Justice, not revenge, should be U.S. goal
by Bernie Scheffler, reporter

    American citizens have come together this week to mourn what may prove to be the single greatest loss of life our country has ever seen.

        In a matter of a few hours Tuesday morning, Sept. 11, terrorists struck fear into the hearts of many with a vicious attack on two symbols of American prosperity: the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

    The number of lives lost has not yet been determined, but so far a total of more than 5,100 people are unaccounted for in New York, nearly 300 dead on the four hijacked airplanes and hundreds dead at the Pentagon.

    Many of us are overcome with grief; we search for answers to an unthinkable question: why would someone commit such an atrocity?

    Naturally, our frustration at the situation turns to anger. Most Americans, myself included, demand that the individuals responsible be brought to justice. We want the perpetrators punished; we want them punished severely, and we want it done soon.

    We must be careful, however, not to confuse justice with revenge.

    Justice must be served, but our response to this tragedy must not be based solely on emotion.

    Too often when tragedy strikes, Americans want to immediately strike back. This is a logical reaction since we have great pride in our country, and that pride is part of what makes America great.

    If we react based on emotion, however, we tend to make mistakes.

    Consider what happened to Japanese Americans after the events at Pearl Harbor brought us into World War II. Anyone who was of Japanese descent was rounded up and put into camps. Even people who were not Japanese, but of Asian descent, were incarcerated.

    All this happened in a country whose founders believed that “all men are created equal.”

    Already there have been senseless responses to this event, which itself has been compared to Pearl Harbor. In Irving Tuesday night, someone fired three shots through the front window of a Muslim temple.

    In Carrolton, vandals threw bricks at the windows of a Muslim school. Thankfully, no one was injured in either incident.

    These retaliatory incidents cannot be allowed to continue. Americans should leave justice to our elected officials.

    If we try to impose justice ourselves, many more innocent lives could be lost. America must punish those responsible, and only those responsible.

    While our government sorts out who might have done this, we as Americans need to take heart. It is time for us to pay more attention to our own state of affairs.

    Let the FBI discover “who?” I think it is more important for us to consider “why?”

    Why do some fundamentalists hate America so much? It is hard for us to even imagine anyone feeling anything but love for America. After all, this is the greatest country in the world, right?

    Right. But why does it take a tragedy of this magnitude to remind us of that?

    We take our lives for granted. We don’t realize what a blessing it is to live in a place where we are free to come and go as we please. We are free, and we are prosperous.

    We should take these things into consideration as we think about these horrific events.

    We need to consider what America does that provokes such an angry reaction. Technology is making the world smaller, so our interaction with the rest of the world is becoming more intense. Until we take the time to understand how America relates to the rest of the world, we can’t be at peace with ourselves.

    If we aren’t at peace with ourselves, how can we be at peace with anyone else?