“There is America, full of fear from its north to its south, from its west to its east.”  – Osama bin Laden  So, how full of fear were we this weekend?  In the North, 107,879 saw Michigan whup Penn State.  In the South, the same number attended Georgia and Tennessee.   Out West, tickets for Texas vs. Oklahoma went for $1,000 each.  Out East, 35,000 delirious members of Sam’s Army saw the U.S. qualify for the World Cup.  If we were full of fear, wouldn’t we have been hunkered down in bunkers?  So, Osama, how did you spend YOUR weekend?
9/11/2001 I turn on the TV before work, something I rarely do. In the middle of dressing, I stop, watch for two, three hours. The coffee burns, the toast gets cold. Then my phone rings and it frightens me. "Are you okay?" a voice asks. It is what I asked my patients years ago when I was a paramedic. It is what millions asked that morning of family, friends, former strangers. It is what a friend has called to ask me. I say, "Yes, but I haven't shaved and I'm only wearing one sock." Kim Howland  USA
Read about my  new flag which I liberated	Who We Lost Download or print Our Flag Guernica Liverpool Manhattan
	"When they did this they tried to divide us in chaos but they united us even more," said Juan Tabamo, a nurse who treated trade-center victims at a hospital in Jersey City, across the Hudson River from New York. "Now it's like a family. It broke all the barriers thanks to them."
	An Open Letter to the Terrorists by Leonard Pitts, Jr. Published Wednesday, September 12, 2001  in The Miami Herald

We'll go forward from this moment.......

It's my job to have something to say.

They pay me to provide words that help make sense of that which
troubles the American soul. But in this moment of airless shock when hot tears sting disbelieving eyes, the only thing I can find to say, the only words that seem to fit, must be addressed to the unknown author of this suffering.

You monster. You beast. You unspeakable bastard.

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 rent by racial, social, political and class division, but a 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.

Copyright 2001 the Miami Herald.
Republished here with the kind permission of the Miami Herald. No further republication or redistribution is permitted without the written approval of The Miami Herald.