All the civilized world has been warned

Moral relativists have obfuscated right from wrong for many years now, explaining away what is bad as merely a difference of perspective or circumstance. On Tuesday, evil was revealed, and its existence should not be diminished.

The deaths in New York City were not collateral casualties in a war, which are in themselves troubling, but they were the result of innocent civilians directly and specifically targeted. Let no one mistake the fact: No rules exist for terrorists, and until their sanctuaries are eliminated everywhere in the world, there will be worse to come.

If not now, if not tomorrow, sometime in the future this evil force will seek to strike again, and instead of hijacked planes used as missiles, the worst of the terrorists will strike with biological weapons. It is too grisly to imagine, but the death toll would be worse than what we are seeing today. And today's fallout is already worse than what we can imagine. (Volunteers, firemen, doctors and rescue teams say TV pictures pale against the horror of what is witnessed actually at ground zero.)

For those who say we should not respond with military action because this would be stooping to the terrorists' level: Please, look at the TV reports, listen to the radio reports, read the newspaper. These terrorists and their supporters are celebrating the strikes against the United States. They are planning more.

Our choice is, actually, clear.

Think of the passengers who were on United Flight 93, which crashed in southern Pennsylvania. Having learned that other planes similarly hijacked had been turned into missiles to strike at the World Trade Center, these passengers stood and fought to save themselves. In the process, they died.

They also saved countless others.

Was it not heroism for them to stand and fight? Or do you believe they would have been better to stay at the back of the plane?

This is the issue before us now. With Tuesday's attack, terrorists have revealed that they seek to hijack the planet. Their goal is to strike fear into the hearts of those whose way of life affronts them. Why? Because if they can inflict enough initial pain and terror -- like stabbing to death a flight attendant -- they hope to cow you into the back of the plane with the same false promise that everything will be fine if you just don't get involved.

Then they will strike further, deeper, at more and bigger targets, because the only way everything will be fine to them is if they destroy not just you but your way of life. Their attack, indeed, is on the very idea of America, land of the free, home of democracy, engine of capitalism. Until the American ideal -- which has now spread around the world and is no longer exclusively ours -- is destroyed, they will plot and attack.

When the passengers on United Flight 93 stood up to fight, tapes indicate the terrorist pilot began yelling, "Get out. Get out. Everything is under control."

Think about the words.

"Get out."

"Everything is under control."

The passengers on the first three planes didn't have the knowledge that those on Flight 93 had. They did not know what would happen if they stayed quiet in the back of the plane. Well, now we've been warned.

All the civilized world has been warned.

Let there be no illusions. A war on terrorism will be a long, unpredictable, difficult fight, and it must begin with diplomacy. Many of the targets are elusive, and some are protected by other governments. These governments must be confronted and isolated, which President Bush and Secretary of State Colin Powell are already doing with the Taliban in Afghanistan.

But this country and the civilized world must stand together and fight back. We owe it to the passengers on the hijacked planes; we owe it to the victims in the buildings; we owe it to the rescuers in the streets.

We owe it, even more importantly, to the future.

That's what the passengers on Flight 93 fought and died for.

Jon K. Rust is co-president of Rust Communications.