The best solution to the American problem with terrorism is that the US should stop making and producing enemies in the world. The US should instead make friends. The US should stop dictating the UN cause if you continue to dictate the UN or the small countries to do this and to do that then I think everyone will agree that you are The World Dictator. The Basic English language lesson says that the man who dictates is "dictator."
The US should change your policies: foreign policy, economic policy as well as trade policy. The US should respect the life of not only its citizen but also the life of all people on this planet. The US should value the life of an individual American equal to the life of an individual or citizen of any country on this planet.
The US should value the other human beings outside the US jurisdiction as it values Americans. With this policy, I am sure the US will be more safer or completely safe and there will be no more terrorist attacks except your mad citizen like in Oklahoma City Bombing. I also warn the Western leaders not to follow blindly the American leaders in taking hasty military actions. The hasty military actions with the wrong targets could create and produce more and more "sophisticated Bin Ladens" everywhere on this planet. You have to deal with the sense of injustice and grievance felt by the moslems in the World. America .... blinded by its own strength, risks succumbing a rigidity which would lead to terrible and unimaginable consequences on the livelihood on this planet.
The price the Americans pay
Coming to terms with a dangerous new reality
The first commandment of any crisis is to be cool. Don't panic. Don't do anything to make it worse. There is plenty of time to assess blame and figure out how to respond in a manner and moment of our own choosing. Nothing could dishonor the dead quite as profoundly than to kill more innocents in the name of vengeance and let the true perpetrators get away with their crimes.
WE ALL KNEW this was possible. All modern cities are vulnerable to terrorism; indeed to chemical and biological attacks that can do as much or more damage than Tuesday's achieved. The politicians and pundits who conducted their dreamworld debate about missile defense and space weaponry against as-yet imaginary opponents showed precious little interest in these more arcane threats that any number of nations and terrorist groups already possessed. Now we are paying the price for the unreality of our political debate
Our vulnerability to low-tech earth-based threats was no secret. But it was not sexy and hence, $70 billion has been wasted fighting a threat that is so far nowhere to be seen, while this one was starved for both funds and attention.
A CHANGED WORLD
Now we have to figure out how to react to a changed world; a world where Americans do not have the luxury of feeling invulnerable any more. What, if any, civil liberties are we willing to relinquish in order to feel more secure? (Once citizens relinquish a given right, be it to privacy, freedom of speech, or freedom of movement, it is generally impossible to retrieve it later.)
What kind of inconveniences are we willing to experience? How many metal detectors are we willing to walk through? How many hours do we want to spend waiting on line to get on planes, or even to drive through tunnels?
THE PRICE OF UNILATERALISM
Unless, as seems almost unimaginable, this terrorist attack is another home-grown threat like that carried out in Oklahoma City, then it is safe to conclude that whoever did carry it out, did so because they wanted the nation to pay a price for its foreign policy. After all, nobody targets Switzerland for terrorist attacks. Perhaps this is also a debate we should be having. Just what price is the United States willing to pay for its current level of world involvement as an independent actor, outside the purview of the United Nations? Many will say that even to raise this issue is to give in to terrorists. But an open and democratically conducted debate and discussion can be considered appeasement. I think it our duty as citizens.
Everything about American politics and media needs to come down to earth. The cheap and easy media coverage of supposed sexual scandals allowed us to ignore and obscure the really important issues.
Tuesday;s attacks demonstrate how much we need to grow up as a nation ; how important politics can be even if we prefer not to pay attention. It's time to have a serious debate about the nation;s priorities and to make tough decisions involving difficult trade-offs. There is no way to wish away our many vulnerabilities as a society. But we can address them sensibly and democratically, if only we face up to the fact that we never had any innocence to lose. We merely acted as if we did.
(Eric Alterman is an author and columnist for The Nation. He is a regular contributor to MSNBC.com)
Americans:We have to do something: But what?
