TERRORISTS WIN IF WE'RE NO BETTER

With regard to the vile attacks on our nation, there are perhaps two
ideas that I can offer better than some. The first is that we are not
destroyed, and this is not, in spite of constant TV overstatement, the
worst disaster ever to befall our country.

Some of us, because we are old, can put this in perspective. Valley
Forge was a worse disaster. The Civil War was a worse disaster. At
Gettysburg alone, 51,000 young men, the best and the brightest, were
killed, out of a population of only 32 million. It was as though the
entire population of Oregon was wiped out.

I remember Pearl Harbor. In terms of the blow struck to our ability
to retaliate, it was a much worse disaster.

It shouldn't be necessary to say, but I will say, that I do not make
light of the horror. Never before has a vile enemy struck men, women,
and children, while hiding his face like a coward. We have been
wounded. Like most Americans, I have already learned of friends who
have lost loved ones. But we will overcome, we will rise above this,
we will triumph. Better things will come out of this, as they did out
of Valley Forge, Gettysburg, and Pearl Harbor.

The second idea I have to offer is this: If we become like them, they
have succeeded.

The evil men who perpetrated this want to destroy our way of life. We
must fight them, but we must not become them. Certainly security
measures must be increased. I will leave it to others to discuss the
"how' of both of these. I will even resist the temptation to suggest
that perhaps the CIA and FBI should stop worrying about their images
on TV or the size of their appropriations, stop acting as if marijuana
smoking was the greatest threat to our security, stop acting like the
Keystone Kops and get down to business.

For my part, I will concentrate on reminding all the Americans who
will listen that, if we become like the terrorists, they have
succeeded. What are they like? They hate us, all of us. They make no
distinctions.

They wish to kill Americans, all Americans. Probably hundreds of the
Americans whom they murdered were Muslims. They don't care; just as
they don't care if they were women, or babies. Kill them all!

They hate us because we are free. The president got that right. Not
free because we have color TVs and expensive cars. Free because we
encourage dissent, because we allow different points of view to thrive.

We don't know, yet, for sure, but it is not unreasonable to believe
that those who wounded us sympathize most closely with the Taliban of
Afghanistan. What are such people like? They require everybody to
follow the tenets of their religion, not just Islam, but a
restrictive, even bizarre form of Islam. Women can show no ankle or
face. Men's hair and beards are prescribed. Christianity or Buddhism
cannot be taught. Violations are punishable, preferably with death.
Incredibly beautiful and ancient artifacts of any other religion must
be destroyed. preferably with dynamite.

If we regard all Arabs, all Muslims as enemy, then we become like the
few who attacked us. We are already hearing, on the call-in talk
shows, the first resort of the unthinking, calls to bomb the hell out
of - whom? The callers aren't quite certain, but bomb them! One I
heard suggested using the neutron bomb, and mentioned that the media
are to blame because they have restrained us from military actions by
calling us "baby-killers." The term "towel-head" for those who don't
look like us is being thrown about.

If we kill babies, then we are baby-killers. If we lump all Arabs,
all Muslims, overlooking the fact that the vast majority of Muslims
are shocked and horrified by this attack, that the Koran doesn't
condone suicide bombers any more that the Bible condones Irish
Protestants throwing stones at little Catholic girls on their way to
school, then we become just like our enemy. Then "We have met the
enemy and he is us."

We must strike our enemy hard, but we must be absolutely certain who
our enemy is. We must not strike out randomly at those who have a
certain dress, shape of nose, skin shade, or belief.

We must increase security measures, but by realistic measures, not by
"racial profiling." We may have to give up some freedoms, like the
freedom to jump on any plane we choose any time we choose, but we must
not, in the name of security, give up dressing as we please, thinking
as we please, speaking as we please, worshiping as we please.

If we give up those things, the terrorists have won.