A giant grievously wounded

There is a lot of pain in America. There is a lot of anger as well. Sridhar Krishnaswami on the aftermath of Terror Tuesday.

AMERICA WILL never be the same again. When terrorists hit New York and Washington on September 11 they not merely struck at the economic and military symbols and might of the United States - they hit at the heart and soul of America. And the response is going to be on lines that the world has hardly seen before, if the first indications are anything to go by.

The terrorists may have picked their time and target, but the response is going to be on America's terms. And it is not going to be confined to popping one or two cruise missiles or a sporadic dropping of smart bombs at targets. In the words of many senior officials, the campaign is going to be serious and sustained.

Internationally, the Bush administration is trying to put in place a coalition of sorts, not exactly on the lines attempted at the time of the Persian Gulf showdown a decade ago. But with the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation coming out with an unprecedented statement, there is now the hope in Washington that Russia too could be talked into going the military way, should a target be identified. And the Republican administration has made it known that it is not going to make a distinction between the perpetrators, those who support them and those who harbour them. Given that, a number of countries could face the wrath of America.

And if the response of Congress to what has taken place is anything to go, the President, Mr. George W. Bush, is going to get something far more than what President Lyndon Johnson got in 1964 by way of the Tonkin Gulf Resolution. When it comes to fighting terrorism nearly every law maker is going to bend over backwards to accomodate the President and for good reasons. There is the conviction, finally many would say, that terrorism has to be rooted out or ``whipped'', as the President might say.

The theme may be simple but not simplistic. What the Bush administration has said in the last few days is that there are no two ways of looking at terrorism - you are either on the side of Washington or on the side of the terrorists.

There has been a raft of theories on who may have been behind the attacks of September 11; and Osama bin Laden's was one name that came up from the first minutes of the disaster. But investigative agencies are also looking into whether a number of terrorist cells may have come together to carry out the deadly attacks.

There is a lot of pain in America. There is a lot of anger as well. There is also a lot of apprehension in the country - that a crime perpetrated by a bunch of cowards masquerading as crusaders of a holy war should not turn into a war pitting one religion against another. And, in the midst of all this, there is also the hope that America known to be a very tolerant country will continue to stay that way in spite of the knee-jerk reactions of a small group of hicks and red-necks.

But there is no denying the magnitude of the tragedy. Forget about the symbols in New York and Washington. The fact is that thousands of people have perished in New York alone. Both in New York and in Washington - the former especially - very few bodies have been pulled out of the rubble and thousands of limbs are just strewn around.

Right now no one is even counting the costs of bringing New York back to where it was. The skylines changed within a span of minutes, but that is not the point. At one stroke, whether it is New York or Washington, America realised not just the viciousness of the terrorists but its own vulnerability. It was fashionable to sit at conferences and talk about hypothetical terrorist attacks. The real thing happened on September 11.

For a country that is truly the leader in technology and in intelligence gathering there was also this rude awakening - that in spite of all the resources made available, there had just been this colossal lapse leading to such a horrendous loss of life and property. The investigative agencies were quick to bounce back, but the damage had been done. There has been the initial charge that perhaps America has over-invested in technology to the point of ignoring the human angle to this whole business.

A hefty price has been paid for lax systems at airports - four planes were hijacked at three different airports and all in a single day. Compare this to the fact that not a single hijacking had taken place in the country in the last decade or so. Critics argue that the security systems at airports are antiquated; they fault the airlines and airports for cutting costs at the expense of security.

The answers will fall in place; but it is going to take a long time. The weeks and months to come will show not just the determination of the U.S., its allies and friends on where this fight against terrorism is going.

In all the talk of retribution, there is also the quiet and sober feeling that civilised nations think and act differently from uncivilised ones.

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