Thank You

First we'd like to say thank you to all our friends around the world who offered support, be it moral or material.

It has not been widely reported by our news media, but several foreign search and rescue teams are currently assisting in the recovery efforts. In fact the USA has received so many offers of assistance that we've had to turn some down. We do appreciate the offers, though.

We also appreciate offers of military support the USA has received in recent days. Sadly, your military support will probably be needed before this is over.

What can you do to help?

To make donations to assist victims of the 11 September attacks, contact one of the following organizations:

The Salvation Army
The Red Cross
Catholic Charities
Uniformed Firefighters Association Local 94

If you have any information, no matter how seemingly trivial, that may assist law enforcement officials, please contact your local FBI office or call the FBI at 1-866-483-5137, or fill in the form on the FBI web site.

What does it all mean?

It means we are at war. We did not choose war, but it has been forced upon us. Osama Bin Laden, the prime suspect in Tuesday's attacks, has repeatedly declared war on the United States and its citizens everywhere. It is now clear that he is deadly serious. We can either hide our heads in the sand, or we can fight back. Our adversary will see restraint as a sign of weakness, and an invitation to further attacks. We must fight back.

We must harbor no illusions about what war means. You will find no euphemisms like "collateral damage" or "surgical strikes" here. We will tell you the naked, ugly truth. Military force is not a scalpel; it is a very large axe. War is brutal and ugly. People will be killed, and some of them will be innocent bystanders. War is inherently evil.

That said, sometimes war is a necessary evil, in order to stop a greater evil.

This is one of those times.

This is not going to be easy.

We will not win this war by firing a few cruise missiles at some patch of desert, and then leaving. This will require heavy and sustained effort, perhaps for years.

We face a cunning adversary who will use all his intelligence and skill to conceal himself. When we think we have defeated him, he is likely to reappear to attack us from an unexpected direction.

We face a ruthless adversary with little regard for human life. While we do everything possible to minimize civilian deaths, he will seek to maximize them. At some point our adversary will probably even stoop to using innocent bystanders as human shields.

We must recognize the difficulty of the task ahead.

We must not be deterred.

Who is the enemy?

We will start by explaining who the enemy is not:

• Arabs are not the enemy. Like civilized people everywhere, the vast majority Arabs were appalled by the terrorists' actions.
• Palestinians are not the enemy. We saw images of Palestinians dancing in the street after the attacks, and we were deeply angered. Since then we've learned that only a few dozen people were actually involved in those celebrations. The US consulate in the Palestinian areas has received thousands of telephone calls from ordinary Palestinians expressing outrage at the actions of a few of their countrymen. The people dancing in the street did not speak for the majority of Palestinians. As is often the case, the television camera distorted reality.
• Muslims are not the enemy. Islam is one of the world's great religions. It shares common roots with Judaism and Christianity. Islam teaches peace and justice. The vast majority of the world's billion Muslims consider the venom spewed by Osama Bin Laden and his ilk to be a perversion of Islam.
• Afghans are not the enemy. Afghanistan is a country of 26 million held hostage by about 50,000 men with guns. The Taliban militia which controls most of Afghanistan is actually an outside invader - they are for the most part not even Afghans. The enemy may have forces on Afghan soil, but we believe most Afghans oppose them at least as strongly as we do; they simply lack the means to oppose them actively. Anti-Taliban groups in Afghanistan have already offered to assist the United States against the terrorists.
• Muslim Americans and Americans of middle eastern background are most emphatically not the enemy. They are Americans. They are us.

An obvious, "easy" answer is Osama Bin Laden. While he certainly should be hunted down like the vicious animal he has shown himself to be, we must recognize that he is only the tip of a much larger iceberg. If we only imprison or kill him, he will be simply replaced by another fanatic. Even rounding up all of his followers will not solve the problem, though it's a good place to start.

• All terrorists are the enemy. It does not matter where they are, what cause they claim to support, or what god they claim to worship. They are all barbarians, and we must fight them wherever we find them. They must be hunted down and caged, or killed.
• All those who harbor terrorists are the enemy. Governments that harbor terrorists must be driven from power, by any means necessary including military action. We should start with the Taliban militia that rules most of Afghanistan. We should not stop with them.

• All those who arm and finance terrorists are the enemy. We must ferret them out and bring them to justice. They must be punished to the full extent of the law, up to and including execution. All their wealth must be confiscated, and preferably used to compensate the victims of their crimes. If some of these people manage to put themselves beyond the reach of the law, we should kill them by military action or covert means.

All this is a very tall order, and success is by no means assured. This must not deter us. We are guaranteed to fail if we do not try.

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