We Must Not Lose Sight of Who We Are : Terrorists win only if their cowardly acts successfully modify how we think about important things.

OK, it’s happened again, this time in the center of our country, and again we have to remind ourselves what this is all about.

War is a political act. Terrorism is a form of low-intensity war, and therefore terrorism also is a political act. The objective of the terrorist is not to overthrow the government of a country, but rather to change the political calculus of that country. That can take many forms. One is to strike terror in our hearts, and through that act, to change the way we think about our society and ourselves. So, here is Rule No. 1: If we change our society in any way or change the way we think about some important things, then the terrorist wins. The terrorist doesn’t deserve to win anything.

The current lead theory is that the Oklahoma City bombing was executed by terrorists of Middle Eastern or Islamic origin, and sure enough, Americans are expressing anger at both labels. But we really don’t know much of anything yet--we can’t seriously expect the FBI to reveal all of what it knows before it apprehends the criminals; after the arrest, the bureau cannot compromise the criminal trial by releasing too much evidence--and “don’t know” means don’t know. That’s why we have the FBI as lead agency for terrorism within our borders. The bureau is a superb agency. We have to let it function in accordance with the training and expertise of its people, trusting them to track and apprehend these criminals just as they track and apprehend others. That’s their job.

Until the criminals are apprehended, we need to remember that prejudging anything is contrary to American tradition. We need to remind ourselves that to label all Muslims as criminal maniacs is as unjust as to label Italian Americans likely members of organized crime. Islam is a religion that celebrates a God of mercy and love, just as Christianity and Judaism do, and since terrorism is not an act of mercy or love, it has nothing more to do with Islam than it does with Catholicism. Respect for religion is one of America’s core principles, and if we depart from that, the terrorists win something important and we lose something even more important. I don’t think America could exist without religious tolerance.

We need to remember what the enemy is. A terrorist is not a soldier, not a revolutionary, not a freedom-fighter. In a country like America, where everybody has civil rights and the right to petition the government for a redress of grievances, a terrorist is nothing more than a common criminal. To think of such people in any other way means losing something else. To recognize the political motivation of a terrorist as anything other than evidence in a criminal trial gives that person a status he does not deserve. More important, to catch him as we catch other criminals, to give him the right to due process of law, and then to deal with the terrorist in accordance with our law--to act precisely as we act with bank robbers or kidnapers--means that our society is strong enough and confident enough in its principles to deny the terrorist that which he craves: change in the targeted culture. No, such action tells the terrorist community, you cannot really affect us; we are too strong for you; you really don’t count for much. If we can do that, we win.

But there’s another dimension. It is possible that the incident was motivated or supported by people outside our borders. If those people are part of a foreign government, then Oklahoma City was an act of war in which the lives of noncombatants were cruelly taken. Such an act cries out for the sort of justice exercised by nation states in the international arena. It’s called war, and that is a form of activity for which America is well equipped. In fact, it’s an activity for which we are able to apply new rules. Terrorist acts, or even “normal” acts of war are not initiated by nations, after all. They are initiated by people, frequently by despotic individuals who issue the orders for armies to march and for terrorists to strike in a smaller and more cowardly way. Those despotic individuals are every bit as mortal as the secretaries and children killed in Oklahoma City. America owns tactical aircraft that are effectively invisible and can deliver ordnance with inhuman precision. In previous times, striking at a nation-state meant killing private soldiers in hundred-unit lots. Today, it can mean something else--striking directly at the individuals who give the orders to kill in the belief that they themselves are invulnerable to counter action. It is well within our power to deliver justice across the globe directly to the bedrooms of the people who order the killing, and a few demonstrations of that ability will go a long way to putting an end to state-sponsored terrorism.

There’s another consideration still--intelligence. America’s intelligence agencies are massive and expensive, but they are overly focused on technical intelligence-gathering. Of the CIA’s 15,000 paid employees, perhaps 700 or so are actual field intelligence officers--spies. Orbiting cameras can take pictures and enable photo analysts to count tanks and aircraft, but no camera yet devised by man can photograph the thoughts inside a human mind. Despite that, the CIA has de-emphasized Human Intelligence--called Humint--for years, and Oklahoma City may be part of the price for that. Preventing such acts requires putting people in the field to learn about and infiltrate the small and shadowy bands who commit those acts. It’s not easy, but it can be done if we decide to try. Domestically, the FBI has had good success in controlling terrorist groups by doing precisely that--identify and infiltrate. Getting information on state-sponsored activities ought to be somewhat easier--all governments, especially despotic ones, have dissenters, but somebody has to identify them and talk to them, and you can’t do that with satellites. Internationally, our successes have been less marked than our domestic ones because the CIA has stepped back from methods that the FBI has used successfully within our borders. That needs changing. Why?

America is a target. We are the last superpower. We alone have the global influence to change the political shape of the world, and that is why terrorists will think long and hard about trying to influence us with bombs and death, because the changes we want to make in the world are not the changes they want to live with. That is why they attack us, and if we allow them to change our attitudes because of these cowardly attacks, then we betray our principles, we betray our promise to bring democracy to the world and we allow the forces of darkness to win something entirely undeserved.

The cure for that problem is never to forget who we are and how we got here; to remember that our principles are more important than the acts of a few criminals; to exercise the power we have with speed, skill and ruthless determination when circumstances call for it; to use our abilities to gather the information needed to stop such crimes before they start. We are the United States of America. We can do all of these things. To do less betrays the lives lost Wednesday in the center of our country.