Tilting at Windmills.

• Author: PETERS, CHARLES
• Position: Brief notes

The Right Response to Terrorism * Phlebotomized Uranium Celebrity Chicken Soup * Tween Chic * Stalling at 70 mph

ON SEPTEMBER 11TH, I SHARED the heartbreak, outrage, and surge of patriotism experienced by almost every American. As the days went by, however, I began to worry that as a nation we were in danger of losing our cool at a time when keeping cool was crucial.

"In midtown, men in business suits were talking about nuking Kabul," wrote John Tierney in The New York Times. Robert Novak, a conservative columnist with excellent Republican sources, quoted a Republican senator "with good ties to the Pentagon" as saying, "we're going to bomb Afghanistan into a parking lot." If you've been to Afghanistan, you know it can't be bombed back into the stone age, because that's where it is now. Kabul has long looked like it was bombed last week. All that the bombing would accomplish, other than killing people, is to rearrange the rubble and turn friends and relatives of the victims into the terrorists of tomorrow.

To the extent we pursue a course of retaliation, the only kind that makes sense is to go after the actual terrorists themselves and the actual officials responsible for harboring them. But we should be aware that even success at getting Osama bin Laden (which I pray we enjoy) may do little about terrorism in general.

Pablo Escobar, the Colombian drug lord, was to the narcotics trade what bin Laden is to terrorism. We took out Escobar and his whole gang. Unfortunately, the drug business still thrives.

The Israelis have been for half a century the world's most skillful retaliators, but all it has brought them is angrier Arabs and more retaliation in return.

I'm far from being a Biblical scholar, but I do remember the passage from Romans that says, vengeance is mine, saith the Lord. It does seem to make more sense to concentrate not on revenge but on preventing terrorism in the future. If, instead of focusing on retaliation, we concentrate on prevention, the main thing we need is a radical improvement of the government agencies involved. On 60 Minutes, the Sunday after September 11th, Mike Wallace concluded his interview with three top CIA officials with this question: "Do any of you speak Arabic?" The answer came in the form of embarrassed coughs and ahems. The CIA and the FBI and the National Security Agency all need many more employees who know the languages of the Islamic people. Those telephone calls the NSA is eavesdropping on don't do us much good when, as often is the case, they don't get translated. As for the CIA, it recently came to light that one of its employees translated "depleted uranium" into "phlebotomized uranium," something that does not exist.

The CIA and State Department need to change their cultures overseas which have long been defined by an imperative this magazine has called Never Leave the Cities Where the Good Bars Are. The FAA has to stop caving in to the airlines on one safety issue after another, and the Congress has to stop giving in to whatever the airline lobbies want. In other words, government reform must stop being the lonely cause of a few and become an urgent concern of everyone.

In the view of many knowledgeable people, the greatest danger is bioterrorism, and the most likely way it will be inflicted is by private plane. As we pointed out last year, these planes are almost completely unregulated. Any cargo can be put aboard them, and any licensed pilot can fly them. Private pilots, many of whom are rich and powerful--Donald Rumsfeld is one--have fought to keep the FAA from acting.

I have been thrilled by the rebirth of patriotism that we have seen, especially the long lines of people waiting to give blood. But I have to wonder if, day in and day out, people will do what has to be done. Some early signs are not encouraging. Amy Waldman and David Cay Johnston of The New York Times, having heard about military recruiters deluged with phone calls from people who said they wanted to enlist, went to recruiting offices and asked if these people had actually come in to sign up. The answer was no. And what became of that patriotic Wall Street rally that was supposed to happen on the Monday the stock market reopened?

But let's assume...