You unspeakable Bastards.
What lesson did you hope to teach us by your coward's
attack on our World Trade Center, our Pentagon, us? What
was it you hoped we would learn? Whatever it was,
Please know that you failed.
Did you want us to respect your cause? You just damned
your cause.
Did you want to make us fear? You just steeled our
resolve.
Did you want to tear us apart? You just brought us
together.
Let me tell you about my people. We are a vast and
quarrelsome family, a family bent by racial, social,
political and class division, but a Close Family nonetheless.
We're frivolous, yes, capable of expending tremendous
emotional energy on pop cultural minutiae -- a singer's
revealing dress, a ball team's misfortune, a cartoon
mouse. We're wealthy, too, spoiled by the ready
availability of trinkets and material goods, and maybe
because of that, we walk through life with a certain
sense of blithe entitlement. We are fundamentally
decent, though -- peace-loving and compassionate. We
struggle to know the right thing and to do it. And we
are, the overwhelming majority of us, people of faith,
believers in a just and loving God.
Some people -- you, perhaps -- think that any or all of
this makes us weak. You're mistaken. We are not weak.
Indeed, we are strong in ways that cannot be measured by
arsenals.
IN PAIN
Yes, we're in pain now. We are in mourning and we are in
shock. We're still grappling with the unreality of the
awful thing you did, still working to make ourselves
understand that this isn't a special effect from some
Hollywood blockbuster, isn't the plot development from a
Tom Clancy novel. Both in terms of the awful scope of
their ambition and the probable final death toll, your
attacks are likely to go down as the worst acts of
terrorism in the history of the United States and,
probably, the history of the world. You've bloodied us
as we have never been bloodied before.
But there's a gulf of difference between making us
bloody and making us fall. This is the lesson Japan was
taught to its bitter sorrow the last time anyone hit us
this hard, the last time anyone brought us such abrupt
and monumental pain. When roused, we are righteous in
our outrage, terrible in our force. When provoked by
this level of barbarism, we will bear any suffering, pay
any cost, go to any length, in the pursuit of justice.
I tell you this without fear of contradiction. I know my
people, as you, I think, do not. What I know reassures
me. It also causes me to tremble with dread of the
future.
In the days to come, there will be recrimination and
accusation, fingers pointing to determine whose failure
allowed this to happen and what can be done to prevent
it from happening again. There will be heightened
security, misguided talk of revoking basic freedoms.
We'll go forward from this moment sobered, chastened,
sad. But determined, too. Unimaginably determined.
THE STEEL IN US
You see, the steel in us is not always readily apparent.
That aspect of our character is seldom understood by
people who don't know us well. On this day, the family's
bickering is put on hold.
As Americans we will weep, as Americans we will mourn,
and as Americans, we will rise in defense of all that we
cherish.
So I ask again: What was it you hoped to teach us? It
occurs to me that maybe you just wanted us to know the
depths of your hatred. If that's the case, consider the
message received. And take this message in exchange: You
don't know my people. You don't know what we're capable
of. You don't know what you just started.
But you're about to learn.
