An Open Letter to my Government

September 17, 2001

To the Government of the United States,

The events of the last week have shocked us, scared us, hurt us, and united us against a common cause. Despicable acts, surely, and acts that cannot go unanswered. What remains to be seen is how we will answer them, and to me our response will indicate whether we are a just people or simply another class of barbarian.

Before we ponder that in more depth, consider that there is much good to be seen even in this dark time.

September 11th was a disaster of unheard-of proportions, but consider that the World Trade towers probably had 15,000-20,000 people in them at the time of the first impact. Death estimates at this point are around 5,000. That means we managed to evacuate approximately 70% of the people from those buildings after the first impact, most of them in the 18 minutes between the first and second impacts before we even knew it was an attack. Almost all of those who died were either rescue workers or in or above the first impact zone. Our emergency systems worked with unbelievable efficiency.

Furthermore, those buildings were designed to withstand impact from a 707. They were hit by planes much larger, planes carrying well over a hundred thousand pounds of fuel each. Much of the structure of the buildings was damaged by the impacts and fires burned much more intensely than the buildings were designed to withstand. To do worse damage would have taken a nuclear bomb. Even so, those buildings withstood the impacts and continued to stand for several hours until the heat of the fires overwhelmed their structure. When they finally fell, they fell straight down - minimizing collateral damage. Had a tower fallen sideways the damage and loss of life would have been immeasurably greater. It's amazing how well those towers withstood abuse, and a tribute to those who designed and built them.

New York was a total mess, and yet there were no reports of looting. Rather, New Yorkers banded together to support one another - donating time, labor, expertise, food, clothing, and blood. So much so, in fact, that people had to be turned away because there was just too much too fast. This from a city known worldwide for its crime, greed, and apathy. When the chips were down they stood together and gave what they had rather than taking what they could.

As I understand it, the plane that crashed in Pennsylvania crashed because a passenger on a cell phone found out about the other hijacking events and organized a rush on the cockpit to prevent another attack. The fact that they found out, in the air, within an hour of the first attack is a tribute to the effectiveness our communications systems. The passengers' willingness to fight back is a tribute to the courage of our citizens, their willingness to sacrifice themselves to save the lives of others.

We had some systemic failures, to be sure, but by and large our immediate response was better than anyone could have expected. This could have been much worse, should have been much worse. These things make me proud to be an American.

In contrast, however, we've seen incidents where American citizens of Muslim faith or Arabic descent have been assaulted. This is clearly wrong; it was not the fault of these citizens that someone with similar faith or ancestry chose to do these acts of violence. Thankfully these acts have been isolated and are being dealt with appropriately by our police. It would seem that, even in a time of pain, the bulk of Americans are willing to set aside prejudices and knee-jerk reactions in favor of considered response, and to deal justly with those who react otherwise.

What worries me is that we as a nation may be about to embark on a massive knee-jerk reaction, a response motivated not in justice but in blind vengeance. Here is where our true mettle will be tested.

We've chosen to fight a war on terrorism, a war that I wholeheartedly support and consider long overdue. But we have a problem: Our military is designed to fight nation states, and terrorists are not nation states. Terrorists are made up of many small groups, operating with only loose organization. While it's true that some nation states have been known to support or harbor terrorist organizations, these organizations exist even in nations like our own. We, as a nation, do not condone terrorism even though terrorists live in our midst. We must understand that the same is true of other nations; if not of their governments, then of their people.

We as a country need to sit back for a minute and ponder these facts before we embark on a large military response that will kill many more innocents than it will terrorists. I am heartened by the fact that we did not start dropping bombs immediately, but am concerned when we activate tens of thousands of reservists. What good are tens of thousands of troops going to do against terrorists cells comprised of only a handful of people each? No good. They're only useful if we're launching a full-scale assault on a nation state.

I call upon you, our leadership, to avoid a full-scale assault. We must respond firmly and decisively, but we must respond only against those who perpetrated the attack or supported them. That is certainly a small group of people, a group that will be impossible to eliminate with carpet bombing, smart bombs, tanks, and ground troops. This is a group of people that we need to root out individually and hunt down and eliminate as individuals. That is the job of small, well trained and well informed teams. It's the job of informants, infiltrators, information gatherers, and our special forces.

What we must avoid is the temptation to use our mighty military against such small groups. If we do so we will necessarily inflict substantial collateral damage, killing terrorists and innocents alike, and making us as a country as guilty as those few on our streets who attacked innocent Muslims and Arabs in mindless vengeance.

I urge you to fight a war against terrorism by fighting the terrorists. We must hunt them down and destroy them no matter where they are, no matter how long it takes, no matter who stands in our way. As an American citizen I will stand for no less. I have to believe that we can do this - insist must do this - without demolishing entire populations of people whose only crime is to inhabit the same country as the terrorists.

Sincerely,

James Frost
Arlington, Massachusetts
jimf@frostbytes.com
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