On September 11, 2001 terrorists flew two hijacked airliners into the World Trade Center in New York City. One flew into each tower. Other terrorists of the same group flew an airliner into the Pentagon. The twin towers of the Trade Center, along with several other surrounding buildings later collapsed.
This much you know.
You probably also know that over 6,000 are missing and presumed dead, or are confirmed to have been killed from these attacks.
None of this, of course, is fair.
Neither is it just.
Consider the men and women in the towers tapping at keyboards, munching bagels, aimlessly sipping crappy office coffee, as the day was yet early. Then think of their skins, seared from the flesh an instant later; think of the suffocating heat as several tons of jet fuel roared to life above, below. And so we say we must "bring those . . . who committed this act to justice."
Those whose worlds themselves have crumbled into chaos, have been crumbling for as long as some can remember, those for whom "home" means "one piece . . . of flatbread a day, a week--maybe for a month," for whom works means scratching the dry soil with a wooden crutch, a legacy from a war we funded but refused to clean up.
This, also is not fair.
Nor is it just.
Soon, we will bomb them, and our patterns will be tight; we'll watch from our comfortable chairs as our screens fill with the graceful plumes rising above the ragged desert.
And we'll feel better, for awhile, about our lives lost, our egos flattened.
But this much, perhaps, we do not know: our bombs will not make them hate us any less.