Juxtaposing Terror

Juxtaposition.  As a part of the analysis of the magnitude of the 9/11 attacks, the author (and many others before him) compares this attack to other acts of cruelty and violence in US history.  As Pearl Harbor is the only other attack on continental United States since the War of 1812, the differences between these two attacks are juxtaposed using text, images, and positioning in the space of the comic.

First, it is important to note that while Pearl Harbor and 9/11 were both organized efforts to destroy and kill, the people behind the attacks had very different levels of education, resources and access to aid.  Furthermore, while the US military in 1941 was equipped with some means of protection from aerial attacks, Pearl Harbor was very hard to stop once the attack had began.  On the other hand, as The 9/11 Report exposes the systematical errors that plagued the governmental response on September 11^th. It seems that 9/11 and Pearl Harbor can only be juxtaposed from a graphical point of view, not a historical one. Having said this, the author is very clear in his interpretation of the comparison of both events. He writes “imagination” over what he describes as the Pearl Harbor Attacks, but he doesn’t fret over the vivid interpretation of a Russian tank burning at the bottom of the page. Because he allows 9/11 to be revealed through the eyes of an investigative committee, he can focus on the illustrations and let the facts speak for themselves.  On the other hand, we don’t know where he got the information about Pearl Harbor; maybe it was purely “imaginative.”