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Boston message: US has matured
By Anne-Marie Slaughter |
May 9, 2013, Thursday
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AMERICA has grown up. Public reaction to the Boston Marathon bombings and the identity of the perpetrators reveals a very different nation from the one reflected in the traumatized and occasionally hysterical responses to the terror attacks of September 11, 2001.
The magnitude of the two attacks was, of course, very different - thousands were killed and major national landmarks destroyed in 2001, whereas the Boston bombing killed three people and injured roughly 260. Still, it was the first major attack on the United States since 2001, and the contrast between now and then is instructive.
Consider the social-media buzz within minutes of the bombing. The New York Post, a tabloid, emitted a stream of sensational reportage claiming that 12 people had been killed and that a Saudi national was "under guard" at a Boston hospital. Veteran reporters and columnists immediately countered with questions about the Post's sources and the lack of confirmation for what it was reporting.
Kerri Miller of Minnesota Public Radio tweeted that she had covered the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995, which was first reported as a gas explosion, then as an attack by foreign terrorists, and finally as the work of domestic extremists.
This caution and restraint stemmed directly from a collective awareness of the many innocent Muslim Americans who suffered from Americans' ignorance and wrath following the 2001 attacks.
Indeed, equally striking was the number of pundits who suggested that the Boston bombing was homegrown, more similar to the Oklahoma City attack or the mass shooting last December of first graders in Newtown, Connecticut, than to the 2001 plot. The America of 2013, unlike the America of 2001, is willing to recognize its own pathologies before looking for enemies abroad.
America has also grown up in another way, learning to choose transparency over secrecy, and to rely on the power of its citizens.
After September 11, 2001, the security expert Stephen E. Flynn called on the government to "engage the American people in the enterprise of managing threats to the nation." A decade later, the FBI immediately called on all who attended the Boston Marathon to send photos and videos of the area around the finish line - anything that could help investigators identify the bombers. The resulting flood of information enabled the authorities to identify the two suspects far sooner than would have been possible had they relied on traditional police methods.
The US of 2013 is both more reflective than it was a decade ago and more consciously connected to the world. The result is a citizenry that is less likely to interpret events, even attacks, in simplistic and often counter-productive us-versus-them terms.
Anne-Marie Slaughter is professor of politics and International Affairs at Princeton University. Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2013.www.project-syndicate.org. Shanghai Daily condensed the article.
The magnitude of the two attacks was, of course, very different - thousands were killed and major national landmarks destroyed in 2001, whereas the Boston bombing killed three people and injured roughly 260. Still, it was the first major attack on the United States since 2001, and the contrast between now and then is instructive.
Consider the social-media buzz within minutes of the bombing. The New York Post, a tabloid, emitted a stream of sensational reportage claiming that 12 people had been killed and that a Saudi national was "under guard" at a Boston hospital. Veteran reporters and columnists immediately countered with questions about the Post's sources and the lack of confirmation for what it was reporting.
Kerri Miller of Minnesota Public Radio tweeted that she had covered the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995, which was first reported as a gas explosion, then as an attack by foreign terrorists, and finally as the work of domestic extremists.
This caution and restraint stemmed directly from a collective awareness of the many innocent Muslim Americans who suffered from Americans' ignorance and wrath following the 2001 attacks.
Indeed, equally striking was the number of pundits who suggested that the Boston bombing was homegrown, more similar to the Oklahoma City attack or the mass shooting last December of first graders in Newtown, Connecticut, than to the 2001 plot. The America of 2013, unlike the America of 2001, is willing to recognize its own pathologies before looking for enemies abroad.
America has also grown up in another way, learning to choose transparency over secrecy, and to rely on the power of its citizens.
After September 11, 2001, the security expert Stephen E. Flynn called on the government to "engage the American people in the enterprise of managing threats to the nation." A decade later, the FBI immediately called on all who attended the Boston Marathon to send photos and videos of the area around the finish line - anything that could help investigators identify the bombers. The resulting flood of information enabled the authorities to identify the two suspects far sooner than would have been possible had they relied on traditional police methods.
The US of 2013 is both more reflective than it was a decade ago and more consciously connected to the world. The result is a citizenry that is less likely to interpret events, even attacks, in simplistic and often counter-productive us-versus-them terms.
Anne-Marie Slaughter is professor of politics and International Affairs at Princeton University. Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2013.www.project-syndicate.org. Shanghai Daily condensed the article.
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