America should seek swift justice, not swift revenge (9/11) 9.14.01

I have known since last Tuesday that I would be writing about the tragedy that occurred in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania. Yet I am still at a loss for words. Thank God for clichés, they come in handy at times like this.
No amount of preparation can make you ready for the moment you have to put pen to paper or sit down at the keyboard and commit to whatever it is you have to say about a tragic event that makes everything seem trivial.
We have seen more images of death and destruction on the news in five days than in an entire summer of over-the-top action films and that is hard to believe possible.
I commiserate with my fellow Americans and feel their pain as I watch them walk around Manhattan with photos waiting for a chance to get on camera.
I am proud of the efforts of volunteers, police, firefighters and all rescue workers. They are the best of all of us and I salute them.
We have all seen so many horrific images this week, many live and uncut, others repeated in endless montages. One image I cannot shake is of a man standing in the window of one of the World Trade Center Towers caught between fire behind him and a 100-story drop in front of him - the fear of immolation battling the fear of heights.
The Nonpareil offices are right under the flight path to Eppley. We have always been able to hear jets approaching, but much to our surprise yesterday we found ourselves unnerved by the descending sound of jets, a sound Council Bluffs residents have heard daily throughout their lives and come to miss when away. Now it just sounds like anticipation, fear and death.
I am angry that these primitive, evil bastards have attacked our country placing their corrupt ideology above the thousands of lives they took. No ideology is above human life.
I feel the primal need for revenge, but I know that violence just creates more violence. Not one innocent person should be killed while we seek vengeance or the clarity of our moral purpose will evaporate. Above all else, we need to continue to be as righteous as possible. No good will come of killing those who are not guilty.
The problem with terrorism is there is no enemy to fight, no army waiting over the horizon for us to decimate, no country to declare war on. This will not be a war in any conventional sense, but a vendetta to counter the jihad.
We must be very careful to remain civilized. Analogies to Pearl Harbor have been common so here is another. At the end of World War II, the Nuremberg trials set a new standard for meting out justice for war crimes. We cannot and should not turn our backs on that standard now no matter how much satisfaction it would give us to carpet bomb the next country that looks at us funny.
We should all be disgusted by the retaliation against Arab-Americans and Muslims that have been reported on CNN, MSNBC and other news outlets Nauseating stories of cabbies pulled from their cars and beaten for just looking like Arabs. Most Americans cannot tell an Arab from an Indian from a Samoan and should not even think of acting out based on what they see.
Arab-Americans and Muslims in this country are as much victims of this tragedy as anyone and they should not have to bear the brunt of bigotry in addition to their own grief. They are no more responsible for what has happened than the average white Christian was for the Oklahoma City bombing.
Yet I find myself challenged to keep irrational prejudice in check because my emotions are overriding my intellect and sense of justice.
We fear for the future because we have no idea what is to come in the days ahead. We are shaken, but as convinced as ever that we will prevail. As Americans, we can and will.
We have been there for the world and now the world is here for us. Let us not forget that out of all of this tragedy, the best of all humanity represented itself splendidly so that we might forge ahead united against evil in the century to come.
-Greg Jerrett is a Nonpareil staff writer. He can be contacted at 328-1811 ext. 279 or by e-mail at gjerrett@nonpareilonline.com.