Wednesday, Sept. 12, 2001 | 8:16 a.m.
We mourn the loss of thousands of our fellow Americans in the tragedy that struck our nation Tuesday. It was a staggering event of such proportion that it is still hard to believe. But as we bury our dead and treat our wounded, we must also move forward to find and punish those responsible. And to accomplish this we need to do whatever it takes.
Since the goal of terrorism is to spread fear, the proper response is to instill fear among the perpetrators. Great fear. We need to respond in a way so strong that it will prevent such acts in the future. We are the world's only superpower. We can and must send a strong and overwhelming message to our adversaries that their ultimate goals will fail.
As Americans, we must come together in this time of tragedy. President Bush must be accorded our complete backing as Commander in Chief. Many people undoubtedly will compare the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon to the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941. As was the case then, let these acts serve as a wake-up call to all Americans that we are not immune from attacks on our soil.
With the end of the Cold War many strategists have warned that worldwide terrorism was now our nation's top threat. How right they have been and how wrong our intelligence community has been in not heeding those warnings. This letdown represents the greatest lapse of intelligence-gathering since Pearl Harbor and perhaps in our nation's history. This is especially true when one considers the timing and coordination necessary to hijack commercial airplanes with full tanks of fuel from different airports and strike high-profile targets at a time when the buildings are at maximum occupancy.
While we have equipped ourselves with satellites and state-of-the-art technology to gather information, we have regrettably allowed our human intelligence network to deteriorate to the point where such tragedies are more likely to happen. There is no question we must redouble our efforts to improve our human spy network on the ground. Failure to do so certainly leaves us vulnerable to future attacks.
We owe that much to the victims, as well as to their relatives and friends. Congress, which has oversight of the Central Intelligence Agency, National Security Agency and other intelligence units, must take a fresh look at why our spy network failed. Action must occur as swiftly as possible to repair breaches in our security.
We also need to follow the policy that any nation that supports or houses terrorists is at war with the United States. That should, then, lead us to rethink our national policy against preemptive strikes. We have long criticized Israel for acting ahead of her enemies by destroying their war-making ability before it is unleashed against that tiny nation. Maybe we should learn from them so that our skylines do not go up in smoke again.
At the same time, we must guard against overreaction and irrational thinking. While our military bases have been placed on high alert, there is no reason that everything else should come to a standstill. The terrorists' goal is to cripple our democracy and our way of life. The worst thing we could do is to play into their hands. We must continue to function as a thriving nation, one that will not be bullied by the inhumane acts of others.
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