Making Sense of the Senseless
Jim Vassilakos (jimvassila@aol.com) w/ Charles, Tamim & Dubya
Since Tuesday, September 11th, I’ve been
unable to concentrate on much of anything. It
seems as though suddenly reality is stranger
than fiction, and as much as I want to make
sense of it all, the images on television and
feelings of the nation don’t reconcile
themselves to making sense.
When I first got word of the “incident”, I
was stunned. I knew it was Arabs right from
the start. They’re the only ones crazy enough
to even attempt something like this. Then, of
course, came the anger, as well as a desire to
see us burn the entire middle east right off the
map. Why worry about collateral damage
when the enemy surely doesn’t? Likewise, I
had the impression that perhaps a Western vs
Muslim conflict was inevitable, and that while
violence never solved anything, massive
violence could solve everything.
After the anger came a strange sense of pride
mixed with humility as I watched a patriotism,
the depth of which I had never before
witnessed, sweep across the country. During
the week, we heard stories of profound loss as
well as personal heroics. At one bar/restaurant
in Temecula, the waitresses ushered us outside
just after dusk, and we all lit candles in the
parking lot and sung the national anthem, a
somber toast to those who had died and to
those who were left behind to pick up their
pieces of their lives.
By Monday of the following week, a letter
by Tamim Ansary, an Afghani-American
writer, was wending it way through the
Internet, essentially calling for caution,
warning us that our enemy was bin Laden, not
all of Afghanistan. And somehow, his words
rang true with what I wanted to believe,
because I could not accept that the common
Arab or even the common Afghani hated the
US with such passion as to protect someone
who has planned and organized the deaths of
thousands of innocents. And yet, somehow...
in the back of my mind, I knew that they had
at least one legitimate reason to hate us, one
which the networks were not even touching.
That same night, I saw Dan Rather shedding
tears on David Letterman... basically saying
that the whole Arab mindset is driven by envy
as well as a feeling of being dispossessed
(“being the world’s losers” as he put it).
Somehow I don’t think that quite sums up the
situation. What Dan didn’t mention (but must
have realized being that he follows current
events in the course of his work) is that in
some ways, the tragedy of 9/11 was simply
part of a larger escalating conflict.
Back in 1998, we launched a missile strike
on an area of Afghanistan where bin Laden
and many of his top people were supposed to
be meeting. This was in retaliation for some
embassy hits which he had organized and
financed. Of course, missiles, being long-range
weapons by their very nature, are sometimes
less than accurate, and out of about sixty that
we launched, a few may have hit civilian
targets. One of these may have been a mosque
where young children may have been at the
time of the strike, and after seeing the pictures
(although they were taken years later), I have a
hard time not believing it. Nearly the entire
place was blown away, but there was enough
left of the facade to tell what it had once been.
Likewise, they interviewed a father who had
lost two children in there, and while he didn’t
speak a single word of English, he came across
as very believable. The funny thing is that he
wasn’t as upset as I thought he should be. Just
adamant about what had happened. Not angry.
Not hysterical. Just certain of what he knew.
Well, it was three years ago. If they’d
interviewed him the day after it happened, we
might have seen a crazed lunatic intent on
killing anything resembling a white man.
They also interviewed the commanding
officer who oversaw the 1998 attack, and the
funny thing there was that he wasn’t really
expecting to get bin Laden... just to scare him.
Now how stupid is that?
Of course, since we “missed”, bin Laden
instantly became this near-mythical figure
famous throughout the middle-east. Our attack
catapulted him to superstar status. As for the
father who had lost two of his children, he said
(strangely enough) that he’d never even heard
of bin Laden prior to the US attack.
Regarding all this collateral damage, the US
commander stated that if there were innocent
lives lost in the attack, it was, of course,
regretful, but that the US military has no
knowledge as to the extent or even the
existence of collateral damage. Basically, they
fired their missiles and then pronounced
victory.
Of course, all of this begs the question as to
why bin Laden attacked our embassies in the
first place.
I remember watching a Frontline some
months back, where it was stated that much of
the Arab sentiment is historically grounded in
the cold war. At one point, we were courting
Saddam, sending him military aid for his war
against Iran. We had a pretty good idea what
sort of person Saddam was even then, but we
didn’t care, so long as he was beating on the
nation that had held Americans hostage.
