There are few people that can really understand the breadth of the
campaign that al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden are waging against the
United States of America.  This CNN article, about bin Laden’s newest message,
is a good indicator of what we are up against.  We are living in a
day and age where he is using extremely powerful patterns of attack …
not against us as individuals or our armies … but against our economy
and overall will as a nation.

Every time that I hear people minimize the value of being in Iraq, or
even our efforts in Afghanistan, I can’t believe that they realize who
we are up against.  We are living in an age where a group of
people felt that it was “appropriate” to issue “a warning” to our
country by flying jetliners filled with human beings, into skyscrapers
filles with human beings … killing thousands of them.  I have no
idea what people are thinking … a warning??  This was flat out
murder.  It was a blatant attack, and one that occurred on our
lands.

The amazing thing to me is that few of the American people seem to see
the long-term economic impact that the attacks on the World Trade
Center has caused.  There are the occasional news blurbs on the
victims being paid for their losses.  There are also the issues
that we see from time to time about the American airlines and their
negotiations with government and unions.  But few people are
really aware that the attacks of 9/11 caused differences in our
country, our freedoms, and our economy that will never be
corrected.  My children will never experience the world that I
grew up with … not that I expected that the world would not be
different … however I have to admit that I did not think they would
grow up in a world where the attacks of 9/11 would be diminished so
quickly in the press and the minds of the average American.  We
are now living in a new age where there are going to be more of these
acts of brutality … unless someone takes aggressive moves toput a stop to it.

Our way of life is under attack … I am not a person who feels that
falling back into a defensive position is how to deal with these
attacks.  We are going to see more of them … until we choose to
destroy the source of them.  If we don’t destroy it … it will
destroy us.  For those of us who believe that “destroy” is too
harsh a word … then consider the possibility that the consequences
for behavior that generates attacks like 9/11 have to become too severe
for the behavior to continue.