THE ANGER GAP

The other fundamental difference, it seems to me, is that the Europeans do not get what September 11 did to America. They don’t understand how the violation of two hundred years of mainland security altered something deep in the American psyche, traumatized and enraged us at a level the Europeans haven’t even vaguely felt. They don’t get that gaping wound in downtown Manhattan, although they’ve all seen it dozens of times. Or they do get it, but are terrified by this hegemon, enraged and righteous, executing its will across the planet. I think we have to make allowances for them in this, as they must for us. Some difference of view is not just healthy, it’s inevitable. I don’t think Americans got what Londoners went through in 1940 during the blitz, and the profound changes in the national psyche it wrought. Ditto the English toward Americans today. And the truth is, this is perfectly understandable. You simply can’t fully get something that traumatic unless you experience it directly – as a threat to oneself. Hence the difference in resolve and seriousness between America and the allies as this war continues. What to do about this? Americans need to explain their feelings more to a culture over here that saw September 11 as a media extravaganza that has now ceded to the next story. We have to try and explain the depth of the anger and the fact that fear of another attack – anywhere – is absolutely real. Perhaps it wil take an unthinkable terrorist atrocity in a European city for this psychological gap to narrow. I just hope we can get there without such a calamity. And if necessary, of course, America may have to simply go it alone.