Likewise, we had been staunch supporters of
the Shah in Iran (not exactly a nice guy) before
he had been ousted. The obvious question is
why? The obvious answer is oil.
We have this bizarre history of supporting
madmen and tyrants whenever it serves our
purposes. In Saudi Arabia, we currently
support a monarchy which is slowly and
inextricably sucking the country dry of it’s
only natural wealth. Rather than reinvesting
the bulk of this money in infrastructure and
education, the ruling family seems intent on
more palaces and creature comforts. Once the
oil runs out (and it will, eventually), they’ll just
move to Europe, multibillionaires, leaving
their people w/ sand dunes and looted
palaces... basically high & dry.
So why don’t the Saudis oust their rulers if
the situation is so bad? They can’t, because the
US keeps sending the Saudi government
military aid. Why do we do that? Twenty years
ago, the answer was the cold war. If we didn’t
ally ourselves with them, the Soviets would.
Today, the answer is simply oil. We support
the government because we want stability in
the region so that the oil keeps flowing. Once
the oil dries up, so will our interest. Perhaps,
by then, we’ll have moved on to ethanol, or
nuclear power, or even solar. In any case, the
Arabs, at that point, will be without their #1
export, and will likely become yet another
third-world charity-case, sort of like the
poorest African nations are today.
http://www.brown.edu/Administration/News
_Bureau//2001-02/01-025.html goes into more
detail about the history of this region and is a
good read if you don’t mind a traditional,
academic, bleeding-heart commentary in a
time of unrivaled patriotism and national
determination. Nonetheless, the question
remains... regardless of all this past history,
what do we do now?
So far this whole discussion has been
centered around moral issues. Who’s right,
who’s wrong, who did what to whom first.
Perhaps that’s the wrong way to look at it.
After the Gulf War, I remember talking with
one friend about how US engineers were
putting out the fires in Kuwaiti oil fields, and
he said a funny thing: “What Kuwaiti oil
fields?”
“Uh... you know, the oil fields in Kuwait.”
“Those are American oil fields,” he said.
“No, they belong to Kuwait.”
“Who’s tanks are currently parked on top of
them?”
“Well, ours.”
“Who’s troops are manning those tanks?”
“Ours.”
“And what nation is going to end up
consuming the lion’s share of that oil?”
“Uh... probably us.”
“So who owns the oil?”
“Uh... we do?”
“Correct! Here’s a scooby snack.”
That, my friends, is pragmatism. It has
nothing to do with morality and everything to
do with reality. So perhaps the pragmatic
approach is the way to go. In order to see what
this approach tells us, we first have to ask a
few questions.
First, what do we want out of the middle
east? Well, that’s easy. We want the oil! It’s
the life blood of our economy. Without it,
we’re royally screwed. Second, what does bin
Laden & his associates want? Most of all, I
think they want all western influence out of the
middle east. They want Arab lands and Arab
oil to be left to the Arabs.
So if I were bin Laden, what would I do? I’d
say, “Now that I seem to have your full and
undivided attention, I’ll give myself up
willingly, but on one condition... either help
the Arab people usurp the puppet dictators,
kings, and tyrants who you have been
supporting, and help us establish western style
democracies... or just get out of the Arab world
so that we can do this ourselves.” He won’t
say anything like this for various reasons...
first because he’s a cold-blooded murderer, not
a statesman with a cause; second because he’s
a religious fanatic, not a patriot to his people;
and third because he’s a coward who recruits
other men to do his killing for him, not a true
leader who leads his men from the front. In
short, I think the Arabs have a legitimate beef
with the West and deserve a leader who is sane
and reasonable, who can communicate with
the western media, and who has personal
courage. Osama has none of these attributes.
Much like Hitler, he is nothing but a cancerous
wart on the body of humanity. But, if he really
wanted to effect positive change for the Arab
world, this is what he should say.
What about us? What do we do to get what
we want? Well, we sure as heck don’t want to
go around toppling the governments of our
Arab allies. Basically, we want a return to the
status quo so we can continue getting the oil
we so desperately need. How do we do that?
Item #1 is that we have to kill bin Laden. Then
we have to kill everyone associated with him.
Then we have to continue to put down Arab
terrorist movements in a sustained manner
until, decades in the future, we wean ourselves
from oil-dependence. And, I think, that’s
exactly what we’ll try to do... not because it’s
morally right or lawfully justified, but because
it’s in our self-interest as a nation to do so.
