Prior attacks were warning

Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2001, was a tragic wake-up call for America. It wasn't the first time Americans were attacked by terrorists but it was a highly visible, well-coordinated attack, and one which, hopefully, Americans will learn from. But history suggests that Americans are hard to anger and even more difficult to sustain their resolve for fighting. Ever since the Vietnam conflict, an undeclared war manipulated by our politicians, we, as a nation, have been loathe to spill American blood on foreign soil, even if it appears necessary to preserve our own freedom at home. Why is it that we, as Americans, do not understand that freedom and ordered liberty is not free?

Since 1972, when terrorists held the Olympics hostage in Munich, Germany, and killed numerous Israeli Olympic athletes, the world and Americans have repeatedly suffered at the hands of terrorists. Each time, we warned and threatened the terrorists involved and promised to bring them to justice. Each time, however, we failed to sustain the resolve to finish the fight. Americans are a peace-loving, forgiving nation. We forget the number of times the world has been subjected to terrorism in recent years. The following are just some of the more significant terrorist attacks that the world and Americans have benignly suffered at the hands of radicals and terrorists who are not afraid to die in the devastation they produce.

On Nov. 4, 1979, Iranian Islamic students stormed the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, Iraq, and took 52 Americans hostage. This was the first time terrorists attacked our sovereignty, that is, the U.S. Embassy, which is considered by international law to be soil of our homeland. The siege lasted 444 days before the hostages were released.

On Feb. 26, 1993, the terrorists caused the first terrorist attack on a U.S. city when the World Trade Center in New York was bombed by a car bomb located in the garage under one of the twin towers, causing six American civilians to be killed and over 100 others injured.

In 1998, the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania were bombed. Two hundred forty-three people died, mostly civilians. Osama bin Laden's terrorist organization was linked to the attack.

On Oct. 12, 2000, suicide bombers steered an explosives-filled boat into the destroyer USS Cole during refueling operations in Aden, Yemen. Seventeen sailors were killed, 42 were seriously injured. The plotters remain at large and have never been brought to justice.

By my count, I have identified a mere 16 different terrorist actions that I can recall without doing any research. There have been many more that should have made America and the world see the necessity of resolving this issue a long time ago.

Finally, America seems to have been shocked into some kind of response. The longer we put this issue off, the more difficult it will become. If any of these weapons are ever used anywhere in the world, chemical, biological or nuclear, it will make the recent tragedy of the 2001 World Trade Center pale in comparison.

This will not be an easy nor a clear or decisive fight. The enemy will not be easy to identify. The terrorists will be difficult to find. They will be even more difficult to bring to justice.

But, the real problem it appears to me is whether we, as Americans, possess the long-term resolve to dedicate our lives and the lives of our children to wiping the terrorist threat off the face of the Earth.

Ken McManaman is a Cape Girardeau lawyer and a captain with the U.S. Naval Reserve.