America Attacked Again, But From Within?

Yesterday and today the millions of citizens and thousands of political leaders of the United States handed a victory to Osama Ben Laden. Yesterday, a 747 flying past the New York skyline caused evacuations of office buildings and panic as people feared another 9-11 attack was underway. The aircraft was one of the two aircrafts used as Air Force One (it is called Air Force One only when the President is onboard). A training flight was turned into a photo-opportunity to update the official White House photo file.


http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/04/28/low.flying.plane/index.html

Various political leaders at the local, state and national levels were quick to decry the flight and insensitivity of officials. Each one posturing to appear alarmed to their public. Wolf Blitzer and Jack Cafferty on CNN added their voice by saying that the person who approved the flight should be summarily and immediately fired and that it would be a travesty if the person is not fired.

We need to honor those who died. We need to allow the families to feel their pain but as a nation we need to heal. As a community, a society and a nation we need to pause to honor our lost but not let the pains of the past unduly control the present. If the past pains and attack unduly control the present and cause us our fears to trigger irrational actions, then the victory belongs to the terrorists. On the other hand when we continue to remain an open society and do not allow our fears to control us, the victory belongs to us as the goal of the terrorist has not been gained.

Unwittingly Blitzer and Cafferty, as well as the other political leaders who are alarmed, have functionally admitted that eight years later Ben Laden and his cohorts have and continue to defeat America. We panic and quake at anything that comes close to appearing to be an attack. Our wounds remain so open that in our angst we lose all sense of rationality in our actions and words. Without firing a shot, without doing a single thing Osama Ben Laden has again won a great victory over America.