For the week of  September 12 - 18, 2001

America at War

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The United States now is at war.

But not a war that can be fought or won by conventional military retaliation or diplomatic negotiation.

America is at war with ruthless human suicide bombers capable of hijacking airliners; poisoning America’s water supply; destroying the nation’s exposed power lines, fuel pipelines and communication centers; creating urban pandemonium and chaos and paralyzing the nation’s travel.

Just as Vietnam taught the U.S. military that conventional, sophisticated weapons could not defeat a primitive peasant army in the jungle, events of Tuesday should persuade the nation’s defense planners that exotic multi-billion dollar outer space missile defense systems and retro thinking about dealing with missile powers aren’t what America’s security needs.

The threat now is what realists have predicted all along— dealing with stealthy, single-minded terrorists with no national roots who arguably have the skill and sophisticated organization to carry out the appalling unconventional, even sneaking an atomic bomb into a metropolitan area in a suitcase.

Until Tuesday, the Oklahoma City bombing was the deadliest act of terrorism on U.S. soil. The human toll from yesterday’s ghastly acts of mass murder are horrific, unquestionably the worst single loss of life in a terrorist act in world history, numbering in the thousands.

Not even the 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor led to the sort of national reaction as yesterday’s— a complete shutdown of the nation’s airways system, the President of the United States sent into secret isolation for protection, both houses of Congress hustled into isolation, borders with Mexico and Canada tightly sealed.

Luck is all that stood between the United States and this catastrophic event for so many years. The nation’s generally relaxed security and its isolation from unthinkable terrorism that seemed confined to distant continents permitted Americans the luxury of complacency.

Clearly, life is now forever changed. Security in the most unlikely places and unlikely forms will be routine. Innocence will be replaced by hardened cynicism and tense caution in travel as well as the workaday life.

The successful calamitous terrorist acts merely give heart to the plotters to strike again.

Their hope is to paralyze life in the United States and numb the will of Americans.

The only reasonable response from the United States should be a quick, thunderous military strike not only against suspected lairs of the terrorists and their mentors, but against the nation or nations that harbor them.

Even the most reluctant, faint-hearted among America’s friends will approve of the most devastating response without the niceties of drawn out debate.

The Idaho Mountain Express is distributed free to residents and guests throughout the Sun Valley, Idaho resort area community. Subscribers to the Idaho Mountain Express will read these stories and others in this week's issue.