I agree. We living in disturbing times. As a thinking person, I think about them. As a writer, I write about them. As a solipsist, I share.
However, I want to make one thing perfectly clear. I'm looking forward, not back. I don't advocate revenge; I advocate survival. Vengefulness is neither a survival trait, nor a moral behavior. Honestly, I believe Vengeance is the Lord's, both ours and theirs.
I wish to strongly advocate the survival trait of self-defense. My moral sense says Never initiate violence; never ignore those who do. Self-defense is not limited to reacting at the instant of attack. Self-defense includes deterrence, forestalling those with a history of unprovoked attacks.
Those were unprovoked attacks in New York and DC. Don't believe for an instant that the US invited terrorism by our actions. Our skirt was too short, so we deserved to be raped? Bzzzzzt. If US foreign policy changes, then we'll have no more terrorist attacks? Bzzzzzt.
Believe that and your head stays in the clouds ... right until the moment of impact.
I won't let such people take me with them.
On Tuesday, the gun that has been pointed at us was proven to be loaded. No amount of political correctness will aim it elsewhere. Hey folks—they already shot us four times! How can we keep from being bloodied by a fifth or sixth? Some would have us hold up a badge and tell the terrorists that they're under arrest.
I won't let such people take me with them.
I say we shoot to kill and salt the earth. Disturbing, but true. The US government must end this threat in a manner serving as deterrent to others. Nothing of the kind should grow there again. Otherwise, we shall evermore risk terrorism on any US flight, on any US street, in any US office.
This is not the world in which I plan to raise my son. I want him to live in the world before Tuesday. I want the gun pointed elsewhere than my son. I want the gunmen dead who dares threaten my son. That's why I pay taxes.
N. Machiavelli: If we can't be loved, then we must be feared. M. Musashi: The fire and stones cut: Anticipate the attack and forestall it. These men lived long lives in violent times with quite disturbing philosophies.
I'd like to, myself.
Never initiate violence; never ignore those who have.

Foolishly, i watched CNN all day Tuesday, and learned i can be moved to curse out loud in a room without people. I viewed five different angles on the second tower impact, and learned on the fourth that i can grieve for strangers. I have seen the profile of Saturn in a Virginia crater, and know that those people are buryed deep in the land, for topsoil has less stopping power than concrete and glass.
I know the dead once removed: one plane passenger and a half-dozen Trade Center workers—coworkers and friends of my friends. My step-grandmother was at the DC airport that morning, planning to fly west. She saw the pentagon burning before she heard the news. Sometimes i cry when i realize a new connection.
My infant son appears worried when i contemplate these things. We no longer watch the news together. When he's happy, I sometimes think: what is this world our chilldren will inherit?
A conservative is a person with something to conserve. HELLO.
After three days being offended by the word, i have come to agree this must be war. Identify the surviving terrorists accurately, and kill them efficiently. Make reply in the only language they understand. An eye for an eye.
How can I maintain killing is always wrong, but advocate a death penalty? This contradiction i cannot afford to ignore. Yet personal reconciliations may have to wait. There are lesser evils.
Survival of the fittest is not comprised of moral decisions. The president has to balance two duties, but acting in the moral high-ground against an irrational people is less important than protecting US citizens from violent enemies. Courts and due process must never shield an uncivil people from a civil one.
They made a weapon of our people, so each of us may evermore wonder what it was like.
We must tell them in their mother tongue.

There is sobbing of the strong,
And a pall upon the land;
But the People in their weeping
Bare the iron hand;
Beware the People weeping 
When they bare the iron hand.