As I write this I am watching the horrendous pictures of the World Trade Center burning.  ABC News is reporting that a plane has crashed into the Pentagon.  Now one of the towers has collapsed.  Reports of other explosions and plane crashes are rampant.  As the morning progresses, the other World Trade Center tower collapses.

What in the name of God is happening?

While it is too soon to know anything definitively, it seems pretty clear that the United States is under attack.  It is too early to know whether this attack is from international or domestic terrorists, but it appears to be the worst act of terrorism ever launched against the United States.

I was writing another column to be my first for PurePolitics.com.  I’ve been asked to contribute my thoughts about politics in general and Alabama politics in particular.  We have some experience with terrorist attacks in the state of Alabama.  In a few days we will mark the 28^th anniversary of the terrorist bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham.  While we often refer to the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center as the first terrorist attack on domestic soil, make no mistake; the bombings, lynchings, and beatings that Blacks and civil rights workers endured through the Jim Crow and civil rights eras were acts of terrorism.

Those who engage in terrorism often claim they do it to send a message.  Certainly those who engage in such acts seek to send messages.  But instead of communicating sound ideas, terrorists send messages of intimidation, hatred, cowardice, and arrogance.  They forget that rhetoric–persuasive discourse–is the proper tool for persuasion.

For the arrogant, discourse is despised because it implies equality among the participants.  Equality would mean that other ideas, opinions and people are as valuable as their own.  The driving force behind terrorism is the idea that one individual or group of individuals is superior to those being attacked.  There can be no room for other viewpoints.  There are none so dangerous as those who arrogantly think that they and only they know the path of righteousness.

Intimidation is favored by the arrogant because it imparts a feeling of power over those who they believe are in the wrong.  If one cannot be persuaded by reason, then force becomes an attractive option.  It is no coincidence that terrorists cannot persuade because their ideas are so extreme.   Reasonable people can easily see that extreme ideas are neither logical, moral, nor good.  Discourse exposes the flaws of the terrorist’s ideology.  Intimidation circumvents that process by replacing reason with fear.

One cannot engage in acts of terror without at least a certain amount of hatred for victims of those attacked.  Their lives are expendable.  Terrorists refer to their victims in less than human terms–as “vermin,” “beasts,” “infidels,” “satans,” “niggers,” “thugs,” etc.  Names that dehumanize and condemn an entire class or race of people are small acts of terrorism.  They certainly nurture the seeds of hatred that can grow into larger acts of intimidation, arrogance, and violence.

Finally, terrorism is the supreme act of cowardice.  It intentionally targets people who are unable to fight back.  Whether it is four little girls in a church in Birmingham, workers in government office buildings, passengers on an airplane, shoppers in a mall, or workers in the World Trade Center.  These are all people who cannot fight back.  Even suicide bombers are cowards because they will never have to answer for their actions–at least not in this world.  Whether they hide their faces behind hoods or scarves, whether they live secluded in woods, mountains or deserts, cowards know they cannot show themselves to the world. Discourse requires confrontation and cowards cannot stand confrontation–especially if there is a risk that they will be exposed.

Unfortunately, we’ve had terrorists with us for many years.  During the civil rights era, Birmingham was known as “Bombingham” because of the number of explosions designed to intimidate the Black community.  Today we’ve seen the nightmare of “Bombingham” on a national level.  As a mode of communication, terrorism is rarely effective.  In fact it often unifies victims and mobilizes opposition to the causes espoused by extremists.  Just as the quest for racial justice was not halted by the vicious attack on the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, Americans will not be intimidated by the hatred and violence behind today’s attacks.  We learned that thirty years ago in Alabama.  The world will learn it today.

God help us all.

Dr. Susan Fillippeli owns Phronesis Consulting and is a contributing writer for PurePolitics.com.