We

			We'll go forward from this moment
				BY LEONARD PITTS JR.
			leonardpitts@mindspring.com

	They pay me 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.

	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.

	Let me tell you about my people. We are a vast and quarrelsome
family, a family rent by racial, social, 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 their
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, probably, 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 the 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, the steel in us is not always readily apparent. 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.

	So I ask again: What was it 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
capable of. You don't know what you just started.