New war reveals justice, compassion

Compassionate, even in war. How often, on history's bloody stage, has food for war's refugees fallen from the sky along with bombs? It was after World War II that Americans rebuilt Europe and Japan. Then, valiant military leaders such as Gen. Douglas MacArthur set weapons aside and laid foundation stones of goodwill and democracy amid rubble they had helped create.

Under the leadership of President George W. Bush and his foreign policy team, the United States launched a war to build international peace at the same time it launched its war to destroy terrorism and those who sponsor it.

Americans of every persuasion ought to take pride in this. Our highest values, justice and compassion, are both embodied in the struggle now under way on our behalf. Little wonder that Americans have rallied to the president's support with approval margins that have ranged as high as 95 percent.

But it is not the opinion polls that guide our president's strategy. Nor should it be. Rather, he is simply striving, borne up by a nation's prayers, to do the right thing. It is justice that he seeks.

Justice requires the military action that began Sunday. Just as it would be immoral to let a serial killer run free in our neighborhoods so he could kill again, so too would it have have been immoral not to stamp out terrorism. We have been attacked on our own soil. Further attacks seem likely. Indeed we are still retrieving the shattered bodies of the thousands of innocent civilians who died in last month's attack. Terrorists, an enemy unlike any we have had to destroy before, call for a style of war unlike any we have seen.

From the beginning, President Bush has emphasized that our fight is not with Islam, a religion the terrorists have perverted into an excuse for the slaughter of innocents.

He has now underscored his words with deeds."The oppressed people of Afghanistan," Bush said Sunday, "will know the generosity of America and our allies. As we strike military targets, we'll also drop food, medicine and supplies to the starving and suffering men and women and children of Afghanistan. The United States of America is a friend to the Afghan people, and we are the friends of almost a billion worldwide who practice the Islamic faith. The United States of America is an enemy of those who aid terrorists and of the barbaric criminals who profane a great religion by committing murder in its name."

No one knows, today, how well this will work. A war is fought one hour at a time. Setbacks and terrible sacrifices may lie ahead, and the president rightly has urged Americans to muster patience, and to steel their resolve. Without any doubt, radicals in Afghanistan and elsewhere will strive to inflame the Moslem world with anti-American hatred.

While Americans wait, and pray, we may each find tangible ways to enlist in this long fight. As terrorists seized one of the airliners last month, it was ordinary civilians who fought back, preventing a disaster and giving their lives in the process. Less dramatically, other vigilant Americans have passed along information that helped the FBI round up terrorists and trace their paths. Many others have endured, with patience and good spirits, the inconveniences of increased security at airports.

And finally, here in the Inland Northwest, many of us may know families now missing a mother, or a father, a son or a daughter, who is on the front lines, piloting or maintaining an Air Force tanker or performing some other task to defend us all.

During the last Persian Gulf war, our area's many military families and retirees rallied spendidly around those left behind. The Spokesman-Review trusts that this will occur again, and we hope that the military will let our community know how all of us can help in the days and months ahead.

After all, we Americans are a compassionate people, as well as a people committed to the defense of freedom.

Copyright 2001 Cowles Publishing Company
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