Now, why would terrorists kill themselves by flying a plane into a building? And why would they go through the trouble of coordinating with several planeloads of other terrorists who are also flying planes into buildings? Never mind how important their cause is to them, my question is: Why not embark on the effort of eight years ago, simply parking a truck filled with explosives and walking away?

The most likely answer partially explains the puzzle of what message they were trying to send us. It is very important to these people to put their lack of respect for human life, to a perverse but practical use. Their message for us is that they’re brave, and we’re cowards. Resources were spent to deliver this message; they sacrificed nineteen of their own. Maybe their de-valuing of human life relegates this to insignificance. But the nineteen had valuable skills. These skills were at the disposal of whatever cause it is that they served, and today those skills are no longer useful to anyone. That was part of the plan, so it had to be somehow worthwhile.

So I know three things about the people who did this. One, they are intelligent, resourceful and reasoned. They are capable of forming complicated, elaborate, difficult plans, and managing the resulting projects to successful completion. Two, they do not value human life, be it their comrades, or the innocents amongst us who pose no potential threat to them. Three, it is very important to them that they are perceived as being courageous.

Why, then, would they go this long without claiming responsibility for the attack? And if bin Laden is indeed behind this, why lie? Only one possible answer: In spite of the fact that they want to come off looking as if they faced death as bravely as possible, they are not brave. They are, in fact, cowards. Now I know four things about the people who did this.

Why spend such valuable resources to preserve this image of mortal bravery in the face of death, and then defeat the purpose by hiding like loathsome little witches? Is this a change in tactic, in response to something that didn’t pan out the way it was intended?

No. Everything that has transpired as a direct or indirect result of this attack, has done so as most reasonable people would predict. Our horror and sorrow, our National Day of Prayer, the NATO invocation of Article 5 - all of this was predictable. Whatever is obvious enough to most people, will not come as a surprise to the people who did this. They knew all this would happen. Hiding out in the aftermath, therefore, was part of the original plan. These are people who know the last step before they execute the first step; they don’t wander around moaning "uh oh, what do we do *now*??"

So why the anonymity? Three possible reasons. One, they are studying us, and need to observe our behavior in the absence of information, to see how we think. Two, they want to maximize the confusion that engulfs us as we try to figure out what happened. Three, they know we are stronger than they are.

I think we can safely discount the first of those three. There is no doubt, the war that was declared on us on Tuesday is psychological, not strategic. But remember, these people think an American baby is just as threatening, just as evil, just as much a blight to the human equation, as an American soldier about to shoot them between the eyes. They don’t care. Young Americans, Old Americans, civilian or military, they don’t care. If they don’t care that one among our own is civilian or uniformed, how could they possibly care what that person is thinking? They can’t. So they don’t care what we think.

Not so easily can we discount the second or third possibilities. The second, I think, is a given. They like us to be confused. More to the point, they want us to be demoralized. The military value of their targets, ran the entire spectrum. Their is no military value to the World Trade Center. The prestigious value of their targets, on the other hand, did *not* run the gamut. These people picked only the highest-profile buildings in the entire nation, buildings that would be of interest to people outside our country, who may have only a cursory knowledge about the rest of our country. The demoralization of the American people is very important to them. The neutering of our armed forces, is *not* important to them. In that respect, this was no Pearl Harbor.

I think the third possibility is a given, too. By themselves, they know they are weaker than we are. They are behaving that way, therefore, they have no allies that would change this equation. If we find them, they’re dead, and they know it. They have endorsed this because, remember, they have paid a very high price to appear courageous, and they are placing this prized asset in a position of compromise, so that they can stay hidden.

Now I know five things about the people who did this.

In the coming days, they may do something that will show what is more important to them: Our continuing demoralization, or their desire to stay hidden so that we can’t squish them like a bug. Maybe they’ll finally claim responsibility, after ensuring to their own satisfaction that they have a safe harbor so we can’t come after them. If and when they do that, we’ll know at least six things about them. Maybe we’ll need that sixth thing to go get them. Maybe we won’t.

