Many armies carry banners with religious slogans. Many national leaders claim support of their Gods in national war efforts. Many complex regional conflicts are labelled by religious beliefs of their participants. But one will not find any other case of a religion so much on the defensive that each day its priests need to talk to journalists explaining that their philosophical notions are not murderous.
It is conceivable that Muslims consider wine drinking catholic bishops an outrage and shame but - as far as one can judge from a lack of respective press reports - no authority following the teachings of Islam calls his/her political adversaries “obscene bishops”. The country that prefers to call a curve “a not fully straight line” does not hesitate to use the term ayatolah as a colorful offense.
A topic that occupies people's minds can arise suddenly but the way in which societies work through it is the question of lifelong thinking habits. The logic revealed by the street-level US actions follows the scheme: “Elephants do not eat fish. Tim does not eat fish. Tim is an elephant.” As if it were a scene of a Monty Python film.
During long hours TV fixed its cameras on tops of tall buildings and did not turn it to the street level. The scenes must have been too horrible to let normal people see that image of Manhattan streets. There was no decree on censorship, it was just a common sense and responsibility.
How much common sense and responsibility am I watching on my TV screen at this moment?
By the way, sooner or later someone will have to recall that Islam became a refuge of an American ethnic group that did not manage to get integrated in the mainstream of the US social life.
A government considered illegitimate is held accountable for actions that it does not oppose or forsee. In times of crisis one finds short cuts through volumes of subtle considerations on the meaning of responsibility for one's acts. Philosophers and artists probed the question, now a solution has been found.
Will be the Pope hold responsible and forced to answer US marshalls when an anti-abortionists kill a doctor in a clinic in which abortions were practiced?
And should the same reasoning be applied to Californian authorities who know that San Andreas Fault disaster is inevitable but permit city development in the area?
During World War II my country had a very strong and numerous resistence organization (Armia Krajowa). Each of its successes cost lives of members, their families, even whole villages. Few of their actions would make good film but some of them (like the one linked with Enigma coding machine) contributed to the final Allied victory.
When I watched numerous Hollywood productions portraying a determined group of Americans (sometimes highly motivated, sometimes plain criminals) breaking all German defense lines, winning with a blast what European fighting nations could not win, I did not see Superman fantasy series, I saw a contempt for other peoples and extreme lack of respect for millions of dead in their unequal fight. But it seems that there were other ways to watch these profitable superproductions. They could serve as an inspiration, a promise that a small group of young people could knock out any wordly power.
I listened here in Brazil to several dozens of persons commenting on the New York tragedy. None of them is Muslim. The line they followed is invariably the same one: “It is terrible but...” If the US is to be a safe country again it has to make the greatest possible effort to understand what all those but parts mean.
Behavior of the new US administration on international forum seemed a provocation; a 100 countries say one thing, the US does not care about it. Now a broad coalition is needed but some 50 to 60 countries are looked at with suspicion. And the invitation to the coalition reads: “either you are with us or you're with the terrorists.”
Assume that the horror was planned and executed by some dark-skinned gluttural language speaking guys wearing long robes. Still, it makes sense to ask the old Roman question: quid prodest?
- No Arab or Muslim individuals, groups or governments qualify.
- The US military were under a threat of an imminent budget cuts. The situation has changed.
- A fight was about to start with respect to the sources of financing big projects. Nobody asks any more about sources or the quantity of zeros in the proposed numbers.
- The immediate standing of the Jewish State seems much firmer than before.
- A full-size modern hospital in an Asian country would be cheaper than a guardian plane crossing the US skies. Thats's right but Asian hospitals do not fly into local TV news.
- There was always a menace that African entities might dispute the theory of black men and women climbing trees in order to catch apes for a short sexual intercourse. The phanthom of legal proceedings against great laboratories in a possible case of contaminated vaccines was in the air and could result in a sentence transfering billions of dollars from the US to Africa. Today's priority is the defense of democracy and no courts would lose their time to indulge in complicated scientific deliberations.
- There should be no more disruptions of global conferences on economical order. Security and order will be preserved.
One does not hear comments on possible (or impossible) associations with the Kirov assassination. There is no reason for it - “Kirov” does not sound like a name in American politics. More than that, in the case of assassination of Kirov Stalin's secret police kept control of the damage.
One day we will know the full truth. Perhaps 37 years after the full elucidation of the assassination of President Kennedy.

Some disconnected remarks