By Andrew Vick (Afv) on Wednesday, September 12, 2001 - 11:53 am: Edit

What lesson did you hope to teach us by your coward's attack on our World Trade Center, our Pentagon, us? What was it you hoped we would learn? Whatever it was, please know that you failed.

Did you want us to respect your cause? You just damned your cause.

Did you want to make us fear? You just steeled our resolve.

Did you want to tear us apart? You just brought us together.

Let me tell you about my people. We are a vast and quarrelsome family, a family rent by racial, social, political and class division, but a family
nonetheless. We're frivolous, yes, capable of expending tremendous emotional energy on pop cultural minutiae -- a singer's revealing dress, a ball team's misfortune, a cartoon mouse. We're wealthy, too, spoiled by the ready
availability of trinkets and material goods, and maybe because of that, we walk through life with a certain sense of blithe entitlement. We are
fundamentally decent, though -- peace-loving and compassionate. We struggle to know the right thing and to do it. And we are, the overwhelming majority of us, people of faith, believers in a just and loving God.

Some people -- you, perhaps -- think that any or all of this makes us weak.
You're mistaken. We are not weak. Indeed, we are strong in ways that cannot
be measured by arsenals.


IN PAIN

Yes, we're in pain now. We are in mourning and we are in shock. We're still grappling with the unreality of the awful thing you did, still working to make ourselves understand that this isn't a special effect from some Hollywood blockbuster, isn't the plot development from a Tom Clancy novel. Both in terms of the awful scope of their ambition and the probable final
death toll, your attacks are likely to go down as the worst acts of terrorism in the history of the United States and, probably, the history of
the world. You've bloodied us as we have never been bloodied before.

But there's a gulf of difference between making us bloody and making us fall. This is the lesson Japan was taught to its bitter sorrow the last time anyone hit us this hard, the last time anyone brought us such abrupt and monumental pain. When roused, we are righteous in our outrage, terrible in our force. When provoked by this level of barbarism, we will bear any
suffering, pay any cost, go to any length, in the pursuit of justice.

I tell you this without fear of contradiction. I know my people, as you, I think, do not. What I know reassures me. It also causes me to tremble with dread of the future.

In the days to come, there will be recrimination and accusation, fingers pointing to determine whose failure allowed this to happen and what can be done to prevent it from happening again. There will be heightened security, misguided talk of revoking basic freedoms. We'll go forward from this moment sobered, chastened, sad. But determined, too. Unimaginably determined.


THE STEEL IN US

You see, the steel in us is not always readily apparent. That aspect of our
character is seldom understood by people who don't know us well. On this
day, the family's bickering is put on hold.

As Americans we will weep, as Americans we will mourn, and as Americans, we will rise in defense of all that we cherish.

So I ask again: What was it you hoped to teach us? It occurs to me that maybe you just wanted us to know the depths of your hatred. If that's the
case, consider the message received. And take this message in exchange: You don't know my people. You don't know what we're capable of. You don't know what you just started.

But you're about to learn.

By Blue Gill (Bluegill) on Wednesday, September 12, 2001 - 02:25 pm: Edit

right on.

By Jake on Wednesday, September 12, 2001 - 03:15 pm: Edit

truer words were never written!

Airborne

By Diesel on Wednesday, September 12, 2001 - 05:25 pm: Edit

Superbly written!

Diesel

By Horness Spencer (Horness) on Wednesday, September 12, 2001 - 09:59 pm: Edit

Very well said and written.

The reports on the UK news said that they were very close to finding those responsible, when they are found, I would flatten their country. Wipe it to the F*cking ground, and leave nothing but a desolate pile of rubble, not even worth spitting on.

I hope they find those responsible, and I hope they suffer as they see their families wiped out by a merciless gesture that is payback. Don't imprison them, don't send them to trial. Kill them. Kill them all.

If you're gonna play by your own rules, then prepare to die by them.


Horness.

By wturner on Thursday, September 13, 2001 - 06:11 am: Edit

"If you're gonna play by your own rules, then prepare to die by them."

I like that motto. That could go for the peice of shit drug dealers in our own country as well.

Well said.

By Anonymous on Thursday, September 13, 2001 - 09:38 am: Edit

http://www.miami.com/herald/content/features/columnists/pitts/digdocs/000565.htm


Here the full article in the Miami Herald.

Good Words.