As for the actual outcome, only time will
tell.
Posted By: Charles, 18, So. Florida
Date: 9/11/2001 9:07p.m.
An open letter to a terrorist:
Well, you hit the World Trade Center, but
you missed America. You hit the Pentagon,
but you missed America. You used helpless
American bodies, to take out other American
bodies, but like a poor marksman, you STILL
missed America.
Why? Because of something you guys will
never understand. America isn’t about a
building or two, not about financial centers,
not about military centers, America isn’t about
a place, America isn’t even about a bunch of
bodies. America is about an IDEA. An idea,
that you can go some place where you can
earn as much as you can figure out how to, live
for the most part, like you envisioned living,
and pursue Happiness. (No guarantees that
you’ll reach it, but you can sure try!)
Go ahead and whine your terrorist whine,
and chant your terrorist litany: “If you can not
see my point, then feel my pain.” This concept
is alien to Americans. We live in a country
where we don’t have to see your point. But
you’re free to have one. We don’t have to
listen to your speech. But you’re free to say
one. Don’t know where you got the strange
idea that everyone has to agree with you. We
don’t agree with each other in this country,
almost as a matter of pride. We’re a collection
of guys that don’t agree, called States. We
united our individual states to protect ourselves
from tyranny in the world. Another idea, we
made up on the spot. You CAN make it up as
you go, when it’s your country.
If you’re free enough.
Yeah, we’re fat, sloppy, easy-going goofs
most of the time. That’s an unfortunate image
to project to the world, but it comes of feeling
free and easy about the world you live in. It’s
unfortunate too, because people start to forget
that when you attack Americans, they tend to
fight like a cornered badger. The first we knew
of the War of 1812, was when England burned
Washington D.C. to the ground. Didn’t turn
out like England thought it was going to, and
it’s not going to turn out
like you think, either.
Sorry, but you’re not the
first bully on our shores,
just the most recent.
No Marques of
Queensbury rules for
Americans, either. We
were the FIRST and so
far, only country in the
world to use nuclear
weapons in anger.
Horrific idea, nowadays?
News for you bucko, it
was back then too, but we
used it anyway. Only had
two of them in the whole
world and we used ‘em
both. Grandpa Jones
worked on the Manhattan
Project. Told me once,
that right up until they
threw the switch, the
physicists were still
arguing over whether the Uranium alone suffering. A few years ago, the United Nations
would fission, or whether it would start a
Open letter by Tamim Ansary to the estimated that there are 500,000 disabled
fissioning chain reaction that would eat American people: orphans in Afghanistan--a country with no
everything. But they threw the switch anyway, economy, no food. There are millions of
because we had a War to win. Does that tell I’ve been hearing a lot of talk about “bombing widows. And the Taliban has been burying
you something about American Resolve? Afghanistan back to the Stone Age.” Ronn these widows alive in mass graves. The soil is
So who just declared War on us? It would be Owens, on KGO Talk Radio today, allowed littered with land mines, the farms were all
nice to point to some real estate, like the good that this would mean killing innocent people, destroyed by the Soviets. These are a few of
old days. Unfortunately, we’re probably at war people who had nothing to do with this the reasons why the Afghan people have not
with random camps, in far-flung places. Who atrocity, but “we’re at war, we have to accept overthrown the Taliban.
think they’re safe. Just like the Barbary Pirates collateral damage. What else can we do?” We come now to the question of bombing
did, IIRC. Better start sleeping with one eye Minutes later I heard some TV pundit Afghanistan back to the Stone Age. Trouble is,
open. discussing whether we “have the belly to do that’s been done. The Soviets took care of it
There’s a spirit that tends to take over people what must be done.” already. Make the Afghans suffer? They’re
who come to this country, looking for And I thought about the issues being raised already suffering. Level their houses? Done.
opportunity, looking for liberty, looking for especially hard because I am from Turn their schools into piles of rubble? Done.
freedom. Even if they misuse it. The Afghanistan, and even though I’ve lived here Eradicate their hospitals? Done. Destroy their
Marielistas that Castro emptied out of his for 35 years I’ve never lost track of what’s infrastructure? Cut them off from medicine
prisons, were overjoyed to find out how much going on there. So I want to tell anyone who and health care? Too late. Someone already
freedom there was. First thing they did when will listen how it all looks from where I’m did all that.
they hit our shores, was run out and buy guns. standing. New bombs would only stir the rubble of
The ones that didn’t end up dead, ended up in I speak as one who hates the Taliban and earlier bombs. Would they at least get the
prisons. It was a big PITA then (especially in Osama Bin Laden. There is no doubt in my Taliban? Not likely. In today’s Afghanistan,
south Florida), but you’re only the newest mind that these people were responsible for the only the Taliban eat, only they have the means
PITA, not the first. atrocity in New York. I agree that something to move around. They’d slip away and hide.
