Security was tight at the embassy but work was not suspended. American officials debated whether a farewell party Wednesday evening in Makati for Chargé dAffaires Michael Malinowsky, which would also serve as a welcome party for Karen and new Cultural Affairs Officer Thomas Kral, should push through. They decided that life had to go on, that allowing themselves to be paralyzed would have been a victory for terrorism. Michael, by the way, said some Filipinos have offered to donate blood to survivors in New York.
Karen is from Boston, where hijackers boarded the two planes that smashed into the twin towers. Reports yesterday said there was a terrorist cell linked with Osama bin Laden operating in Boston. I asked Karen if she was scared. She said no, and she did look unfazed. But she tried to change the subject over lunch, giving me glimpses of an America without the specter of terrorism. Our conversation, however, kept veering back to New York and Washington.
Filipinos are no strangers to terrorism. We are familiar with Bin Laden, who has connections with our most ruthless terrorist group, the Abu Sayyaf, and who is widely suspected as the person behind the attacks in America. Only last Dec. 30, we were speechless as we saw the gory handiwork of lunatics at the Light Rail Transit. We were horrified by the body count: 18. Compare this with the death toll in Manhattan, Washington and Pennsylvania.
It will take a long time before we can all settle down to business as usual.
This "battle between good and evil," however, wont be as simple as World War II, where the lines between Allied and Axis forces were clearly drawn. This battle will inflict horrific collateral damage. You cant pulverize Afghanistan without hitting women and children.
Reports said the hijackers were armed only with bladed weapons. How do you fight an enemy whose most potent weapon is his readiness to die? Cutting-edge defense technology is no match for guerrilla warfare waged by zealots who think they can achieve personal salvation by taking human lives. A suicide bomber is more lethal than an ICBM.
In recent years the worst damages on American facilities were inflicted by car bombs and terrorists in a small boat. Such enemies can be invisible. They used to focus on military targets. Now weve seen the thousands of civilians who have become casualties in a new kind of war. No, we cant go back to business as usual any time soon.
Then I remembered that I had relatives in New York, one of them studying in New York University, and in Washington and Pennsylvania. Suddenly it was no longer a movie I was seeing.
My relatives are safe, but at least one person I know in Manila is still awaiting word about her sister, who was working on the 79th floor of the World Trade Center.
What salvation can lunatics get from harming civilians? Are such mass murderers aware that they are insane? Im afraid theyre unaware, and Im afraid that after seeing the devastation they have wreaked on America, their thirst for blood has been even more whetted.
I shudder at the implications of a military retaliation against those behind the attacks on New York and Washington. But I also shudder at the consequences of allowing this atrocity to pass without fighting back. The world is entering a different war.