I am concerned that most Americans are not aware of the task likely before us. It is more than the three R’s–recovery, rebuild, revenge. It is not a war in the conventional sense; after all, with whom are we warring? Assuming we can ascertain with a reasonable degree of certainty who masterminded this crime against humanity, just how will we punish them? Extradite or kidnap them to face trial here? Launch massive air strikes against places where they are thought to be? (And what of the collateral damage this causes? How will we verify that they are dead?)
Do we put a bounty on their heads or send in our own assassins?
At this degree of war fever, Americans might, quite justifiably, accept a “kill ’em all and let God sort ’em out” approach. But this has the dual drawback of undercutting our own hard-won legal system and likely fomenting more hatred of us among other populations.
We may be at one of those watershed moments in history, where new rules will have to be devised for a radically altered landscape. Just as the horrors of World War I led to civilized nations to establish rules of warfare, so the horrors of terrorism will force us to establish procedures for pre-empting threats.
But the greatest task lies beyond justice for the World Trade Center and Pentagon tragedies. It lies in preventing any future terrorism. We have an open society founded on trust. Are we to guard every potential target? Are we to continually root out and kill any potential threat wherever it may be? Are we willing to be wrong on occasion? With the World Trade Center and Pentagon disasters a few years in the past, will we have the commitment to continue with the necessary diligence and its attendant ugliness?
The long Cold War had the advantage of having an identifiable adversary. Terrorist organizations operate in the shadows, and ebb and flow with the charisma of their leaders. Left unchecked, however, terrorism has the potential to fatally undercut our modern civilization based on high-density urban populations. Pictures of dense high-rises may ultimately seem as quaint as Europe’s walled towns. While highly unlikely, this is only one possible consequence of not addressing the terrorist threat completely.
Wisely or not, we did not actively engage the terrorism phenomenon. Now, it has been brought home to us, and we must recognize that a handful of airstrikes, cruise missiles or special ops, even if we kill the perpetrators of the Sept. 11 attacks, will not make the phenomenon go away. Only a generational commitment akin to the Cold War, with new laws devised to work within our legal system, can prevent future tragedies as what we’ve just endured.
