As a personal matter, Americans have recently received a lesson in the clarity inspired by tragedy. Who among us has not re-examined priorities and fundamental assumptions about the world in which we live this past week? This personal soul-searching has its analog in the public arena, as leaders address the horrible question of how it might have been prevented.

And so, as policymakers, media pundits and others who claim expertise in these matters struggle with this evolution of thought on the topics of terrorism, war, security, retaliation, revenge and defense, it is important to strive for perspective; to think carefully about what might be wrong with previous modes of thought on these topics.

Every newspaper and news broadcast is full of attempts at this examination. One topic has been the alleged "failure of intelligence," which boils down to the assumption that acts of this magnitude ought to be impossible to mount without leaving clues that the alphabet soup (FBI, CIA, DIA, NSA, etc.) could and should have detected. The New York Times, in particular, has recommended in editorials that Congress should allot more money for operations that infiltrate terrorist organizations.

While it is refreshing to see the Times recommend anything even aimed at defending America from foreign attack by a means other than paper (i.e., treaties), this position reveals the limitations of the clarity of tragedy mentioned above. As many others have observed, America has been targeted by an act of war. Elaborately bankrolled undercover cops and informers, many of whom have engaged in acts of terrorism themselves, are not the answer. In fact, intelligence work itself is only part of the answer; and if it has failed, it is because it was asked to perform an impossible task.

Every military event is characterized as either an "intelligence failure" or an "operational success" to allow policymakers to ignore the third possibility. The third option is this: intelligence was adequate, or even outstanding, but the policy based upon it was flawed. In this case, that policy has long included a lack of action against known terrorists and the states that sponsor them. This has gone on so long that some known terrorists (Muammar Khadafi, Yasir Arafat) have been able to rehabilitate their reputations into that of statesmen. Worse, the U.S. has maintained almost normal diplomatic relations with regimes that our intelligence has proven sponsor terrorists. Most fundamental of all, the model of thought on terrorism has been crime-based, rather than war-based. This lunacy persists in the words of Secretary of State Colin Powell, who proclaimed the necessity to "build a case" against Osama bin Laden.

No amount of research will produce any discussion of "building a case" against Japan in December of 1941. More to the point, no case was built against Germany, either. The U.S. went to war against Germany, as a technical matter, because Germany was an ally of the attacker. Iraq, bin Laden and others have expressed satisfaction over the attack; the Taliban has refused to cooperate with the U.S. These are reasons enough to consider them allies of the attacker, thus combatants. There is no need to "build a case" against bin Laden because proper policy does not hinge on his involvement in this particular attack. Anti-American rhetoric is one thing; spouting it in the current environment is another, especially out of mouths that have proven their willingness to attack the U.S. Powell has also said that now was the perfect time for Israel to return to the "peace process" with the Palestinians, yet another call to ignore the complicity of Arafat, and to deny the truth that there can be no peace with terrorists short of victory.

The Times also claimed, in the same editorial, that the attack proves the uselessness of missile defense, since a fully deployed system could not have prevented the carnage. Ironically, the argument advanced after the signing of the 1972 ABM Treaty, in calling for cuts in air defense spending, was as follows: Russia has thousands of ICBMs that we just agreed not to defend ourselves against. Why waste money defending against its hundreds of long-range bombers, since they could just hit us with ballistic missiles instead? Had that argument not prevailed, it is probable that the U.S. would on September 11th  have had an air defense system that might have shot down the second and third kamikazi airliners, saving thousands of lives. No further comment on the utility of arguments against defenses on the basis that they are not comprehensive seems necessary.

Refusal to pursue a policy that protects American citizens is tantamount to the renunciation of national existence. A government that engages in diplomacy and trade with nations directly or indirectly responsible for the murder of its people denies the very raison d'etre of the state. A look at Israel's interaction with the Palestinians should be sufficient to clarify this point. While the scope of Black Tuesday's attack is orders of magnitude beyond attacks in Israel, its purpose (and perhaps one of its sources) are identical. Those who have entreated Israel to show "restraint" will either see their error in the rubble in New York and Washington, or they should be replaced. America can withstand the onslaught of any foreign aggressor on Earth; whether it can abide its own leadership standing in the way of response to that aggression is far less clear.