It is Friday, yet the week feels somehow incomplete. Time has changed from an orderly concept to a jumble of images that quicken, then suddenly halt and repeat over and over and over. America has become quietly sullen. To wit, as the poet Dante shows us in the fifth circle of his Inferno, remove moody silence and all that remains is seething fury. Our sullenness is lifting, but unlike those who are punished in the realm of the wicked, our wrath is not innate. It is a specific reaction to a crime against America and its people'against freedom and for all it stands.
The day of Sept. 11, 2001, was a cascade of events. Individually'the hijacking of not one but four airplanes; the knifings onboard; the planes striking three buildings; lives destroyed upon impact; the collapse of the tallest buildings on America's eastern coast, in our most populous city; the deaths of those inside and the rescue workers trying to save them'each is despicable. Bound together, the events form a design of calculated evil.
Individuals have financed, masterminded and ordered a direct and violent attack on the shore of a nation that has come to symbolize one ideal: freedom. Freedom is part of our American essence. To attempt destruction of our freedom is to attack our reason for being, our way of life. We have been wounded. Now we must defend the ideal that we know makes the world truly better. For every harmful act our nation commits (and there have been some terrible ones), there are countless times we have fostered freedom. This is why the United States must go after those who would seek to destroy what we are, firmly and completely.
The U.S. public must be patient. It may take weeks, maybe months, to make certain our government makes an informed, appropriate and prudent response. All evidence currently points toward Islamic extremists, most likely the al Qaeda group headed by Osama bin Laden. The U.S. government can't assume that this group, or any other that perpetrated this attack, was supported by a sovereign nation without solid evidence. The United States must be careful when planning and executing retaliation, because our nation's relationship with the Arab world is complicated. Foolish, irascible action, even when directed toward a rogue state like Afghanistan, will cause more harm to an injured Middle East peace process and to our hopes to promote the freedom we now fight to save.
The United States has a tangible enemy for the first time in a long while'something many Americans have never experienced. Make no mistake about it: The U.S. government will do whatever is necessary to destroy this enemy threat. First, officials will most likely exhaust all diplomatic avenues to obtain custody of the suspected terrorists. If that fails, the United States won't undertake a complicated procedure of finding, capturing and extraditing the terrorists to the United States for trial. The people who masterminded these terrible acts will die, most likely by targeted missile or bomb from military aircraft. As we may already be seeing, those connected to the terrorist operation in this country and in others will be caught. But the person or persons who gave the orders, no matter where they are, will not live for much longer. Those who would die for the sake of freedom built our nation. Today, our nation will, if necessary, kill to preserve that freedom here and abroad.
I have a cousin who was in the Pentagon when the attack happened. Fortunately, he was not hurt, although friends of his were not so lucky. This story and others'the families making pilgrimages to New York City for emotional closure, fights against hijackers onboard the doomed planes, on-camera interviews with individuals who received phone calls from spouses telling them they loved their children before they died'will serve as a testimony to the day when our freedom was threatened. The third chapter of the Hebrew text Ecclesiastes contains words concerning the purpose and value of human life'words that are meaningful regardless of one's religious philosophy. These words say that unto all things, there is a time. There are times for weeping and times for laughing. In time, structures will be torn down; in time, they will stand again. We may hate and kill today, but tomorrow we shall heal through love. We will go to war, but peace will prevail again. What is now has happened before, and surely we will create anew using the lessons of the past. What has been displaced will once again be restored to full. Freedom, the meaning in our lives, has been injured. Through strength, freedom will once again be made whole.
