I just got finished watching United 93. As I could have predicted, I am now emotionally exhausted from bawling my eyes out for the last 15 minutes of the movie. Blah.
I’d read commentary by reviewers who were offended at the film’s focus on the humanity of the hijackers as much as the passengers. I actually thought that was a large part of the strength of the movie–how we are reminded at the essential humanity of everyone who was involved that day. And of how unprepared everyone was for what happened… (except perhaps the hijackers)
As much as all that, though, I was struck by a feeling of weariness, despondency, even. We’ve lost the emotional urgency of it all; we’ve started to turn on ourselves now. Usually it’s just political rhetoric, but in one case this 4th of July it was more. All Washington is up in (metaphoric) flames as the politicians try to outshout each other about how soon we should turn tail and run away from the battle. Al Qaeda is counting on the idea that it can wait us out in Iraq, then use their “victory” over the Americans to launch the real jihad.
I thought we learned a lesson–we can’t yawn away the threats, even here in the Western hemisphere. To do so is to leave ourselves exposed. And that invites them to come in and attack us at our soft underbelly. Do we have to repeat the lesson? Are we really that stupid?
Posted by Kjirstin 
