In our fury, grief and horror, will we allow the criminals of Sept. 11 to wreck the American republic? They will have won if we do.
They committed an act of war. There is no other way to look at these acts of barbarism.
Now, as we hunt down their leaders and collaborators, and as we tend to the families of the dead and injured, we will be tempted beyond ourselves — tempted to abandon our rule of law and our Constitution.
If we do that, the criminals will have won.
These words feel hollow, somehow, in the wreckage of so many lives and America’s buoyancy.
But in the next days and weeks we will find ourselves at a frontier. We will be asking ourselves whether we want — whether we can afford — to live in an open and free society. We will ask if the risks are worth the blood.
If we are wise, we will wait to ask those questions. We will wait until hot rage has eased into an abiding, icy anger.
We ordinary people should leave the hunting to the professionals, and focus on healing these staggering wounds.
We have been tested before.
I wasn’t yet born on December 7, 1941. But Tuesday may well have been a 21st Century Pearl Harbor — not just an outrage against our nation but a lesion to our souls and collective psyche.
America responded with just wrath against the Japanese government and military. The nation entered a long war that ultimately saved the world from despotism.
But America also responded with fear. We abandoned the Constitution when we imprisoned loyal citizens of Japanese heritage, only admitting the injustice so much later.
Now we are going to be tested again. In the short term, some will want to take out their rage on neighbors whose only offense is to have an ethnic or religious background that is deemed suspicious.
What happened on Tuesday was an act of war. The American government and military should and will respond in kind.
If law enforcement and national security agencies declare war on the American people in the process, they will give the terrorists a gift. The despicable people who planned this will triumph if we add to the damage.
I’ve been watching TV reports from South Africa, in a land that has known much violence and injustice. Individual acts heroism in my tortured nation have been the rays of light on this dark, dark day.
As America finds itself in coming days, the outward focus will be on bringing the September 11 criminals to the justice they deserve, and bringing peace to the victims and their families and friends. We will learn soon enough whether liberty is up to this test, as I pray it will be.
In our homes and at work in coming days, amid our rage and sorrow and numbness, we can meet this trial by showing our best selves — with acts of cooperation, love and kindness.