Nothing in our collective experience compares to the barrage of images before us. Fireman and relief workers, people whose entire lives are built on sacrifice for our safety, are pulling one another out of the rubble. Some are fine, some dead, some are crippled for life. We hear reports of people calling their loved ones on cell phones before leaping to their death to avoid the flames. Inside my own apartment miles uptown, I smell burning rubber, witness mushroom clouds of smoking debris, hear military planes and choppers in the air. The phone keeps ringing with good news, bad news, horrific news, and I struggle to figure out how to react each time. Our emotions are raw and nerves are shot. We want do to something, but what?
WE MAY NEVER get back to normal but we still need to figure out what to do next. An unquestioned consensus has already emerged that this twenty-first century Pearl Harbor; has forced us to adopt a posture of all-out war. Well, yes, but against whom? Part of what empowered the terrorists to strike this audaciously against the United States was the knowledge that they had nothing to lose, save the lives of those few people who were willing to die for the cause. Saddam Hussein, Muammar el-Qaddafi, and the leaders of the Taliban may be evil, but they are also tactically and strategically sophisticated.
They know how much they have to lose from attacking us and hence, deterrence by and large works. When deterrence fails it is because one of the parties involved feels the benefits of attack outweigh the costs. For a stateless terrorist who believes he will ascend to heaven for his deed, the only attendant cost is that of being caught before he can succeed. Osama bin Laden and those like him have no state and hence, few vulnerabilities against which to retaliate.
OUR OBLIGATIONS
To battle such an enemy, the U.S. military and intelligence establishments need immediately to rethink their commitment to outmoded forms of warfare and their futuristic visions of wars in space, focusing instead on the enemy at our gates. This country also has a moral responsibility to ensure that we do not add to the senseless destruction by striking out in fury against people with whom we have no real quarrel. It is not the fault of the people of Afghanistan that a terrorist master has made camp in their midst. Moreover, we are not as innocent as we would like to believe. The United States is not above harboring a terrorist or two ourselves if it suits the needs of our foreign policy, though we prefer to call these individuals ;freedom fighters.; That does not justify attacks on our population, though it may have inspired them.
What's more, the desire for vengeance, while emotionally genuine and unavoidable, is almost perfectly counterproductive. Just as Israel probably creates another 50 potential suicide bombers every time it jails or tortures an innocent person on the West Bank, the United States will vastly multiply the number of people who willing to give their lives to harm us if we strike out indiscriminately against the easiest targets, rather than the guilty parties. For all the damage they caused, Tuesday's attacks were largely symbolic. With the availability of chemical and biological weaponry, we may not be so fortunate next time.
WHAT DO WE DO NOW?
The larger point here is that it is not enough to say as so many pundits and politicians are doing, that;we are at war; and we must show no mercy against so evil an adversary. America right now is perhaps the most powerful nation the world has seen since the Roman Empire. We can do a great deal of damage to ourselves and to the rest of the world if we fail to use that power prudently. After the real Pearl Harbor, California shipped all its citizens of Japanese descent into relocation camps, stripping them of almost every Constitutional right to which they were entitled. In 1898, the "yellow journalists" exploited a still mysterious explosion on the battleship Maine into politically irresistible demands for a costly war against Spain.
In neither case did anyone stop and think, "Is this really necessary?" and Is it going to do any good?"
Truth be told, I have few answers myself. Clearly, we need to dedicate more resources to prevention and to deal with the crises when they occur. A chemical or biological attack could cripple the entire nation. One form of deterrence, as yet undiscussed in the media, would be for the United States to try to seriously address the economic and sociological causes that give root to terrorist hatred, however harshly put forth by those who have reason to doubt our good will.
Even so, we will remain vulnerable. That's just the way it is. But let's not compound the tragedy with a host of rash actions that satisfy our need for revenge but do nothing to address the cause of our calamity. We are obviously a great and powerful nation. Now we are about to find out if we are also a wise one.
(Eric Alterman is a columnist for The Nation and a regular contributor to MSNBC.com)