You guys seem to be incapable of must be done about those monsters. Maybe the bombs would get some of those
understanding that we don’t live in America, But the Taliban and Ben Laden are not disabled orphans, they don’t move too fast,
America lives in US! American Spirit is what Afghanistan. They’re not even the government they don’t even have wheelchairs. But flying
it’s called. And killing a few thousand of us, or of Afghanistan. The Taliban are a cult of over Kabul and dropping bombs wouldn’t
a few million of us, won’t change it. Most of ignorant psychotics who took over really be a strike against the criminals who did
the time, it’s a pretty happy-go-lucky kind of Afghanistan in 1997. Bin Laden is a political this horrific thing. Actually it would only be
Spirit. Until we’re crossed in a cowardly criminal with a plan. making common cause with the Taliban--by
manner, then it becomes an entirely different When you think Taliban, think Nazis. When raping once again the people they’ve been
kind of Spirit. you think Bin Laden, think Hitler. And when raping all this time.
Wait until you see what we do with that you think “the people of Afghanistan” think So what else is there? What can be done,
Spirit, this time. “the Jews in the concentration camps.” It’s not then? Let me now speak with true fear and
Sleep tight, if you can. We’re coming. only that the Afghan people had nothing to do trembling. The only way to get Bin Laden is to
with this atrocity. They were the first victims go in there with ground troops. When people
Charles of the perpetrators. They would exult if speak of “having the belly to do what needs to
someone would come in there, take out the be done” they’re thinking in terms of having
Taliban and clear out the rats nest of the belly to kill as many as needed. Having the
international thugs holed up in their country. belly to overcome any moral qualms about
Some say, why don’t the Afghans rise up killing innocent people. Let’s pull our heads
and overthrow the Taliban? The answer is, out of the sand. What’s actually on the table is
they’re starved, exhausted, hurt, incapacitated, Americans dying. And not just because some
Americans would die fighting their way
through Afghanistan to Bin Laden’s hideout.
It’s much bigger than that folks. Because to get
any troops to Afghanistan, we’d have to go
through Pakistan. Would they let us? Not
likely. The conquest of Pakistan would have to
be first. Will other Muslim nations just stand
by?
You see where I’m going. We’re flirting
with a world war between Islam and the West.
And guess what: that’s Bin Laden’s
program. That’s exactly what he wants. That’s
why he did this. Read his speeches and
statements. It’s all right there. He really
believes Islam would beat the west. It might
seem ridiculous, but he figures if he can
polarize the world into Islam and the West,
he’s got a billion soldiers. If the west wreaks a
holocaust in those lands, that’s a billion people
with nothing left to lose, that’s even better
from Bin Laden’s point of view. He’s
probably wrong, in the end the west would
win, whatever that would mean, but the war
would last for years and millions would die,
not just theirs but ours. Who has the belly for
that? Bin Laden does. Anyone else?
Tamim Ansary
Address by George W. Bush to a Joint
Session of Congress and the American
People (20 September 2001):
Mr. Speaker, Mr. President pro tempore,
Members of Congress, and fellow Americans:
In the normal course of events, Presidents
come to this chamber to report on the state of
the Union. Tonight, no such report is needed.
It has already been delivered by the American
people.
We have seen it in the courage of
passengers, who rushed terrorists to save
others on the ground -- passengers like an
exceptional man named Todd Beamer. Please
help me to welcome his wife, Lisa Beamer,
here tonight.
We have seen the state of our Union in the
endurance of rescuers, working past
exhaustion. We have seen the unfurling of
flags, the lighting of candles, the giving of
blood, the saying of prayers -- in English,
Hebrew, and Arabic. We have seen the
decency of a loving and giving people, who
have made the grief of strangers their own.
My fellow citizens, for the last nine days, the
entire world has seen for itself the state of our
Union -- and it is strong.
