure by Iraq to complete the peace process that was outlined for the cessation of military action. That, whether I agree with the necessity or not, would have been a valid reason already approved of by most of the world. But death in the name of lies in my name is shaming to me.

all the best,

Sean

 

[Asher Kelman]

We are still hunting-apes! Only we delude ourselves more than they do!

..........
I agree. But I think it is the hunting that is more of the problem than the delusion. ....
Sean

Well Sean,

Bush 49's belief that he grasped, grasps or might in the future grasp the situation is, IMHO, delusional, and the heart of the matter.

His belief that he could bribe tribesmen with loyalty webs going back millennia to take over from U.S. special forces in Tora Bora was ignorant, misinformed and delusional.

It is, (as he is learning at everyone's great expense), harder to plant democracy and tolerance than the U.S. flag and Coca Cola, irrespective of any oil politics.

I call this a Grand Delusionorium© . It's a poem it wrote about a massacre in World War I, The Great World War"

Asher

 

[Will_Perlis]

"Did I say it all or upset everyone?"

No, but I'm not sure saying anything makes much difference.

From what I see and read, it appears the current administration learned everything ever known about terrorists, insurgencies, occupations, pacifications, civil administration, and general military strategy and tactics, and then set out to systematically do it all wrong this time.

 

[Sean DeMerchant]

Well why discuss all this here? After all, OPF is a photography community!

I feel that as photographers doing technically excellent and emotional work, we can and should also reflect the value of what is good about life, all life. That is how I feel.

That is why I love photography: it entertains, stands witness, gives testimony, stuns, disturbs, raises questions; a powerful currency that transcends all cultural barriers.

It is iconic photography, like those of 911, that will inform future schoolchildren about our world. We need bibles that reflect such truth about us more than those which claim the "truth" about heaven.

Asher,

Interesting comment and inline with what I like to create while wider in scope. While my personal interest is in capturing the beauty of life, said beauty reflects many of my environmentally conservative (i.e., keep the environment alive and healthy and conserve the species variation) values. But it is that partially trans-cultural beauty that so intrigues me. I say partly trans-cultural as different cultures have different icons and things that are clear to me may not always translate to others.

As to religion, I have no answers. If it works for someone and they are not hurting others as a result, then I wish them only the best. It is the teaching of hate, distrust, and intolerence that I find sickening. An intriguing fact is I can honestly say I have never known a muslim who was not a good, kind, decent, and caring individual who cared about their species. I cannot say this about other branches of this relious family. Albeit, here in the USA my representative sample is skewed by cultural distributions (that darned statistics again ).

enjoy,

Sean

 

[Sean DeMerchant]

Bush 49's belief that he grasped, grasps or might in the future grasp the situation is, IMHO, delusional, and the heart of the matter....
I call this a Grand Delusionorium© .

Such a nice word. I once thought stupid, then very stupid, then I caught on that he gets it and does not care. Deluded is such nice way to paraphrase intentionally acting with ill intent. The man is an avowed christian, yet nearly every action of his puts lie to it.

It saddens me to see so many of the masses deluded by his rhetoric without ever looking at his actions and seeing the underlying pattern of indifference and intolerance.

sincerely,

Sean

 

[Ben Rubinstein]

The stupid part of this whole mess is that people equate Iran and it's intentions with the Iraq saga to the extent that their evil president is laughing himself silly while Europe and the US tiptoe gently around him asking him to pretty please stop making a nuclear bomb! It's just gone silly the amount of times that he is pulling another 'delay', shouldn't he have been under sanctions around December last year already? The Muslim states are caught in a quandry of pride against the US and bed wetting terror of Iran becoming nuclear able.

 

[Nill Toulme]

...environmentally conservative (i.e., keep the environment alive and healthy and conserve the species variation) values. ...

What a nice turn of phrase that is. In recent years I have often found myself wondering — whatever happened to the "conserve" in "conservative?"

The co-opting of language is disheartening, isn't it? Now that "liberal" is used as a venomous pejorative in the same tone that "commie" and "pinko" were in my youth, and nobody on the right speaks of "environmentalists" any more, but only of "environmental extremists." If you want clean air and water you're an "extremist." OK, count me in.

Extremely,

Nill
~~
www.toulme.net

 

[Ray West]

a view from across the pond

It is increasingly becoming more difficult for gov's to pull the wool over peoples eyes. Understand the importance of groups like this opf to spread 'enlightenment' through the world. Understand the importance of your education, things some folk take for granted. But you still have to make a judgement. Also, understand, that in our so called free countries, what we say is being monitored, and if push comes to shove, your internet plug will be pulled. All gov's need to control communication.

On 11th Sept 2001, I was at home. My wife phoned me from her work place, said 'turn on the tv - any channel'. iirc this was about 11am (I'm in UK) I turned on, saw what looked like a Hollywood disaster movie. I changed channel, same movie. I thought 'odd'. Then I realised, 'it may be true'.

At the time I was a member of an AV forum (Audio/ video group) and some months previously there was a bit of discussion re. war correspondents, how they were controlled in 'the first gulf war' by the USA army, cf 'Vietnam', plus the fact that the USA gov. was talking with Hollywood re. how to present war images. Somehow, I had initially linked the tv images to that mind set. Anyway, over the next few days, the stories came in from the av forum, from folk who were there, the un-glossed stories.

We have satellite tv, I channel hopped. In my opinion, the most factual reporting, the most straightforward, was what I saw being presented by one of the Iranian broadcast channels. The rest were not reporting, they were hyping it up, making a show - see, here goes that plane again.

Since then, there has been so much FUD (an old ibm sales tactic - create fear, uncertainty and doubt, then folk will trust and buy from you), that the tendancy is to believe that it was after all a scripted hollywood show, and now the movie is actually out, thus it was just a dress rehearsal after all.

My faith in reporting of major events was shattered at an early age, again by a USA event. When JFK was shot. Every UK paper reported as fact the position and weapon used. Every paper said it was a different weapon.

Although I am in no way a supporter of either particular activity, I would suggest it is no more cowardly to deliberately fly an aircraft into a building, which you perceive as being full of 'the enemy', knowing you ain't got an escape plan, than it is to sit a hundred miles off the coast, firing cruise missiles from a well protected naval vessel. I am not commenting on the rights or wrongs of either activity, but on the way in which they are presented by the media and other vested interests.

It is said we get the leaders we deserve, but surely nobody, but nobody, deserves our current crop of morons....

Best wishes,

Ray