As with most, if not all, of the 6 billion people populating the Earth, one of my great hopes is that all of the people inhabiting this planet can live in peace, no matter gender, religion, race, whatever. I believe even Osama bin Laden and his followers desire world peace at some level.
However, in the eyes of bin Laden and his followers it somehow happened that Americans encompass all they hold to be evil. They have believed this to the point where bin Laden has demanded all true followers of the Nation of Islam to join the fight against the Jews, Christians and Americans.
The history of our relationship with the Middle East to this point bears little importance now. What needs to be addressed is: How do we deal with the situation we are in now? While peace would obviously be the most desirable option, to think it possible at this stage would be ignoring the facts.
The terrorists’ actions on Sept. 11 were not an extended hand of peace, nor a final point meant to make all previous disagreements simply water under the bridge or to make everything even. The attack against America was intended as just that — an action made with full intentions of escalating America and the Middle East’s relationship to a full-scale war.
Our only choice is military retaliation. The terrorists never had intentions of attacking on Sept. 11 and then stopping; their goal is to eliminate America, and those attacks are simply the first phase. You don’t do something as horrific as those events without plans of war.
Not attacking and “turning the other cheek,” so to say, would not quench the terrorists’ thirst to destroy America and its beliefs. It would not stop the terrorists from planning future attacks; they are willingly executing efforts to begin a full-scale war. If America didn’t retaliate with military force, America’s collective consciousness of safety would sour, and we would turn into a country hoping for peace and cooperation, but living in fear.
The bottom line is America needs to counterattack because there is no other answer. No matter what America does, bin Laden and his supporters are still going to attack. It is horrible to know that we still live in a society where our only option is to eliminate the threat from existence, but that is the sad truth America must face.
The lives lost on Sept. 11 can never be returned, but with proper action, the possibility of it being duplicated can be lessened.