Tonight we are a country awakened to
danger and called to defend freedom. Our grief
has turned to anger, and anger to resolution.
Whether we bring our enemies to justice, or
bring justice to our enemies, justice will be
done.
I thank the Congress for its leadership at
such an important time. All of America was
touched on the evening of the tragedy to see
Republicans and Democrats, joined together
on the steps of this Capitol, singing “God
Bless America.” And you did more than sing,
you acted, by delivering forty billion dollars to
rebuild our communities and meet the needs of
our military.
Speaker Hastert and Minority Leader
Gephardt -- Majority Leader Daschle and
Senator Lott -- I thank you for your friendship
and your leadership and your service to our
country.
And on behalf of the American people, I
thank the world for its outpouring of support.
America will never forget the sounds of our
National Anthem playing at Buckingham
Palace, and on the streets of Paris, and at
Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate. We will not forget
South Korean children gathering to pray
outside our embassy in Seoul, or the prayers of
sympathy offered at a mosque in Cairo. We
will not forget moments of silence and days of
mourning in Australia and Africa and Latin
America.
Nor will we forget the citizens of eighty
other nations who died with our own. Dozens
of Pakistanis. More than 130 Israelis. More
than 250 citizens of India. Men and women
from El Salvador, Iran, Mexico, and Japan.
And hundreds of British citizens. America has
no truer friend than Great Britain. Once again,
we are joined together in a great cause. The
British Prime Minister has crossed an ocean to
show his unity of purpose with America, and
tonight we welcome Tony Blair.
On September the eleventh, enemies of
freedom committed an act of war against our
country. Americans have known wars -- but
for the past 136 years, they have been wars on
foreign soil, except for one Sunday in 1941.
Americans have known the casualties of war --
but not at the center of a great city on a
peaceful morning. Americans have known
surprise attacks -- but never before on
thousands of civilians. All of this was brought
upon us in a single day -- and night fell on a
different world, a world where freedom itself
is under attack.
Americans have many questions tonight.
Americans are asking: Who attacked our
country?
The evidence we have gathered all points to
a collection of loosely affiliated terrorist
organizations known as al-Qaida. They are the
same murderers indicted for bombing
American embassies in Tanzania and Kenya,
and responsible for the bombing of the U.S.S.
Cole.
Al-Qaida is to terror what the mafia is to
crime. But its goal is not making money; its
goal is remaking the world -- and imposing its
radical beliefs on people everywhere.
The terrorists practice a fringe form of
Islamic extremism that has been rejected by
Muslim scholars and the vast majority of
Muslim clerics -- a fringe movement that
perverts the peaceful teachings of Islam. The
terrorists’ directive commands them to kill
Christians and Jews, to kill all Americans, and
make no distinctions among military and
civilians, including women and children.
This group and its leader -- a person named
Usama bin Ladin -- are linked to many other
organizations in different countries, including
the Egyptian Islamic Jihad and the Islamic
Movement of Uzbekistan.
There are thousands of these terrorists in
more than sixty countries. They are recruited
from their own nations and neighborhoods,
and brought to camps in places like
Afghanistan where they are trained in the
tactics of terror. They are sent back to their
homes or sent to hide in countries around the
world to plot evil and destruction.
The leadership of al-Qaida has great
influence in Afghanistan, and supports the
Taliban regime in controlling most of that
country. In Afghanistan, we see al-Qaida’s
vision for the world.
Afghanistan’s people have been brutalized --
many are starving and many have fled.
Women are not allowed to attend school. You
can be jailed for owning a television. Religion
can be practiced only as their leaders dictate. A
man can be jailed in Afghanistan if his beard is
not long enough.
The United States respects the people of
Afghanistan -- after all, we are currently its
largest source of humanitarian aid -- but we
condemn the Taliban regime. It is not only
repressing its own people, it is threatening
people everywhere by sponsoring and
sheltering and supplying terrorists. By aiding
and abetting murder, the Taliban regime is
committing murder. And tonight, the United
States of America makes the following
demands on the Taliban:
Deliver to United States authorities all the
leaders of al-Qaida who hide in your land.
Release all foreign nationals -- including
American citizens -- you have unjustly
imprisoned, and protect foreign journalists,
diplomats, and aid workers in your country.
Close immediately and permanently every
terrorist training camp in Afghanistan and
hand over every terrorist, and every person in
their support structure, to appropriate
authorities.
