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Jewish World Review Sept. 14, 2001 / 25 Elul, 5761
Chris Matthews
But he never got the opportunity George W. Bush
was given this Tuesday: the historic chance to lead.
Our American spirit, power and enterprise now
stand ready for orders. Only the president can give
them.
Only the man in the White House can tell us whom
to strike and with what weapon.
Bush's first challenge is to size up the enemy for us.
Americans need to know what we're up against.
Most important, we need to know that we face an
adversary who is ruthless in exploiting our distinctive
strengths and character and using both against us.
Think of the hijackers. They volunteered for a
mission that required them to kill American women
flight attendants by their own hand and to fly planes
loaded with screaming, pleading passengers to their
certain deaths.
They set out cold-bloodedly to kill Americans face
to face, then to plunge into the face of death
themselves.
At each step, they exploited Americans and
American assets to destroy American assets and
Americans.
-- Freedom: Anyone can cross the border from
Canada into the United States. Anybody can get on
an American airplane. All you need is some phony
driver's license.
-- Courage: The hijackers were said to have lured
our pilots from their cockpits by killing one female
flight attendant after another.
They exploited a pilot's gutsy concern for his crew
to gain control of his plane.
-- Technology: The plotters knew how to fly our big
commercial jets, even when loaded down with fuel.
They knew the flight maps to Manhattan and the
Pentagon. From a previous bombing, they knew the
structural weaknesses of the World Trade Center
towers. They combined this knowledge with the
cold ease of a chemist.
If Bush is smart, he will tell the American people
exactly what we're dealing with here: a smart,
state-of-the-art, ruthless enemy whose route to
eternal glory is over our dead bodies.
If Bush is smart, he knows that the hijackers have
anticipated -- and discounted -- his own next steps
as well. He will share that fact as well with the
American people.
After all, we have all been this way before.
-- 1986: A bomb detonates in a West Berlin
nightclub killing two American servicemen. Ten
days later, U.S. planes attack the camp of Libya's
Moammar Khadafy. Fifteen years later, three
Germans, a Palestinian and a Libyan are on trial in
Berlin for staging the nightclub bombing.
-- 1988: Pan Am Flight 103 explodes over
Scotland. One man gets life imprisonment in a
Dutch court. His co-defendant is acquitted.
-- 1993: When the World Trade Center is bombed,
an FBI probe leads to the arrest and conviction of
six Islamic extremists loyal to Egyptian Sheik Omar
Abdel Rahman.
-- 1998: After Bin Laden bombs U.S. embassies in
Kenya and Tanzania, Clinton bombs a factory in
Sudan, a camp in Afghanistan. Later, four men are
found guilty of the embassy bombings. Today, 13
others remain at large.
-- 2000: When a suicide bomber strikes the U.S.
destroyer Cole, Clinton makes defiant remarks.
Eight people are arrested in Yemen but the
investigation continues.
Which route does President Bush take this time?
He vowed in his TV address to bring the hijackers
"to justice." Does that mean a long, painstaking
probe that takes the matter to some distant
courtroom?
Bush also said he will target those who "harbor" the
hijackers as well as the plotters themselves. Does
that mean a wider attack on a country such as
Afghanistan, the current home of Bin Laden?
One danger is that, like the pilots on those doomed
airliners, President Bush will do what the hijackers
expect him to. He will launch a retaliatory raid
against some defenseless people thereby creating
blood enemies of the United States. This is a step
that even Israel, despite every provocation, has
been wise to avoid.
Another danger is that President Bush will appear to
be doing nothing at all, that he will lack the fire for
this task.
The goal here is not to get mad but to get even.
That said, getting mad is not a bad place to
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