by
Robert M Brown
September 11, 2001. A date that most of us will remember to our dying day, just as none of us will ever forget the sight of that jet disappearing into the World Trade Center and exploding in a gout of fire, blasting out all sides of the building. In a very real sense, the world changed in those few hours. We will all be living with the consequences of those acts for years to come.
As I write this, less than three days have passed since the attack. The government has finally announced their confirmation of what everyone suspected almost immediately; that terror kingpin Osama Bin Laden was behind the attacks. Some criticize the intelligence community for not knowing that this attack was going to take place, but in fact they had caught wind that Bin Laden's organization was up to something. The very low tech nature of the attack worked against it being detected. There were no bulky explosives or chemical weapons to move, nothing that would show up on satellite imagery. No one imagined such an attack, on such a scale, and it may not have helped if someone had; a society as open as ours can always be hit somewhere.
Osama Bin Laden was recently named Commander in Chief of the Taliban's military, and the Taliban has close ties to China and Pakistan. The Taliban, so far, refuse to give Bin Laden up. The issue of what we do in retaliation for our thousands of dead is an important one, and must be made with due consideration of how other countries will react.
Right now there is an outpouring of sympathy for the United States from around the civilized world. In a very real sense, by launching an attack on this scale, and at the World Trade Center, the terrorists have declared war on the whole civilized world, not just the United States. The world realizes this. And more; not only Americans died in these attacks. This is also the greatest British loss of life to terrorism, with 500 feared dead as of this writing. India has also lost heavily; 250 Indians are feared dead. Many nations have their dead to mourn this week.
This outpouring of international anger and sympathy is not something to be taken lightly. Britain broke with 200 years of tradition to play the US National Anthem at the Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace. All the flags of the European Union fly at half staff. From Paris to Moscow (Moscow!) flowers lay in front of American Embassies and people weep and light candles for what we have lost. Signs read, "Today we are all Americans." NATO, for the first time in its existence, has invoked the Mutual Defense clause and is treating the terrorist attack on the US as an attack on all of NATO. Contingency plans are being made for an invasion of Afghanistan, and Russia (which has suffered at the hands of Moslem Fundamentalist terrorism itself) is pledging full cooperation. Many people around the world are remembering what a good friend the US has been, and Americans are surprised, and moved, to see how many friends around the world we have.
Reacting with too heavy a hand risks losing all of that good will. Yes, a sufficiently heavy fist will break the back of international terrorism, and we have the power to do that without the support of our allies. But it would be so much easier with the support of our friends.
Reacting with insufficient resolve simply ensures more such attacks in the future. That is unacceptable.
We must take a median course, striking hard and accurately enough to destroy any vestiges of terrorist organizations, and bringing down those governments that support them, but not so hard that we become that which we fight. Any group that uses terror as a matter of policy must be broken, its members killed, taken, or scattered. States that support terrorists must be given a choice; change your policies or suffer the consequences. Those which do not change will be changed. We must make the price of supporting, or even tolerating, terrorists so high that no one will find it to be worth paying. There must be no safe haven, no financing, no friends for terrorists They must be hunted down and destroyed like the rabid dogs they insist on emulating.
But that is only half the battle. The military and covert actions that break the back of terrorism are only to buy time and set the conditions under which the second phase can take place.
Many people misunderstand what motivates these terrorists. I suspect that even most of the terrorists do not understand. People point at this or that action, this or that stance of the United States, and say, "See. That is what makes people so angry. Stop doing that or more terrorists will come to your shores to kill you."
They miss the point.
It is not what the United States has done that angers these people. It is what the United States is. What we stand for. And the way the very comfortable, pleasant to live in, material culture that we have built for ourselves is sweeping the world, changing and disrupting older ways of life. This is not because of any policy, any conspiracy, it is simply what people have always done, absorbing from other peoples ideas that they find attractive. Cultural interchange is as old as humanity and it happens whether governments will it or no. But now it is happening at a 21st century mass media pace. Instead of taking place so slowly that older generations have time to become accustomed to them, changes that at one time would have taken decades or centuries are now compressed into a single generation. People see the way of life that they grew up with, the culture of their ancestors, being swept away, and they are frightened and upset. They see no way of turning aside the cultural juggernaut that is rolling over them, and fear and confusion turn to hate.
'Culture War' is a terrible term to anyone who knows its history. 'Kultur Krieg' in Germany 65 years ago ended with the victory of the 'decadent west,' but at a cost of tens of millions dead. We may hope that this war does not carry as heavy a price. But it is a war that must be fought.
After the power of the terrorists is broken, and the price of terrorism made clear, we must reach out with generosity to the defeated, help them rebuild their shattered economies, help them find their way as a people who lead themselves, rather than being lead by the fanatics among them. Only by bringing the defeated into the fold of modern civilization can we hope that nothing like this ever happens again.
There are those who say that Americans are weak. There are those who say that our President is too weak or inexperienced to lead us.
They do not know America. They do not know Americans.
Americans are comfortable. We have, most of us, forgotten what a dangerous place the world can be, and it shocks us when that danger is brought home to us. We have forgotten that the tree of Liberty requires its occasional measure of blood to keep it green and strong. But remember the men of Flight 93. When they realized what was happening they stood up, as Americans always have, and got the job done. In their case, that meant rushing knives with their bare hands, and sacrificing themselves so that others could live. Honor their memory, and know that Americans are not weak.
Know too that who leads us does not matter. America is not strong because it has strong leaders. America is not great because its leaders are great. America is these things because Americans are strong. Americans are their own greatest leaders. We are America's great strength. It is not to our politicians that Americans look in a crisis, but to each other.
This is not the first time that the American flag has flown over a pile of smoking rubble, battered, but unbeaten. It will probably not be the last. But the flag still flies, and the American people still stand.
This will be a hard war, and we at home must be careful not to become that which we fight. We must not sacrifice the freedoms that so many have fought for. The illusion of safety is not worth that price. We must not lash out at the immigrants in our midst; they came here to flee the same oppression that we are now committed to fighting. They are our friends and allies. They too are Americans.
We must realize that cooperating with criminals and terrorists is not the way to make sure no one gets hurt. Sometimes accepting personal danger now is the best way to ensure future safety.
We must give thought to what we will do once the war is won. Perhaps once we have defeated the barbarians at the gate we will bring all of our troops home, keep our foreign entanglements to a minimum, and concentrate on making our country a shining beacon to others who would live well, in peace and freedom. Perhaps we will try to rule the lands our troops have marched over. Perhaps something in between. We will win this war, if we sustain the will to carry the fight through, and it is not too early to think about what sort of victor we will be.
Well, that was about enough of that, huh?
Back to Home.