Early Thoughts
The terror that struck yesterday was aimed at the United States, at Americans and icons of America. The World Trade Center representing trade and prosperity, and the Pentagon representing defense of liberty for ourselves and our friends; both filled with average Americans whose lives and jobs epitomized the freedoms of citizens in democracies.
Which is what the terrorists and their masters can’t stand.
Early thoughts:
For the victims and their families, including the extraordinarily brave emergency personnel who waded right into the maelstrom to help, our prayers.
The terror that struck yesterday was aimed at the United States, at Americans and icons of America. The World Trade Center representing trade and prosperity, and the Pentagon representing defense of liberty for ourselves and our friends; both filled with average Americans whose lives and jobs epitomized the freedoms of citizens in democracies.
Which is what the terrorists and their masters can’t stand.
Early thoughts:
For the victims and their families, including the extraordinarily brave emergency personnel who waded right into the maelstrom to help, our prayers.
For the President, our prayers and our support.
For our country, the hope that the President ensures that those who attack us and those who support them pay a very painful price, while we ensure that although national symbols have been attacked, national life continues.
Our government must be explicit and resolutely clear that no matter who specifically “takes responsibility” or who actually put the vile plan in motion, we know that the forces against us are all one and there is no “plausible deniability” for anyone that doesn’t want to be on our s-list (Yasser Arafat, take note). Every Palestinian terror organization including the PLO, PFLP, DFLP, Tanzim, Fatah and all their permutations; every Islamic radical group funded by Iran; every “splinter” group housed in, trained by or funded by Syria or Iraq or Pakistan or Afghanistan or Sudan or Lebanon is culpable and any one and every one is a reasonable target for retaliation.
Then, after we pay back the perpetrators and their allies and their hangers-on…
A serious reckoning has to be taken in the American intelligence establishment for its failure to understand that we have been at war. And a reckoning in the State Department as well for believing that an amorphous “cycle of violence” is loose in the world when in fact there are perpetrators and there are victims. The victims need to be avenged and the perpetrators need to be punished. As they have to be whenever democracies wage war against the forces of totalitarianism and evil.
We have gone to war only infrequently in our history, as befits a country dedicated to peaceful relations and peaceful progress. But war has been thrust upon us. Our government and our people will no doubt rise to the occasion as we have in the past.