Print edition for September 15, 2001

Where I Stand -- Brian Greenspun: Resolve to move on: WE HAVE WITNESSED a time of national disaster. We have joined in a time of national mourning. It is time to move ahead.

Letter: Seal the borders; send U.N. away: It is time to move the United Nations. Move it to Russia, Africa, France or England. Move it anywhere but get it out of our country. The United States has paid its share of United Nations expenses.

Letter: Americans live in a new world: Our innocence has been changed now and maybe we cannot walk so naively as we once did.

Guest Columnist William Safire: Terrorists had too much information on president: WASHINGTON -- At 9:03 a.m. Tuesday, as Vice President Dick Cheney was staring at the TV screen, the second hijacked airliner exploded against the Twin Towers. At that moment his Secret Service detail grabbed him and hurried him down to "PEOC."

Guest Columnist Michael R. Gordon: If war is ahead, U.S. must change strategy: LONDON -- If the terrorist attacks this week, as George W. Bush says, mark the first war of the 21st century, waging that fight will require new military thinking and bolder tactics, allied experts say.

Columnist Jon Ralston: Feeling of nothingness overwhelmed by emotion: IT WASN'T UNTIL late in the week that I finally felt it -- the sadness, the revulsion, the queasiness.

Guest Columnist Paul Krugman: Economic aftershocks don't have to be major ones: It seems almost in bad taste to talk about dollars and cents after an act of mass murder. Nonetheless, we must ask about the economic aftershocks from Tuesday's horror.

Letter: Divine guidance to help us cope: Someone or something has gone astray from the guidance of God, and has so blindly caused a disaster on our green Earth.

Guest columnist Thomas L. Friedman: Coming war will demand our best: As I restlessly lay awake early Wednesday, with CNN on my TV and dawn breaking over the holy places of Jerusalem, my ear somehow latched onto a statement made by the U.S. transportation secretary, Norman Mineta, about the new precautions that would be put in place at U.S. airports in the wake of Tuesday's unspeakable terrorist attacks: There will be no more curbside check-in, he said. I suddenly imagined a group of terrorists somewhere here in the Middle East, sipping coffee, also watching CNN and laughing hysterically: "Hey boss, did you hear that? We just blew up Wall Street and ...

Letter: Passengers are real culprits: This struck me as the "real" tragedy. To think that three people with knives could herd that large of a group of people around like sheep disgusts me. Those Americans had their chance at bat and walked away from the plate without taking a swing.

Guest Editorial from the New York Times: New Yorkers muster necessary courage: We have heard episode after episode in which someone, coming down or going up the stairwell of the World Trade Center, perhaps, or trapped outside in the coils of a dark burning cloud with strangers, has done just what needed to be done, and it was more than enough. In Lower Manhattan, exhausted emergency workers of every kind have acted as though there were nothing special to think about what they were doing.

Letter: What if Yucca had been hit?: With the disastrous attack on New York and on our own Pentagon by hijacked commercial airliners, what if one of those airliners was aimed at the entrance of Yucca Mountain? Or worse, what if there was a bomb placed in one of the containers there or on its way there? Has anyone thought this out? What would be the total effect on the Western United States?

Letter: Please don't prejudge group: In the first few days following the 1995 attack on the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Muslims reported more than 200 incidents of harassment, threats and actual violence. This is a concern once again for the Muslim community because of the negative stereotypes that exist, mostly due to the lack of knowledge about Islam and also negative media portrayal in movies such as "Executive Decision" in 1996 and "The Siege" in 1998.

Columnist Mike O'Callaghan: It's now our turn to hunt them: MANY AMERICANS of my generation have recalled where they were and how they felt Sunday, Dec. 7, 1941. Yes, I can remember the anger that was felt by my family, headed by a veteran of World War I. Uncle Allen and his family were at our farm for a chicken and squirrel dinner when the battery radio gave us the news. Their son, Gerry, a submariner, last wrote them a letter from Pearl Harbor.

Letter: No species more evil than man: It's hard to comprehend a philosophy that teaches that the reward for mass murder is an automatic entry into heaven. These suicidal "volunteers," for their own salvation, need an immediate rude awakening and complete change of heart.

Letter: Act demands retaliation: Being a world leader, we are supposed to be kind and just.

Letter: Sanction the sympathizers: Countries that participate in terrorist actions shall face military retaliation as well. We need to declare war on terrorism and we need to strike quickly while the world is sympathetic to our cause. President Bush should hold dialogue with the Taliban leaders of Afghanistan and demand that they extradite Osama bin Ladin to the United States.

Letter: Finding peace through faith: I wept for those I did not know, and feared for the lives of those who did not show.

Letter: Cockpits should be more secure: The pilots could get food from a double door slot and have a restroom in the cabin. There could be a locker for carry-on, or overhead baggage, and the flight attendants would be in charge of retrieval of any necessary objects from bags. The flight attendants would have a description of the article and handle it first, deciding on its necessity and safety.

Letter: Hatred masked as devotion: Turn over the cowardly one who hides in your skirts. He would sacrifice his own followers' seemingly worthless lives and use them as kamikaze pilots to commit the ultimate insult by making missiles of United States passenger airliners filled with Americans of all nationalities, striking at American icons. He would also risk your life and integrity and that of entire nations for his own vision. It is a vision driven by hate, masked as religious piousness and fueled by money of which you will earn little.

Letter: U.S. continues to be model of hope for world: As we seek justice we must deal with the nasty reality that those who are willing to die for their cause, and bring others with them to their death, will not be distracted by the threat of retaliation. They consider it an honor to die. Our desire for justice and revenge in the most direct sense will most likely never be fully satisfied. We must accept the notion that our direct strategy must be to bring those to justice who committed the acts and eliminate others who would take their cause. Prevention by any and all means is the only ...