Let’s hop in the Wayback, Sherman

Written by Aaron Springer on November 22, 2008

Set the dials for 1994.

A new science fiction show debuted. In Indianapolis, where, at the time, I was a junior in high school, it debuted on fuzzy channel 23. I watched it on the little black and white television in my room in the basement of the house at 753 South Emerson. As luck would have it, I got to see the first episode. One thing about this series, though, was that the plot was so well put together that I could not tell it was the first episode.

Well, I decided to watch it again today, and, believe it or not, seven years before the twin towers fell, a comment was made about terrorism that is just as true today.

Commander Sinclair: … We’ve had plenty of experience with sneak attacks. Pearl Harbor, the terrorist nuking of San Diego, the destruction of our first Mars colony. It’s a long and bloody history. Do you know what we learned from it? That the sneak attack is the first resort of a coward.

G’Kar: Just a minute…

Commander Sinclair: You didn’t even have the decency to pick a military target. A poorly armed civilian colony…What a challenge that must have been to the great Narn military.

(G’Kar steps forward, visibly angry)

Commander Sinclair: What’s the matter, Ambassador, don’t have the guts for a fair fight?

G’Kar: In another place, I’d have you skinned alive for saying that.

Commander Sinclair: You want me? You know where to find me. See you in council, Ambassador.

As the two actors were delivering their monologue, I mentally inserted the destrution of the World Trade Center to the list. It was seven years in the future when the series first aired.

It was these ideals that I was absorbing as I grew up.

I do not fear the terrorists. By the nature of their acts, they merely prove their rhetoric wrong. Their god is not backing them. If he were, do you really think we would still be around after seven years?

Terrorism is the reaction of a people who have made themselves powerless. It is an attempt to regain power through fear. It is a perversion of even their own beliefs. The sad thing is that we have been acting upon a resultant perversion of our beliefs since then.