Sanctimony.

     My dictionary defines it as “outward or artificial saintliness; assumed or pretended holiness, hypocritical devoutness.” It also connotes an attitude of self-righteousness and a lack of tolerance for others. I have seen far too much of it in the commemorations of the fifth anniversary of 9-11.

     Don’t get me wrong. I think that holding events to help people remember and deal with that tragedy is desirable and necessary and good. Many people lost loved ones, or were otherwise traumatized by the events of that day. Anniversary remembrances can help them to heal.

     But sanctimony is another matter entirely. It is sanctimonious to pretend that the United States was the innocent victim of an unprovoked attack. The truth is that prior to 9-11, the United States had engaged in repeated, massive uses of violence, both directly and through proxies, with the intent and effect of controlling events in the Middle East. It propped up dictators with money and weapons. It provided massive support to Israel and helped to oppress the Palestinians.

     Regardless of whether you supported or opposed those policies, it is clear that we were a heavyweight in the region, and had done a lot of things to provoke many people in the Middle East. We were not the innocent victims of an unprovoked attack.

     It is sanctimonious to pretend that the attacks of 9-11 were qualitatively different from, or more evil than, anything that had preceded them. Those attacks consisted of one group of people deliberately attacking and killing a large number of other people, many of them civilians. It is a tragedy of course, but unfortunately it is also a very old and all too common story in human history.

     Let me give a few examples from the last century. The Holocaust. Hiroshima. Nagasaki. The firebombing of Dresden. The rape of Nanking. The Armenian genocide. That is not even a complete list for the last century, and if I extended my timeline, I could fill this entire column with similar examples. No one who has even a basic grasp of history could possibly doubt that humans are capable of such attacks. The United States has far more than its own share of blood on its hands

     The most obvious difference between 9-11 and the examples I just listed is that far fewer people died in 9-11 than in my other examples. But somehow, the sanctimonious claim that this attack was far more significant than prior attacks, and are shocked, SHOCKED that the 9-11 hijackers could carry out such a cold blooded attack.

     The real basis for the claim that these attacks were different is not based upon the nature of the attacks. It is based upon the fact that it was Americans who were the victims, instead of Jews or Japs, or Huns or Chinks or some Middle Eastern people that no one had ever heard about. It is based upon a belief in American exceptionalism, the idea that the lives of Americans are more important than the lives of other people and the idea that we are not held to the same standards that other people must follow.

     Unfortunately, sanctimony is alive and well in the United States. It is openly espoused in our mass media. But it is only when sanctimony is abandoned, and the lives of all people are equally valued and cherished and protected that we will have a chance to establish real peace in human affairs.

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