"The barbarians will learn what America's all about"
By Leonard Pitts Jr.
Syndicated columnist

They pay me to tease shades of meaning from social and cultural issues,  
to provide words that help make sense of that which troubles the American  
soul.  But in this moment of airless shock when hot tears sting disbelieving  
eyes, the only thing I can find to say, the only words that seem to fit, must  
be addressed to the unknown author of this suffering.

You monster.  You beast.  You unspeakable bastard.

What lesson did you hope to teach us by your coward's attack on our World
Trade Center, our Pentagon, us? What was it you hoped we would learn? 
Whatever it was, please know that you failed.

Did you want us to respect your cause?  You just damned your cause.

Did you want to make us fear?  You just steeled our resolve.

Did you want to tear us apart?  You just brought us together.

Let me tell you about my people.  We are a vast and quarrelsome family, a
family rent by racial, cultural, political and class division, but a family nonetheless. 
We're frivolous, yes, capable of expending tremendous emotional energy on pop
cultural minutiae, a singer's revealing dress, a ball team's misfortune, a cartoon
mouse.

We're wealthy, too, spoiled by the ready availability of trinkets and
material goods, and maybe because of that, we walk through life with
a certain sense of blithe entitlement.  We are fundamentally
decent, though - peace-loving and compassionate.  We struggle to know
the right thing and to do it.  And we are, the overwhelming  majority of us,
people of faith, believers in a just and loving God.

Some people - you, perhaps - think that any or all of this makes us weak.
You're mistaken.  We are not weak.  Indeed, we are strong in ways that
cannot be measured by arsenals.  Yes, we're in pain now.  We are in  
mourning and we are in shock.  We're still grappling with the unreality of the  
awful thing you did, still working to make ourselves understand that this isn't  
a special effect from some Hollywood blockbuster, isn't the plot
development from a Tom Clancy novel.

Both in terms of the awful scope of its ambition and the probable final
death toll, your attacks are likely to go down as the worst acts of terrorism
in the history of the United States and, indeed, the history of the world. 
You've bloodied us as we have never been bloodied before.
But there's a gulf of difference between making us bloody and making us
fall. This is the lesson Japan was taught to its bitter sorrow the last  
time anyone hit us this hard, the last time anyone brought us such abrupt and
monumental pain.  When roused, we are righteous in our outrage, terrible  
in our force.  When provoked by this level of barbarism, we will bear any
suffering, pay any cost, go to any length, in the pursuit of justice.

I tell you this without fear of contradiction.  I know my people, as you,  
I think, do not.  What I know reassures me.  It also causes me to tremble  
with dread of the future.

In days to come, there will be recrimination and accusation, fingers
pointing to determine whose failure allowed this to happen and what can  
be done to prevent it from happening again.  There will be heightened  
security, misguided talk of revoking basic freedoms.  We'll go forward from this
moment sobered, chastened, sad.  But determined, too.  Unimaginably
determined.

You see, there is steel beneath this velvet.  That aspect of our  
character is seldom understood by people who don't know us well. 
On this day, the family's bickering is put on hold.
As Americans we will weep, as Americans we will mourn, and as Americans,
we will rise in defense of all that we cherish.

Still, I keep wondering what it was you hoped to teach us.  It occurs to 
me that maybe you just wanted us to know the depths of your hatred.

If that's the case, consider the message received.  And take this message  
in exchange: You don't know my people.  You don't know what we're about. 
You don't know what you just started.

But you're about to learn.