Nothing like this has ever happened to the United States before. Other countries have suffered losses this great in a single day, but the largest catastrophe for us in recent memory was the Oklahoma City Federal Building. One hundred and eight-seven dead. Remember how horrible it seemed? Wouldn't you give anything for that to be the death toll from Tuesday?

We all suffer, the whole world suffers. The consequences of this attack will fall upon people here and all over the world. Even if we are lucky, and there are no more attacks, we no longer get to live in a magical fairyland and must give up certain luxuries for our safety. We have to answer some very difficult questions about why this happened, questions so disturbing that the mere mention of this being anything but death for death's sake has garnered me several "fuck off"s and a "die". Perhaps it wasn't the time for those questions, but I have been feeling a lot of fear these days. Fear of, and for, my countryfolk, my government, and the rest of the world.

However, one thing that this event will definitely do is bring the world together. The United States is no longer invulnerable, and so we will appreciate more the fact that we are a member of a world community. Everyone will definitely take their loved ones a little less for granted, at least for a little while. I can imagine reconsiliations of old fueds due to the fact that human drama has been placed soundly into perspective. Plus, there's the fact that we have all lived through this together. We've all been crying for the last couple of days. There's a good chance that we all know someone who was lost, at least that we know someone who lost a friend or family member. I, for one, know that of the tens of people I do business with whose offices were in those towers, there will be some losses. Even without personal loss, we have all suffered through watching, one Tuesday morning, tens of thousands of our countrymen and women die.

I am inspired by the resolve I see around me. Cops on the street won't let people get out of hand. Investors won't let the market tank out of pure fear. Businesses are working, in some cases just to ensure that they will be able to take care of the families of employees who have been lost. The terrorists did not succeed in shattering our society, or in destroying our economy. The only way they will succeed is if anger and hatred are allowed to perpetuate in Americans' hearts, especially if they entice us to go to war.

It frightens me that I hear so much desire to kill whoever we suspect as the designers of this attack. No trial, just death by bombing. Like in many cases of murder, people care only that someone pays, without concern that the actual murderer may get away if we focus our attention on a scapegoat. Sure, I think bin Laden is behind this, but what if he isn't, and we kill him and dust off our hands as having served justice? The perpetrator would still be out there to plot another attack.

Plus, why is it that since Americans were killed, we can just toss the universally-agreed-upon world justice process in the trash and lob explosives in the perpetrator's direction? Only 32% of men polled in a Chicago poll advocated a trial before the death of the terrorist puppeteer. That's insane. You don't get justice if you don't serve justice.

In reality, though, we're very unlikely to take the perps alive. Obviously the ones directly responsible were prepared to die, presumably their leaders will be too. Will that satisfy the nation, a "presumed dead" among the rubble of whereever they are when we find them? Murder by missile will not only martyr these people in the eyes of their supporters, it will not atone for what has happened. The only way that we can do justice to the victims is to make their loss the event which leads to worldwide, lasting peace.