Give the United States full access to terrorist
training camps, so we can make sure they are
no longer operating.
These demands are not open to negotiation
or discussion. The Taliban must act and act
immediately. They will hand over the
terrorists, or they will share in their fate.
I also want to speak tonight directly to
Muslims throughout the world: We respect
your faith. It is practiced freely by many
millions of Americans, and by millions more
in countries that America counts as friends. Its
teachings are good and peaceful, and those

who commit evil in the name of Allah
blaspheme the name of Allah. The terrorists
are traitors to their own faith, trying, in effect,
to hijack Islam itself. The enemy of America is
not our many Muslim friends; it is not our
many Arab friends. Our enemy is a radical
network of terrorists, and every government
that supports them.
Our war on terror begins with al-Qaida, but it
does not end there. It will not end until every
terrorist group of global reach has been found,
stopped, and defeated.
Americans are asking: Why do they hate us?
They hate what we see right here in this
chamber -- a democratically elected
government. Their leaders are self-appointed.
They hate our freedoms -- our freedom of
religion, our freedom of speech, our freedom
to vote and assemble and disagree with each
other.
They want to overthrow existing
governments in many Muslim countries, such
as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan. They want
to drive Israel out of the Middle East. They
want to drive Christians and Jews out of vast
regions of Asia and Africa.
These terrorists kill not merely to end lives,
but to disrupt and end a way of life. With
every atrocity, they hope that America grows
fearful, retreating from the world and
forsaking our friends. They stand against us,
because we stand in their way.
We are not deceived by their pretenses to
piety. We have seen their kind before. They
are the heirs of all the murderous ideologies of
the twentieth century. By sacrificing human
life to serve their radical visions -- by
abandoning every value except the will to
power -- they follow in the path of fascism,
and Nazism, and totalitarianism. And they will
follow that path all the way, to where it ends:
in history’s unmarked grave of discarded lies.
Americans are asking: How will we fight
and win this war?
We will direct every resource at our
command -- every means of diplomacy, every
tool of intelligence, every instrument of law
enforcement, every financial influence, and
every necessary weapon of war -- to the
disruption and defeat of the global terror
network.
This war will not be like the war against Iraq
a decade ago, with its decisive liberation of
territory and its swift conclusion. It will not
look like the air war above Kosovo two years
ago, where no ground troops were used and
not a single American was lost in combat.
Our response involves far more than instant
retaliation and isolated strikes. Americans
should not expect one battle, but a lengthy
campaign, unlike any other we have seen. It
may include dramatic strikes, visible on
television, and covert operations, secret even
in success. We will starve terrorists of funding,
turn them one against another, drive them from
place to place, until there is no refuge or rest.
And we will pursue nations that provide aid or
safe haven to terrorism. Every nation, in every
region, now has a decision to make. Either you
are with us, or you are with the terrorists. From
this day forward, any nation that continues to
harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by
the United States as a hostile regime.
Our Nation has been put on notice: We are
not immune from attack. We will take
defensive measures against terrorism to protect
Americans.
Today, dozens of federal departments and
agencies, as well as state and local
governments, have responsibilities affecting
homeland security. These efforts
must be coordinated at the highest
level. So tonight I announce the
creation of a Cabinet-level position
reporting directly to me -- the Office
of Homeland Security.
These measures are essential. But
the only way to defeat terrorism as a
threat to our way of life is to stop it,
eliminate it, and destroy it where it
grows.
Many will be involved in this
effort, from FBI agents to
intelligence operatives to the
reservists we have called to active
duty. All deserve our thanks, and all
have our prayers. And tonight, a few
miles from the damaged Pentagon, I
have a message for our military: Be
ready. I have called the armed forces
to alert, and there is a reason. The
hour is coming when America will
act, and you will make us proud.
This is not, however, just
America’s fight. And what is at stake
is not just America’s freedom. This is
the world’s fight. This is
civilization’s fight. This is the fight of
all who believe in progress and
pluralism, tolerance and freedom.
We ask every nation to join us. We will ask,
and we will need, the help of police forces,
intelligence services, and banking systems
around the world. The United States is grateful
that many nations and many international
organizations have already responded -- with
sympathy and with support. Nations from
Latin America, to Asia, to Africa, to Europe,
to the Islamic world. Perhaps the NATO
Charter reflects best the attitude of the world:
an attack on one is an attack on all.
