On a beautiful Sunday morning, Dec. 7, 1941, the day that FDR said would live in infamy, the myth of American invulnerability was dealt a serious blow. The empire of Japan attacked the American fleet in the Pacific thousands of miles from Japan, sank four battleships, damaged three more, and destroyed 188 aircraft, apparently ending the ability of the U.S. to make war in the Pacific.
America was far stronger than its enemies could possibly have imagined. The U.S. Navy would be winning major battles within six months. By 1945, the war was over. We were not to be toyed with.
Then came Sept. 11, 2001, a beautiful blue-sky morning just like Dec. 7. Four highjacked commercial airliners became weapons. Religious fanatics found justification to kill themselves and others out of misplaced righteousness and a sense of being wronged. They wanted to prove to the world that American invulnerability no longer exists.
People willing to kill in order to create terror are not just enemies of the U.S. They are enemies of civilization itself. The highjackers' targets on 9/11 were not battleships or airplanes but people, ordinary people doing everyday things. The terrorists wanted to destroy the confidence that our citizens took for granted and to replace it with fear.
We celebrate the heroes of that day, the first responders who ran toward the inferno, who saved lives and sometimes lost their own. We celebrate the passengers of United Flight 93 who chose not to die as victims but as heroes. We celebrate the success of Seal Team 6 in killing Osama bin Laden, the man who led mass murder in the pursuit of his personal vision.
Ten years later, we know we will never be invulnerable again. American confidence now has tinges of sadness and fear that have not always brought out the best in us. Some leaders say we live in a different world that no longer plays by the rules of the pre-9/11 world. Some say that if we feel threatened by anyone, we have the right to attack first to keep ourselves safe because of what happened on 9/11.
But should we attack another country just because we have the power and perhaps fear it? Do we no longer need to follow the Geneva Conventions and their ban on the use of torture just because an enemy hurt us?
When we answer yes, we are saying the terrorists, the killers, have won and civilized behavior is just an idea from another time. It's not the lesson we took from Dec. 7, and it shouldn't be what we take from 9/11 either.
