Page Two

The Chronicle received only one letter criticizing our decision to stick with our cover story on Toni Price rather than swap it out for one related to the WTC/Pentagon tragedy. I expected more, yet here it wasn't even a discussion. What could we bring to the tragedy that would be unique? We could only offer the same pictures that were everywhere, the same comments, the same stories.

The Austin American-Statesman, which this column often has been critical of, has done a superb job, carrying tons of extra editorial and coming at the tragedy from every angle (Ben Sargent, who this column is always in awe of, has been consistently brilliant). We could offer more comments, more stories, but they are available everywhere. Given our relatively meager resources and space, there is nothing special or unique in the way we would cover this event.

I'm as outraged as anyone about what happened this past week and just wish I were naïve enough to harbor a violent military-solution fantasy. The sky black with American helicopters headed toward the Bad Guys' hideout. It isn't going to happen. There is no geographically specific enemy. There are terrorist cells all over the world. Even the president has come to realize this, backing away from some earlier Rambo positioning.

What motivates terrorists? Everyone with a specific axe to grind has a theory here. If we get out of the Middle East, if we move away from Israel, if we send more aid to Middle Eastern countries, if we destroy international corporations, if we get rid of the world's banks. At its core, fundamentalism is not about just religion but lifestyle. Rationally, it is a demand for the past in the present and a resistance to the future. Irrationally, it's a war in favor of the past against the present and the future. What represents the future in the world we live in more than the United States? Certainly some international actions will have greater repercussions than others, but it is our very existence and international presence that make us most symbolic.

The president declares that from now on his foreign policy will be a war on terrorism. Before that it seemed the policy was to get out of as many carefully negotiated international treaties as his administration could. A war on terrorism shouldn't be about scraping measles off the flesh but a long-term look at a cure for the virus.

Which is not about the short-term military solution. I just hope Americans realize how difficult, how long-term, and how visually unspectacular it will probably be. The idea is to make America and the world a very dangerous place for terrorists to operate. At its most effective, this will be carried out in small, careful actions. Any kind of broad-based military response -- i.e., bombing Afghanistan -- will just provide the fertilizer out of which to breed another generation of terrorists.

This war will not be one-sided. A free and open society is an unusually dangerous place when maniacs are riled.

The long-term solution has to be the opposite of the thrust of the current Bush administration. We cannot retreat from international relationships and concentrate on rebuilding fortress America. We must reach out to the world. We must advocate economic and social justice. New media is shrinking the distances that separate the international community. Our world is growing closer. Our responsibility is growing. This country has been shrugging off that responsibility. In a worldwide assault by the civilized countries on terrorism, military actions should be a relatively small part of the equation. Everything from diplomatic pressure to strategically offered aid should make up the rest. But the real American War on Terrorism has to be a long-term vision of a more economically and socially equitable world. Anything short of that is bullshit macho posturing.

Even in the best world, terrorism can't be stamped out. Timothy McVeigh came out of the bosom of our American family. Given the profoundly ideological nature of terrorists, even a peaceful international campaign aimed at economic development can be viewed as a threat to a way of life. Remember, the WTC/Pentagon-related terrorists believe in a theocracy where conservative clergy make government policy. They view feminism, gay rights, religious freedom, free speech, and an open, equitable society as we view fascist oppression -- life-changing ideologies that are a direct contradiction to what we hold dear. And they are right. Growing international media is changing the world. McDonald's, Nike, Coca-Cola, and Microsoft are everywhere. The future they fear is not only happening, it is going to happen on an ever larger scale. They will fight back, and there are limits to how effective any campaign against largely independent terrorist cells can be.

The terror won't go away. All you flag wavers, all you macho boosters, all you unabashed patriots, we are on the front lines on this one. The biggest question is how we will respond. We can't really send our young people off to fight this one while we sit at home cheering them on.

The object of the terrorists is to change the way we live. If we limit civil rights, then the terrorists have won. If we stop traveling, then the terrorists have won. If in our shock and mourning, in our deep and reasonable fear we change the way we live or the way this country operates, then the terrorists have won. There are those who will tell you we can stop terrorism. We just have to suck it up, kill women and children, rough-arm foreign regimes, bomb anybody who gets in our way. To me, that sounds like a recipe for unending generations of terrorists. Terrorists are a tar baby; you touch them to kill them, to talk to them, to reach out to them, to obliterate them, and you're stuck. No matter what you do, you keep getting more tar all over yourself. The response they want is exaggerated violence.

We have to accept that the fight will be long-term and unending. It will not be only on foreign soil. Every loss will tear our heart. Real successes often will be so subdued as not to be noticeable.

But the long-term victory or failure of these terrorists is in our hands. If we look elsewhere we will lose. The inherent human dignity of our response will gauge the effect. The decision is not in the hands of our armies on foreign soil, but in ours. Human losses will not be only overseas; we will be among the casualties. How are we going to go about living our lives, and how we are going to let this awesome possibility of random violence affect us and our world? The end-all and be-all of this will be what we do when we walk out of our homes every morning, and live the every day of the rest of our lives.