Post Scripts: Cries for vengeance

Americans are stunned, sorrowed and furious, eager to strike back — and that is understandable. The despicable terrorism we witnessed in New York, and at the Pentagon near our nation’s capitol, provokes anger and cries out for vengeance and a quick response. Such intense feelings are the emotions of war and reveal humanity in all its primal power. However, such power is what we must fear the most.

The ghostly, ashen images of the wasteland that was once the World Trade Center, bear a striking resemblance to those awful photographs of Hiroshima and Nagasaki that were taken after the U.S. dropped atomic bombs on the two Japanese cities. Perhaps some of my readers will recall that I took the first group of Allied war correspondents into Nagasaki after the bomb was dropped. The scenes I saw there will always remain in my memory.

In 1945 more than 110,000 civilians were incinerated on August 6 and 9, when America unleashed the power of atomic weapons on the Japanese people. By 1950 another 230,000 people had died from injuries or the effects of radiation. The world gasped in horror then, but accepted the U.S. justification that use of atomic weapons was the only way to force Japan to surrender and prevent further bloodshed.

The similarities between then and now are not just pictorial; the A-bomb attack forever changed the rules of warfare. The attacks of Sept. 11 will also change things. We no longer feel quite so isolated from the far-reaches of the world. The United Nations was created, with U.S. backing, to provide a venue to debate and settle differences between nations who cannot always agree. It is a place to hurt verbally, rather than real bombs or planes loaded with full fuel tanks to maim and kill those who do not accept our way of life.

There is no way to deter terrorism in a free society. We can minimize it with a super-intelligence system and aggressive security measures, but we can never eliminate it as long as there are barbarians in the world with unattended grievances.

No amount of armaments can prevent it, and President Bush’s proposed missile shield surely won’t help. For a super-power like the U.S., the best defense against terrorism is a global image of fairness and evenhandedness. This administration however, seems determined to either ignore or dismiss the interests of those nations with which it disagrees.

Not only did it walk away from the UN’s recent World Conference Against Racism, the administration has taken a hands-off policy in the Middle East and rejected several international agreements. America’s foreign policy has been based on its invulnerability. The recent attacks demonstrate we are quite vulnerable. If we’re going to fight a 21st Century war, we at least should make sure we understand what our enemies have against us.

Administration officials know politically it will be easier to take action while the world outrage over the attacks is still fresh. Pray now for the men who have no say but will "do or die" in the sands and mountains of Afghanistan