The civilized world is rallying to America’s
side. They understand that if this terror goes
unpunished, their own cities, their own citizens
may be next. Terror, unanswered, can not only
bring down buildings, it can threaten the
stability of legitimate governments. And we
will not allow it.
Americans are asking: What is expected of
us?
I ask you to live your lives and hug your
children. I know many citizens have fears
tonight, and I ask you to be calm and resolute,
even in the face of a continuing threat.
I ask you to uphold the values of America,
and remember why so many have come here.
We are in a fight for our principles, and our
first responsibility is to live by them. No one
should be singled out for unfair treatment or
unkind words because of their ethnic
background or religious faith.
I ask you to continue to support the victims
of this tragedy with your contributions. Those
who want to give can go to a central source of
information, libertyunites.org, to find the
names of groups providing direct help in New
York, Pennsylvania, and Virginia.
The thousands of FBI agents who are now at
work in this investigation may need your
cooperation, and I ask you to give it. from our people and our future. We will rally I will not forget this wound to our country,
I ask for your patience, with the delays and the world to this cause, by our efforts and by or those who inflicted it. I will not yield -- I
inconveniences that may accompany tighter our courage. We will not tire, we will not will not rest -- I will not relent in waging this
security -- and for your patience in what will falter, and we will not fail. struggle for the freedom and security of the
be a long struggle. It is my hope that in the months and years American people.
I ask your continued participation and ahead, life will return almost to normal. We’ll The course of this conflict is not known, yet
confidence in the American economy. go back to our lives and routines, and that is its outcome is certain. Freedom and fear,
Terrorists attacked a symbol of American good. Even grief recedes with time and grace. justice and cruelty, have always been at war,
prosperity. They did not touch its source. But our resolve must not pass. Each of us will and we know that God is not neutral between
America is successful because of the hard remember what happened that day, and to them.
work, and creativity, and enterprise of our whom it happened. We will remember the Fellow citizens, we will meet violence with
people. These were the true strengths of our moment the news came -- where we were and patient justice -- assured of the rightness of our
economy before September eleventh, and they what we were doing. Some will remember an cause, and confident of the victories to come.
are our strengths today. image of fire, or a story of rescue. Some will In all that lies before us, may God grant us
Finally, please continue praying for the carry memories of a face and a voice gone wisdom, and may He watch over the United
victims of terror and their families, for those in forever. States of America.
uniform, and for our great country. Prayer has And I will carry this. It is the police shield of
comforted us in sorrow, and will help a man named George Howard, who died at the
strengthen us for the journey ahead. World Trade Center trying to save others. It
Tonight I thank my fellow Americans for was given to me by his mom, Arlene, as a
what you have already done and for what you proud memorial to her son. This is my
will do. And ladies and gentlemen of the reminder of lives that ended, and a task that
Congress, I thank you, their representatives, does not end.
for what you have already done, and for what
we will do together.
Tonight, we face new and sudden national
challenges. We will come together to improve
air safety, to dramatically expand the number
of air marshals on domestic flights, and take
new measures to prevent hijacking. We will
come together to promote stability and keep
our airlines flying with direct assistance during
this emergency.
We will come together to give law
enforcement the additional tools it needs to
track down terror here at home. We will come
together to strengthen our intelligence
capabilities to know the plans of terrorists
before they act, and find them before they
strike.
We will come together to take active steps
that strengthen America’s economy, and put
our people back to work.
Tonight we welcome here two leaders who
embody the extraordinary spirit of all New
Yorkers: Governor George Pataki, and Mayor
Rudy Giuliani. As a symbol of America’s
resolve, my Administration will work with the
Congress, and these two leaders, to show the
world that we will rebuild New York City.
After all that has just passed -- all the lives
taken, and all the possibilities and hopes that
died with them -- it is natural to wonder if
America’s future is one of fear. Some speak of
an age of terror. I know there are struggles
ahead, and dangers to face. But this country
will define our times, not be defined by them.
As long as the United States of America is
determined and strong, this will not be an age
of terror; this will be an age of liberty, here and
across the world.
Great harm has been done to us. We have
suffered great loss. And in our grief and anger
we have found our mission and our moment.
Freedom and fear are at war. The advance of
human freedom -- the great achievement of
our time, and the great hope of every time --
now depends on us. Our Nation -- this
generation -- will lift a dark threat of violence