In the meantime, we know a lot of things about ourselves that we didn’t know on September 11.

One: Lives are hanging in the balance as we measure our ability not only to eliminate this threat, but to do so with a minimum of disruption to everything we do. The people who say we should be willing, nay, enthusiastic to exchange freedom for security, are wrong. Don’t forget, this attack had a price and a prize. The price was very high. The prize is our demoralization.

Say for a moment you have a seventh-grader who is seven feet tall. He doesn’t want to get in a fight at school, but kids are putting spitballs in his street shoes at P.E. and leaving stinkballs in his locker. Being the big guy, he’s the one to beat. He doesn’t know who his tormenters are. Clearly, he can’t do anything until he learns who these people are. Once he knows, he can let the principal handle it, or take matters into his own hands. If he takes matters into his own hands, he can screech, topping out his pubescent voicebox like Leonardo DiCaprio, as he body-slams them into a month-long hospital visit; or he can send them to the same hospital visit without breaking a sweat, like he’s simply taking out trash or washing dishes. Most of us would strongly advocate letting the principal handle it, but if the principal can’t be bothered with such things it would be important for him to do the thrashing without letting on his disappointment and his hurt. Cool and efficiency would be the order of the day - if he whines so much that the entire school ends up talking about it, either before or during his moment of reckoning with the punks, the punks will be replaced by more punks before they even get out of the hospital. If he’s cool, and takes care of business, the school will end up talking about how he took care of business. No more punks.

That is how we should handle it. If someone else were to take out the enemy on behalf of the U.S., as part of a U.N. or N.A.T.O. police action, why, that would be great. But it’s probably not going to happen. When we take these folks out, therefore, we should do it stoically. Like taking out the trash. Maximize the price; minimize the prize.

Does that mean betray the memories of those who died? Not at all. Never forget, you can get very, very sad, without getting all blubbery. Blubbery kills. Someone is willing to kill their own, and our own, to make us cry, whine, screech, and blather. They’ll do it again if they think it will get them what they want. I’d say the proper emotion, at this point, is righteous anger beyond belief; homicidally so. That, and gritty determination that we will eventually hunt down who or what we’re after. And with a minimum of fuss. Your current President got this perfectly right, and you can take your lead from him: "I’m a nice guy. But...I’m a guy who has a job to do." That’s a good attitude for our nation now.

Two: The people who did this, certainly don’t know what they must do to stay hidden because they don’t know how good we are at finding things. Be assured, they’d love to find out. If you don’t have access to classified information, you don’t know either. That is our strength here; in fact, it is our most prized asset in the war that has just started. Do your bit to protect this information, but don’t try to find it out. If you’re a reporter, don’t ask and don’t tell. Don’t challenge our Defense Secretary about "things that are classified that don’t need to be." It may seem to you like it fits your job description, but in fact it helps nobody.

For now, we have a building full of talented, dedicated people - some of whom may be extremely thankful that they weren’t standing a few feet to the left or right when the Pentagon got hit - who are gathering intelligence. With zeal. With competence. And above all, they’re doing this quietly. It’s an eerie, deadly silence that will end with a very loud noise. That is our one big ace-in-the-hole.

Without a doubt, whoever did this is being demoralized by knowing this is going on, without knowing the details. That’s what we should use.

Three: The list of atrocities we have inflicted on our neighbors, is dwarfed by the list of wonderful things we have done to help people. Contrary to our popular perception, a concensus of nations around the world, knows this. Some of us would like to contemplate the foreign policies we have that would make someone want to do this. If you hear someone mention this, remind them of all the good works we do. They may not realize that sometimes, their moaning and self-loathing can be heard overseas, and perhaps *that*, compared to our questionable policies and actions, is equally responsible for last Tuesday’s tragedy, if not more so.

Shame has a place. This isn’t it. This should be the dawn of an age of pride. Shame will kill us here, pride will save us.

Morgan K Freeberg

You can e-mail Morgan at mkfreeberg@hotmail.com.

About Morgan K. Freeberg

Copyright © 2001 by Morgan K. Freeberg
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