Posted on 09/23/2001 5:06:55 PM PDT by NYCVirago
There has never been a bloodier day in American history than Sept. 11, 2001. No other single atrocity or catastrophe even comes close.
The terrible toll at the World Trade Center — 6,986 believed perished so far — dwarfs anything in the experience of Americans.
The previous grim standard was set Sept. 17, 1862, at the Civil War battle along Antietam Creek, on the outskirts of Sharpsburg, Md., where Union and Confederate soldiers fought from sunrise to sundown and left 3,654 comrades on the field.
The next bloodiest single day came June 6, 1944 — code-named D-Day — when 3,000 American troops died as they stormed ashore at Omaha Beach in Normandy, France.
Not even America's most devastating natural calamity comes close to the toll at the World Trade Center — the 1889 flood in Johnstown, Pa., in which 2,200 men, women and children died on a single day.
Other disasters have taken heavier tolls over time — the worst being the terrible hurricane that struck Galveston, Tex., on Sept. 8, 1900, which killed between 6,000 and 8,000, but that was over several days.
To put the toll of the New York terrorist attack in starkest perspective, the number of dead and missing in lower Manhattan on Sept. 11 exceeds the number of Americans killed in the Revolutionary War (4,435) and the War of 1812 (2,260).
Day of Infamy
For many Americans, the grim benchmark was Pearl Harbor, where a Japanese air attack on Dec. 7, 1941 — "a date which will live in infamy," in Franklin D. Roosevelt's words — left 2,388 Americans dead, most of them military personnel.
Even some of the most celebrated battles in the country's history were relatively bloodless by comparison. Among them is the Battle of Bunker Hill, which left 115 Americans dead, and the Battle of New Orleans, in which only eight Americans died fighting British troops.
The toll at the Alamo was 189. It was 82 at San Juan Hill, in Cuba, where Theodore Roosevelt led his Rough Riders into action against the Spanish.
World War II casualties were high in some battles, but they came over extended periods. Over six weeks, 19,000 Americans died in the Battle of the Bulge, and during three days, 1,000 Marines and sailors were killed in action against Japanese forces on a tiny rocky atoll in the Pacific called Tarawa.
Over the past century, the human toll of ethnic cleansing, tribal warfare, religious and communal conflict, genocidal purges and terrorist strikes have killed millions. At Babi Yar in September 1941, more than 33,741 Jews were massacred in 36 hours by the Germans. The Red Army slaughtered 15,000 Polish officers in Katyn Forest the year before.
Rwanda, Bosnia, East Timor, the Soviet Union, Armenia, Cambodia, Iraq, Pakistan and the Congo stand as sad symbols of human suffering inflicted by violence.
Not even American racial violence at its ugliest has reached anything resembling those levels of mass carnage.
The worst was an attack on black neighborhoods of Tulsa, Okla., by white vigilante mobs on June 1, 1921. Officials later said that as many as 300 blacks were slain over a 12-hour period.
Using the standard definition of terrorism, some experts say there have only been five terrorist attacks on U.S. domestic targets, including the attack on the World Trade Center. The bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City took the next heaviest toll, killing 168 men, women and children.
The Wall Street bomb blast in 1920, which was blamed on anarchists and is still unsolved, killed 35.
The bombing of Fraunces Tavern in lower Manhattan killed four in 1975. Puerto Rican nationalists claimed responsibility.
The other listed attack was the bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993, which killed six, wounded at least 1,040, and was blamed on Islamic extremists taking their cues from Osama Bin Laden.
Embassy Attacks
The U.S. terror list doesn't include the American Embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, which killed 253. Again, followers of Bin Laden were blamed. Also omitted were terrorist attacks on U.S. servicemen in Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and the Navy destroyer Cole, which killed scores.
Another terrorist strike, the bombing of Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, killed 270 just before Christmas, 1988.
An act that helped bring the United States into World War I, the sinking of the liner Lusitania in 1915 by a German submarine, killed 1,198 passengers and crew. There have been terrible losses of life that had nothing to do with terrorism in the traditional sense — one was the federal raid on the Branch Davidian cult compound in Waco, Tex., that left 70 dead eight years ago.
An even higher toll came in Guyana, where cult leader Jim Jones induced 914 of his followers to commit suicide in 1978. It remains by far the highest number of victims in any case of American religious violence.
Among other grim records for natural disasters and accidents:
Shipping accident in peacetime: 1,547 killed in a steamship explosion on the Mississippi in 1865.
Accidental explosion: 516, in Texas City, Tex., in 1947.
Fire: 1,200, in a forest fire in Wisconsin in 1871.
Coal mine collapse: 361, in West Virginia in 1907.
Train derailment: 101, in Tennessee in 1918.
U.S. air crash: 275, American Airlines crash in Chicago in 1979.
Earthquake: more than 500, San Francisco in 1906.
Gonna be a while before we're certified, and we're both a little older than desireable, but sometimes the old timers just may teach the younger dogs a trick or two!!
It infected 28% of all Americans (Tice). An estimated 675,000 Americans died of influenza during the pandemic, ten times as many as in the world war. Of the U.S. soldiers who died in Europe, half of them fell to the influenza virus and not to the enemy (Deseret News). An estimated 43,000 servicemen mobilized for WWI died of influenza (Crosby). 1918 would go down as unforgettable year of suffering and death and yet of peace. As noted in the Journal of the American Medical Association final edition of 1918
It also killed millions around the world.
However, once those numbers are broken down, the death toll of 11 September, 2001, which now reaches approximately 7,000 in dead and missing, exceeds the Antietam total of dead and missing.
Antietam Casualties:
Confederate Losses
Killed ...................1,512
Wounded................7,816
Captured/Missing...... 1,844
Union Losses
Killed..................2,108
Wounded.................9,549
Captured/Missing..........753
If we don't start taking the terrorists out in the world now, when? If the US doesn't lead the way, who will?
Up to now the Israelis and the British seem to be the ones on the point against terrorism...mainly the Israelis. Everyone else has always talked about over reaction and balance and restraint. If these become the SOP of this effort, before we are done, the WTC will seem like an evening at the sock-hop.
Also, whether the loss happened in one minute or over some limited amount of time, that is also irrelevant. The important thing is what we do next. What we are confronting eveil, the question isn't how many died. The question is: for what, and who do we see about it. This is why it requires the response of adults with resolve. There isn't anyone to see about it, at least no one that cares to listen. Instead of counting the dead, let's start to hope we don't lose our resolve.
We've done that, of course. You seem to favor symbolism over substance.
We have stated through our President, in no uncertain terms, that it is "war" between us and the terrorists AND those nations that sponsor terrorism.
I think you also fail to appreciate the P.R. task ahead as well. It is an important thing to get others to understand that we DO know who the perps are and are thus justified in pursuing our aims.
EXAMPLE: We are not going directly after Iraq, at least not yet. I think that'll come in time.
I think the government is doing a marvelous job in coming together and pursuing this course of action in a deliberate way.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.