Building Bridges From London

July 13, 2005

Let me say up front, I do not have a ready answer for terrorism.
Maybe one reason why no sure-fire solution comes to mind is I have never been a victim or known anyone involved in a terrorist act. The full impact of these murderous assaults on civilization had never fully hit home.
Of course the September 11, 2001 attacks against the U.S. were shocking, but somehow surreal at the same time. The images of the attacked World Trade Center were more like watching the original King Kong movie - crumbling buildings on fire with only second hand accounts of the human carnage to go by.
Then, I traveled extensively on the transit system in Spain within a few weeks after the Madrid terrorist attacks last year. Before leaving the U.S., I remembered seeing the sign for the Atocha Train Station in the background in Madrid as TV commentators added up the casualties from that city’s worst terrorist attack in history.
Statistics do not tell the story. After I arrived in Spain, the Atocha Train Station still had a bomb crater fifty feet deep with neat piles of twisted steel lying around that previously constituted transit cars and track. The outer part of the station was a virtual shrine of old photos of smiling victims, flowers, and messages from family and friends of the slain. The outpouring of grief by some visitors at this station was moving.
For me - I finally got it. No one had to die there. One person losing his or her life to a terrorist act is a catastrophe. Two hundred persons dead in Madrid on 3/11/04 and the 2,000 victims who perished in the U.S. on September 11 were immeasurable. The thousands upon thousands of innocent lives lost in the Middle East..., it is overwhelming and unspeakable.
Each of these victims had family and friends who depended on them. Everyone had jobs or provided some service to benefit mankind. Each was an innocent bystander, unknown to their killers.
As we go to press shortly after the terrorist attacks in London, the final toll of carnage from these blasts is unknown. We don’t even know who committed these terrorist acts, for sure. You might remember that the world speculated Islamic extremists were behind the Oklahoma City bombings for almost a week until bumbling Timothy McVeigh was apprehended after being jailed for driving without a license plate.
If it wasn’t clear before, it should be by now, the focal point of terrorism is not centered in Iraq, Afghanistan, England, or any one place. The problem of terrorism is global and ranges widely - wherever people and infrastructure are vulnerable.
If the most powerful army in history takes years to find Osama bin Laden and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, how can traditional military operations expect to subdue unknown terrorist cells that are prepared to sacrifice their lives anywhere in the world with barbarous acts?
In the wake of the British transit bombings, one thing is certain - we are all now Londoners. Similarly, we should all be in solidarity with Spain after the attacks on the Madrid transit system. Remember the goodwill that poured into the United States from all over the world immediately after we were struck on September 11, 2001? We should all be Americans in spirit.
It is time for the world’s nations to reconcile their petty differences and come together arm-in-arm to find additional ways to end terrorism. Then, we could truly call ourselves - a Coalition of the Living.