COMMENT
N
OT ONLY
NEW
YORK AND WASHINGTON, where suicide bombers
crashed into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, but all
of the Western world has been in shock. One man whose win–
dows used
to
look out on the World Trade Center said, "I've seen all
these horror movies, but today's was real." To others, like myself, who
lived through some of the real horrors of World War II, the United
States was perceived as the safe haven. On December 7, 1941, President
Roosevelt addressed the nation to announce that Japan had destroyed
over half of our fleet at Pearl Harbor; and that we were determined to
fight. He spoke more elegantly than President Bush did on September
11, 2001, but they both sent the same forceful message .
Once again, the United States is not truly prepared to fight its ene–
mies, but is resolved
to
root them out. Once again, we are divided
around domestic priorities and must fight enemies both outside and
within our borders. Isolation of ethnic and racial communities no longer
is an option: we saw on our television screens that diversity has become
the reality and that, racial theories notwithstanding, the workers at the
World Trade Center stood together and ran away together.
But our country will never
be
the same. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union,
and with it the mythology of a sublime socialist future, we, as the only super–
power, have been blamed for all the evils and miseries that exist in the world.
We have attempted to right many wrongs, but at times have overreached our
capacities and at other times might have acted sooner, or differently.
We have tried to attain our ends while holding on to our liberal val–
ues. However, to defend ourselves against terrorist warfare, we will have
to strengthen the CIA, the FBI, the police and other security forces rather
than continue
to
weaken them. How to do so without allowing them to
go overboard is a big question. We will have to decide at what point the
rights of individuals must be subordinated to the public good, to the
"rights" of the counry. When do we go after the Osama bin Ladens and
potential terrorists inside and outside the United States in order to pre–
vent future disasters? And how do we conduct fair trials without being
so overly "fair" as
to
encourage, or condone, more such activities?
All of the above dilemmas are part of the Western values we take for
granted. Thus we often forget that human life is not as sacred everywhere
as it is in our civilization. In societies where children are taught that suicide
bombers will end up in a glorious heaven, and where people can dance in
the street and celebrate the killing of others, our values are worthless.
EK
