THIS PAST week, I kept longing fervently for something, anything, to be normal again, if only for a moment. That was before I realized that "normal" as we knew it before the attack has ceased to exist. The way we lived our lives before Sept. 11 was lost forever in the moment that first plane hit the World Trade Center.
We are all angry for that loss. It means that families who have lost loved ones will never live another day without a shard of sorrow in their hearts. It means that no one in this country will feel safe again for a long, long time. But we cannot, by any means, give in to rage. Rage will mean that we will become what our enemy already says we are. It will mean that this will happen again, and keep happening.
On the day after the attacks, Time Magazine columnist Lance Morrow encapsulated the anger many are feeling when he wrote, "A day cannot live in infamy without the nourishment of rage. Let's have rage. What's needed is a unified, unifying, Pearl Harbor sort of purple American fury -- a ruthless indignation that doesn't leak away in a week or two" ("The Case for Rage and Retribution," Sept. 12).
The American people seem to be following Mr. Morrow's advice. It looks like everyone -- the president, his cabinet, the newspapers, the cable news anchors -- are referring to this as a "war." We are hungry to strike at some sort of target. There is talk of bombing Afghanistan.
But let's not have rage. Rage solves nothing because it is blind and arbitrary. Those who are to be brought to justice are not the only ones punished. Innocent people are caught in its wake.
If we give in to rage and bomb Afghanistan, we will be unleashing the kind of force that strikes out at anyone, heedless of their guilt or innocence, just so long as someone is made to suffer as we have suffered.
We will be striking the innocent: Most Afghans "would exult if someone would come in there, take out the Taliban and clear out the rats' nest of international thugs holed up in their country" ("An Afghan-American Speaks," Salon, Sept. 14). In an extremely poor and conflict-ridden country where "only the Taliban eat," it is no wonder that Afghans despise their rulers. Looking in the Central Intelligence Agency's World Factbook, the portrait of Afghanistan is a stark one.
Afghanistan is a country whose people are desperate for peace after a Soviet invasion and the civil war that followed. "In addition to continuing civil strife," the CIA report reads, "the country suffers from enormous poverty, a crumbling infrastructure, and widespread live mines."
The majority of the population does not have sufficient food or medical care. These people are too destitute and hungry to overthrow the Taliban rulers most of them loathe.
If we choose the path of rage and our pursuit of revenge causes the deaths of innocent Afghans, who will we be then? The answer is frightening: We will be like the terrorists who attacked us. Is it worth it if, to beat them, we must become them?
Even worse: If we act with as little regard for human life as the terrorists have, we will be proving them right. They already think that America does what it chooses blindly and fumblingly, heedless of consequences, not noticing the damage we wreak.
To take the course of sweeping acts of revenge, where innocent people are victims, will be strengthening the cause of the people who attacked us. If we react with rage as barbarically as they have and kill innocent people, those overseas who have doubted the legitimacy of terrorist groups' claims that America is evil will begin to believe them. If we unjustly kill people's mothers and brothers, sisters and uncles, more people's anger will be fueled, and the terrorist groups' numbers will swell. The seeds for future terrorism will be planted and we will be attacked again.
We must not talk of "sweeping" responses, as President Bush did last Saturday. Our military response must be pointed directly and only at the groups behind this evil act. So if we are not to become like terrorists who attacked us, and if we are not to aid them in their causes, let us not have rage.
(Laura Sahramaa is a Cavalier Daily associate editor. She can be reached at lsahramaa@cavalierdaily.com.)