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Desperately Seeking Simplicity
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Business New Haven
1/7/2002
By: BNH
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In recognizing a member of the “greatest generation” below, we're reminded once again never to forget. Never to forget how inhumane man can be to man, and never to forget how one generation responded when it was attacked 60 years ago at Pearl Harbor.
We can only hope that today's generation will respond to the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks by distinguishing itself half as well. We think that America's response has been quite distinguished to date.
Much has been made about the U.S. government's “overreaction” to the attacks and subsequent threats to the civil liberties of innocents in the quest to identify and bring to justice al-Quaeda terrorists. It is a threat we take seriously, too. But we must differentiate between real threats to civil liberty and the simplistic charges of critics.
As horrible as was Pearl Harbor for Americans, that fear pales in comparison to attacks at the heart of our homeland by an unseen enemy.
It is the threat of a repeat, compounded by anthrax terrorism, that continues to strike fear into nearly every business and home. And while terrorists such as Richard Reid continue to board airplanes undetected, the response of the American public has been more muted than uncivil. Mostly, we are going about our business. Yes, a handful of the nation's millions of Muslims have been questioned or detained. But no one has suggested wholesale roundups of Americans of Arabic descent, as we did with Japanese-Americans in 1942. In the crucible of the real and continuing crisis we face, we should be proud of the restraint and wisdom the American people and their government have displayed to date. May it prove the measure of our generation, too.
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