Editorial

Sept. 11, 2003

Just writing today's date can leave you with an eerie feeling.

Sept. 11.

It's a date that has been engraved on our memory, and it's hard to look at replays of the shocking video from Sept. 11, 2001, and not recall the horror and pain that terrorists inflicted in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania.

As a result of the events of two years ago, the world has indeed changed. A war in Afghanistan ended the Taliban's stranglehold on a forbidding country whose rugged terrain made it the perfect hiding place for those who plot terrorism and use terror as a weapon. U.S.-led coalition forces have removed Saddam Hussein and his henchmen from power in Iraq, giving that nation a taste of freedom and removing a significant threat of world terror.

The commitment to the people of Iraq, however, did not end with the capture of Baghdad. The rebuilding of the country is even more important, and requires the involvement of all freedom-loving nations, even those that so vigorously opposed any intervention.

For most Americans, the impact of 9-11 is both personal and collective. On an individual level, we all must deal with our sorrow and fears which are the aftereffects of terrorism. As a nation, we are still torn by the will to enjoy our freedoms while appropriately restricting the actions of those who would do us harm.

Sept. 11 is a time to celebrate the courage of those who survived the attacks and those who fight today on our behalf around the world so that we are never attacked again.

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