EDITORIAL TERRORIZING AMERICA SEPTEMBER 11, 2001 - ANOTHER DATE THAT WILL LIVE IN INFAMY.

BEFORE about 9 a.m. Tuesday morning in New York, the twin towers of the World Trade Center stood as a symbol of America's economic strength and overall might.

In minutes, the towers became infernos. In little more than an hour, neither stood at all - felled by maniacal terrorists who hijacked airliners and crashed them into the 110-story buildings.

Now their absence in the New York skyline presents a new sort of symbol: of a country in mourning, in shock and more vulnerable than its citizens ever imagined.

The Pentagon, symbol of the military might of the world's most powerful nation, was turned into a fiery caldron in a third attack by a hijacked airliner. A fourth airliner crashed near Pittsburgh, Pa.

The death toll was expected to reach into the thousands. The agony of the nation brought comparison to the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941. To be sure, Sept. 11, 2001, is also a date that will live in infamy.

We cannot, we must not, forget the horror of this day.

The terror cascaded throughout the day, bringing business and government to a virtual halt, shattering our sense of personal and national security.

All the safeguards that we naively thought were sufficient for our protection proved horrendously inadequate: America's $60 billion counterintelligence operation, the Federal Aviation Administration and the safety of commercial airliners - even the Department of Defense, which was unable to thwart an attack on its own headquarters.

Now we know not only that there are zealots who hate Americans so much they are willing to die to kill us, but also that they seemingly have little difficulty overcoming our efforts to stop them. They are organized, they are well-funded, and they think nothing of indiscriminately taking innocent lives.

We also know that in a world where nuclear and biochemical weapons continue to proliferate, the danger continues to mount. We see how much damage a few airplanes can create - and shudder at the prospect of what the enemies of humanity are capable of doing.

For now, we're not quite sure who our enemies are, where to find them or how to strike back.

For now, they are winning.

They have killed our loved ones; they have decimated our confidence; they have further destabilized an already shaky economy.

But they have also awakened us from our comfort, our sense that we can live in peace in a world where hatred has taken such twisted forms that the sick minds of terrorists somewhere out there are gloating in triumph.

They have awakened this giant, and we will - we must - rebuild and fight back, both to exact justice and to stop any more such attacks from ever happening again.

But nothing will ever wash away the shock and grief that we felt as Americans on Sept. 11, 2001.