After September 11 (Part 1)

Can America defeat terrorism through physical force, as President Bush promises? I don't know. But the answer may well be no.

What would "no" mean?

In destroying the World Trade Center, the terrorists returned to an obvious target they had already struck earlier -- and took it down. They hit the Pentagon. They hijacked four airliners simultaneously. In the view of columnist William Safire, they may even have a mole in the White House. (He bases this conjecture on a threat to Air Force One at the time of the attacks, which the Secret Service found credible because of American code words showing a knowledge of procedures.)

September 11 was a demonstration of prowess, something to inspire and embolden America's many enemies and perhaps ensure a strong reaction. There may be easier and more effective ways for the terrorists to operate in the future if they focus exclusively on causing death and injury.

"Terrorism," by definition, is designed to intimidate or coerce. But we see the opposite effect. As President Bush said in his Sept. 20 address to the Joint Meeting of Congress: "the entire world has seen for itself the state of our union, and it is strong.... Our grief has turned to anger and anger to resolution."

Can this utterly predictable reaction be a surprise to the terrorists? We should not assume so, if we want to assess the situation reasonably.

If the response was predicted and terror is truly their goal, that means the terror has not begun. Americans are not cowed, abject, exhausted, dispirited, at their wit's end, begging to negotiate.

This real terrorism scenario, unthinkable with Bush's defiant words still in the air ("Our war on terror ... will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped and defeated"), is what could lie ahead if the answer to the question above is "no."

Imagine the not impossible world in which America openly loses this fight. How can America be taking such a risk?

There is an alternative. Bush's plan is to "direct every resource at our command -- every means of diplomacy, every tool of intelligence, every instrument of law enforcement, every financial influence and every necessary weapon of war -- to the disruption and to the defeat of the global terror network."

In my opinion, America's best interest would be to pursue the same goals while refraining from the use of one of the resources in that list: weapons of war. The U.S. should not take military action. The remaining resources, including "instruments of law enforcement," methodically applied by the U.S. and cooperating nations, could be potent in obstructing terrorism; and unlike war, their use would not inflame passions and produce fresh recruits for the terrorists. Some measures, like those hindering money laundering, would also attack other evils which have too long been tolerated by the world.

Imagine the psychological impact on the entire world: the U.S., with its might, relinquishing the use of force. What better statement of how its values differ from those of the terrorists? And incidentally, how much more Christian a response?

But the U.S. should do more than take measures to end its neglect of the long-recognized terrorist threat. Now that the nation has been reminded of issues of good and evil, it should take stock of its own spiritual state. A couple of thoroughly unexceptional news items appearing only days before Sept. 11 are indicative:

• A business-friendly "nursing home quality initiative" that reduces the frequency of inspections and eliminates some penalties. (The inspections were imposed on the industry after a study by the National Academy of Sciences found that many patients received "shockingly inadequate" care.)

• Angry school administrators nationwide not endorsing, but fighting efforts to legislate limits to junk food sales in their schools, in order to protect the schools' sales commissions. (The legislation initiatives arise from the newest statistics on child obesity from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, showing that teenagers today are almost three times as likely to be overweight as they were 20 years ago.)

The New York Times reports that many conservative evangelical Christians in the U.S. believe that America's immorality led God to withdraw his protection and permit the Sept. 11 attack to succeed. Whatever their views on this point, both religious and secular citizens should be showing more interest in bringing U.S. foreign policy into line with American ideals of simple justice and fairness -- ideals that are intuitively understood by practically all human beings, everywhere on earth. It is more than plausible that plainly immoral actions by the U.S. abroad -- actions that do not reflect professed U.S. principles any more than many domestic policies do -- have helped generate support for terrorism.

James Robison, a well-known evangelist who spent a morning last month praying with President Bush at his Texas ranch, gives as examples of sins abroad: arrogance in relationships with Third World and foreign countries, plundering other countries for resources while supporting their despots, and indifference to others' poverty and pain.

But in dealing with the immediate crisis, if genuine leadership is possible today, this government by and for the people should stand against current passions and tell the people that war is not in their best interest.

Perhaps the only way to maintain the people's support in America today, however, is to pander -- to lead by opinion poll, tell them what they want to hear, plunge into whatever course they demand. Perhaps this modern, multi-trillion-dollar military and political behemoth is ruled by primal instincts after all.

It is as President Bush said: we are now in "a different world," and many of us simply cannot discern with any confidence what the future will bring.

President Bush, however, betrays no uncertainty: "The course of this conflict is not known, yet its outcome is certain. Freedom and fear, justice and cruelty, have always been at war. And we know that God is not neutral between them."

Perhaps these words should occasion alarm for Americans whose faith is less sure than their president's. His words may be in earnest. Perhaps, rather than making the rational calculations many would assume, the U.S. leadership is putting the nation's fate in God's hands -- an expression of religious faith that could be seen as analogous to that of the suicidal terrorists. Perhaps President Bush really is relying on God as he opens the door to an altered, much grimmer way of life for the foreseeable future, engaging all Americans in an epic battle against a terrible foe.