We will never know about most of the individual acts of heroism that occurred this week, as America endured the worst attack in its history. Some of these acts, we saw, as people rushed to help strangers caught up in this unspeakable tragedy. We learned about other acts of bravery and courage well after the fact: Barbara Olson, for example, hiding in the bathroom of flight 175, the hijacked airplane destined to crash into the Pentagon, calling her husband on a cell phone to tell him what was happening.
Jeremy Glick was on flight 93. He called his wife, Liz, when the hijackers took control. Liz tele-conferenced the local 911 operator, and listened as Jeremy reported that three Arabs with knives, and a red box, which they said was a bomb, had taken control of the plane. For several minutes, Jeremy reported second-by-second activity. He said several passengers decided they had nothing to lose by rushing the hijackers. The phone went silent.
Flight 93 did not reach its target, likely because these heroes gave their lives.
Liz’s uncle, Tom Crowley, who reported this event, lives in Atlanta. He and his family traveled to New York to be with relatives who suffered directly at the hands of terrorists.
American heroes continue their work, giving blood, time, expertise – whatever it takes to recover from the attack. The entire nation mourns. The entire nation will rebuild.
From this tragedy, many lessons ought to be taken. Perhaps none is more important than the realization of the fact that America is the primary target of a group of people who resent our success and prosperity. The vicious attacks, executed in New York and Washington, are the tip of a political iceberg that reaches beyond visibility, underlying the policies and actions of several nations. This is not the work of a few deranged individuals, but the eruption of a volcano of attitudes boiling beneath the surface of international relations.
Hasan Rahmon, a Palestinian official, appeared on Fox News to condemn the terrorists attacks – while on a split-screen, Palestinians were celebrating in the streets. Afghanistan officials called a press conference to declare that Osama Bin Laden had nothing to do with the attacks.
Right.
We may never know, for sure, the names of all the people who are responsible for this tragedy, but we know it occurred, and we need to understand why it occurred in order to reduce future threats.
Large numbers of people around the world want America to acquiesce to their policies and belief systems. Most of these people choose less dramatic methods of persuasion than those employed in New York and Washington. But the goal is the same: to force America to yield to their system of values.
How we respond to this attack will determine the future of America, and, indeed, the future of the world. In the end, there are only two paths our response can take.
One path would be to yield to the wishes of those who want to bring America under their control – as responsible members of the global family – as it is often described. Reports from London were filled with people who called for changes in American policies “which caused the attacks.” One BBC reporter quoted an overheard conversation among British flight attendants who predicted that “America’s dumb-ass president would probably make things worse.”
On the other hand, Richard Courtney, who identified himself as a socialist in London, wrote to ask that we assure the American people “of the whole-hearted support and concern from the entire British nation following the terrorist atrocities in your country yesterday.”
He also said “…the terrorists need to be told that the expertise of British Intelligence Services is hunting them, and they already know the British SAS has the best assassins in the world.”
Most of the governments in the world feel compelled to make strong statements in support of America, and even stronger condemnations of the terrorist attacks. America must not be lulled into complacency by these statements, but look long and hard at the actions of every nation.
The other path our response can take, is the path we have taken in response to other attacks on our freedom: find our enemies, and eliminate them.
But that’s not enough. We must rebuild our defenses to assure that similar attacks in the future are minimized. This strategy goes far beyond security measures at our airports, and well into our relations with other nations. America has become so entangled with treaties and agreements and political deals that our identity is blurred. What we stand for is no longer clear. Even our closest allies are suggesting that the United States should not mount a military response unilaterally, but should let the United Nations deal with this situation.
Our response is not a concern of the United Nations. Our response is a concern of the American people. We would hope that our allies are sympathetic and cooperative, but if they are not, then their reactions should be noted for future consideration, while our response goes forward, undeterred.
Terrorists – of whatever stripe – must know that attacks against American citizens will be met with swift and certain consequences. Nations that harbor or aid terrorists must be treated as accomplices to the attack.
This is but the first step along the path of American response. America should realize that our freedom, and our future, is dependent upon us – not upon the wishes of other nations or the religions or philosophies of other peoples, and certainly, not upon the United Nations. We need to re-establish the principles of freedom on which this nation was founded, and re-evaluate every international treaty and agreement to see where those principles of freedom have been infringed.
Every treaty and agreement that erodes our national sovereignty should be rewritten, or revoked. America cannot lose its identity in the global village. We must honor the principles of freedom in our domestic policy, and respect those same principles in our international relations.
We should not build a wall around America and withdraw from the world. On the contrary, we should be a beacon of hope to the world, and offer to help any nation achieve its own prosperity by promoting individual freedom and free markets in their own country. The only demand that we can make on any country, is that they inflict no harm on America, while we assure every nation that we intend them no harm.
While we exert our right to national sovereignty, we must grant this same right to every other nation. This is “equal sovereignty.” We must never allow the United Nations to impose “sovereign equality” under its authority – which is the essence of global governance, and the ultimate objective of those nations who want to force the United States into compliance.
America is unique. It is unique because Americans possess a spirit of freedom, which most of the rest of the world has never known. Our freedom allow us to achieve impossible goals, and to recover from horrible tragedies. We have no asset more valuable than our freedom. Japan could not conquer us, Hitler could not conquer us, terrorists cannot conquer us.
We, as a nation, have negotiated, we have talked, we have entered into lengthy agreements and we have offered measured responses to previous attacks. Enough is enough. Terrorism is a tactic of war, and terrorists are our enemies – regardless of nationality or ethnicity. It is time to identify our enemies who have declared war on us … and eliminate them.
