By Daniel Nelson

What a scary two weeks it has been. Less than a month ago I could log on to the Internet without being consulted on the probability of a draft and I could go grocery shopping without having to bear Stars and Stripes Forever. Six thousand people were still alive and 50,000 airline workers still had their jobs. Figures like these have caused Americans and the President to call for war, but did we miss the boat? Did this war start on September 11th, or has it been an ongoing fight that took advantage of our own smugness and short attention spans?

The destruction of the World Trade Center was more of a climax to other terrorist actions rather than a beginning. The attack on the USS Cole, the bombing of our embassies and the original 1993 attempt at the Trade Center all precipitated this month’s events. News organizations and the government have been quick to lay blame on Osama bin Laden, but this has been more of an attempt to put a face on a faceless enemy rather than a telling of the whole story. This “war” will be against more than any one individual or even any one organization. We are all familiar with the footage of Palestinians celebrating in the streets over the news of the attacks, and, more recently, riots have broken out across Pakistan over their President’s announced support of the US. This is a culture that clearly hates us, and it is a culture that, as a world superpower, we are helplessly entwined in. Where have these sentiments come from? People do not inherently celebrate the deaths of 6,000 civilians. Is the fact that other countries view us as an evil empire a sign of our nation’s failings as a world leader?

As the President said in his national address, the US has been the top source of humanitarian efforts in countries like Afghanistan. But have these efforts been to scale with our own wealth? There are obvious and unmovable cultural differences between the US and the Middle East, and there is no possible excuse for the horrendous events on September 11th, but such hatred and ignorance that led to these terrorist acts does not appear overnight. The Trade Center tragedy was a link in a chain of many previous events, a chain of events supported by a large group of people. As much meddling as we have done in the Middle East, perhaps we did not meddle enough to change the poverty, isolation, and political atmosphere that has bred such immeasurable hate.

Daniel Nelson is a freshman and a columnist for The Louisville Cardinal.