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What about anything else I wrote?

For me, the key issue is what 9/11 meant, and what should our response be.

Was 9/11 an isolated attack by one small group of individuals or part of a larger issue?

For me, 9/11 was something much larger, but something that was brought home to us as Americans for the first time.

While 9/11 was by far the deadliest terrorist attack we have seen, it was by far not the first on the U.S. Since 1979, we have dealt with fundamentalist Islamic attacks on and off throughout the world. We know about the revolution in Iran and the seizing of American hostages in Tehran. We saw the bloodshed in Lebanon, violence that led to a clash between Syrian and American forces as well as the loss of life in the Beruit barracks bombing. We saw the rise of terrorism in the 1980's with bombings and airline hijackings, as well as our battles with Lybia. In the late 1980's we battled Iranian paramilitary forces and the Iranian Navy in the Persian Gulf. Then, of course, we had the war against Saddam and the fight in Somalia. Throughout the 1990's we had a series of attacks, including one here in the U.S. homeland in 1993 in New York. For two decades we had dealt with terrorism and fundamentalist Islam. Over time we saw different groups, organizations, and nations, but one underlying thread; Islam.

These were by and large, outside of the 1993 WTC atacks, overseas, at arms length battles, though. They were sporatic, and far from home, so while serious, they were seen in isolation, and not as a threat to our way of life. Then came 9/11...

To me, 9/11 should have changed everything about how we viewed the region, the nations of the region, terrorism, etc. 9/11 really wasn't the start of anti-American attacks, but it was the first time they really shook our sense of security. We saw that they could threaten our way of life, and our existence as a whole. And such a threat should have been met with a national resolve to deal with the terrorist threat of radical Islam once and for all. A.Q. and Bin Laden will pass into history, but the threat will continue. WE suffered death and destruction well before Bin Laden, and it's foolish to think that the end of him or A.Q. will make everything fine and dandy now. The threat is much greater than one organization or group. And dealing with that one in isolation will not end the threat. The issue of further nuclear, chemical, or biological prolifieration that has surfaced the past few years only adds to the sense of urgency and adds a new and deadly variable to the threat we've faced since 1979. Time is not on our side.