The Theory of Relativity

As the 10th anniversary of 9/11 (and the 70th anniversary of Pearl Harbor) approach I remain genuinely confused by the tendency of our culture to refer to 9/11 as the worst attack on America "since Pearl Harbor". This error is truly bizarre for two reasons.

Firstly, it is bizarre because we would think that 9/11 would be remembered as far worse than Pearl Harbor even if it wasn't because it is so much closer in time and memory to all of us, even those few of us who remember Pearl Harbor.

Secondly, and more confusingly, it is bizzare because by every conceivable measure 9/11 was objectively far worse an attack than Pearl Harbor, making it even more perplexing that we would exalt the former attack over the latter.

First, for the targets. The target of Pearl Harbor was an American military installation on Hawaii. Two facts are important to consider. Firstly, this attack was not an "attack on America" at all; Hawaii was not a state at the time and would not be for another two decades.

Secondly, the target was purely military and by any reading of international law, this was an entirely "legal" act of war. Uniformed Japanese soldiers in marked Japanese warplanes attacked uniformed American sailors in marked American warships. All Western moral and military law holds that this was a legitimate target; it was not terrorism.

The targets on 9/11, on the other hand were in the United States and almost exclusively and intentionally targeted civilians. This is properly understood as an illegal or illegitimate target; this was terrorism.

We can see this distinction within the 9/11 attacks themselves. While "9/11" is usually shorthand for "the World Trade Center attacks", there were 4 hijacked airplanes that day. The Pentagon attack was similar to Pearl Harbor in the sense that the target was unarguably military, thereby making it "legitimate" under the laws of war.

What made the Pentagon strike illegitimate, however, was the fact that the "weapon" used by the attackers was an airplane full of civilians, making it terrorism. So while the Pentagon was a legitimate target, the method of attack of entirely illegitimate.

The final and most straightforward measurement by which 9/11 was worse than Pearl Harbor was the number of dead. Even if we abjure all notions of "legitimate" targets and methods, even if we adopt the idea that "war is war" and "dead is dead", 9/11 was worse simply because more Americans were killed on 9/11 than were killed at Pearl Harbor. Simple as that.

Pearl Harbor killed approximately 2,400 Americans. 9/11 killed approximately 3,000. That's a full 25% more. The fact that they were civilians makes it worse, but even if they weren't civilians, it would have been a worse attack than Pearl Harbor.

So what accounts for this? If anything, we could be forgiven for exaggerating 9/11's magnitude and calling it "worse than Pearl Harbor" simply because people attach great self-importance to things they witness. But we don't need to do this. Instead, we're doing the opposite; we're downplaying the severity of 9/11 and exalting Pearl Harbor above its place.

The only thing worse about Pearl Harbor was that it led to the deaths of 400,000 Americans in World War II. But 9/11, it would seem, has led to the death of simple mathematics.