A Terror-Filled Day.

My heart goes out to the families of the victims of the diabolical terrorist attack that struck Pennsylvania, New York City, and the Pentagon yesterday, September 11.

I cannot begin to sense the horror the survivors are living through or appreciate the pain they are suffering.

It was impossible to watch the events unfold without almost getting physically ill. My colleague, Scot Vee Gamble, called me at the office at 8:15 in the morning, just as I was reading page proofs for what was to be this issue. (We understandably had to make some last minute changes.)

"Did you hear the news?" he asked.

"What news?"

"The World Trade Center has been hit. You better turn on the TV."

And so I, like millions of Americans, spent the day in front of the television. Staff members gathered in disbelief in our little conference room. Tears flowed.

I was numb. All I could do was mutter about how surreal it was, like Mars Attacks or Independence Day, and avert my eyes when the footage got gory.

I left the office early to be with my kids as they were getting home from school. I'm not a psychologist; I don't know how children can take in and digest such news. By the time I got home they had heard about the attacks already.

I tried to explain, as best I could, what had happened. I reassured them we were safe, especially way out here in Madison, Wisconsin. And my wife, Jean, and I limited their exposure to TV. We even went to my nine-year-old's soccer game, just to put a coat of normalcy on.

After getting the kids to bed, we fell asleep with the TV running.

I'm back at work today, September 12, and it looks like the United States is going to war.

George W. Bush has fallen to the occasion, looking more Lilliputian than ever. He asked Congress for emergency spending authorization not only to help in the rescue operations but also to spend whatever it takes "to protect our national security." That was similar to the language his father used to authorize the Gulf War.

The media keep banging the drums, and by the time you read this, it's likely the United States will be raining violence across the globe.

Our response here is to serve as a reminder that violence is not the way.

Our response here is to seek to illuminate the roots of terrorism in hopes that our government will stop watering them.

Our response here is to try to ensure that the United States, so rightly horrified by the killing of so many innocent Americans, will stop killing innocent people abroad.

The United States does not have clean hands in the world. The history of the last fifty years is the history of U.S. war and repression in one Third World country after another.

It is not an exaggeration to say that the United States has acted as a terrorist from Guatemala to Iran, from El Salvador to Vietnam, from Chile to Indonesia. And today it still acts as a terrorist in Iraq and supports acts of terror by its allies Israel and Colombia.

To heighten the level of terror by waging all-out war against Afghanistan or any other country Bush is aiming his bombers at will serve no useful purpose. In fact, it may boomerang against us.

The point is to end all the terror: their terror and ours.

No one should have to see another day like September 11, 2001.