Columnist Benjamin Grove: More to leading world than making war

Benjamin Grove

Friday, Sept. 13, 2002 | 5:32 a.m.

THE ONE-YEAR anniversary of Sept. 11 came and went with few surprises. The television specials aired and faded. The ceremonies -- big and small, some tasteful, some Hollywood -- unfolded. People marked the day in their own ways. For some, there will be no closure.

But for many, it's time to move on.

For Washington, that means shifting attention to war. President Bush wasted no time appealing to the United Nations on Thursday to support an invasion of Iraq. In the coming weeks the attack will be debated in the nation's capital and throughout America.

But there is more to being the world's leading nation than making war. America should also ponder higher purposes.

That's what a few of the nation's top thinkers said Wednesday, as they gathered together to talk over what the nation has learned in the past year and what it should do now.

Nobel laureate and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel; former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright; Washington, D.C., Archbishop Cardinal Theodore McCarrick; and Susan Eisenhower, Ike's grand-daughter and president of the Eisenhower Group, met for the discussion at the National Press Club as many of the nation's citizens were glued to the nonstop anniversary television coverage.

Aside from the debate about applying U.S. military might, America should also use its power for good, driven by the "empathy of a great nation," Albright said.

"Because of our position and wealth we have responsibilities," she said. "We are a part of the world."

And America does not have the market cornered on grief -- terrorism is a way of life for people around the world. Also consider:

What is America doing about the plights of other nations? Perhaps not enough, the panelists said.

"Your neighbor is not just someone across the street," McCarrick said. "It's someone across the world. We can't just live for ourselves."

On another topic, several panelists talked about what made Sept. 11 so troubling, beyond the loss of life.

Albright said Americans are simply not used to being attacked within their own borders.

"It's a very different kind of war," she said. "For the first time (in years), our territory was pierced."

In his career, Wiesel has studied and written about terrorism because "I wanted to know why terrorists choose violence as a language," he said. On Sept. 11, he said, "For the first time in the history of terrorism, they left no message."

Later in the discussion, the moderator asked: Where was God?

Wiesel said a teacher once asked him to name the most tragic figure in the Bible. Wiesel had guessed Moses, Abraham, Isaac. All wrong, the teacher had said -- the most tragic figure is God.

"Don't (the terrorists) realize when they do that they make God a murderer?" Wiesel said.

McCarrick said God was "right there" on Sept. 11.

"God has so much respect for us that he gives us free will, he doesn't impose goodness," McCarrick said. "God always gives us the grace to make the right choice, but he doesn't force us to do it."

The group also talked about the war on terrorism, and the panelists agreed terrorists have to be rooted out -- very carefully. This war will not take the United States into battle with other nations, but it will take us inside their borders, they said. Terrorists thrive even inside the borders of our allies.

"Terrorism is like a cancer," Eisenhower said. "It takes very special surgery."

Eisenhower was dismayed that so many people on Wednesday stayed away from airports, stayed home from work and even kept their children out of school.

"Tomorrow I hope Americans are going to stand up and say, 'I hope we are better than this,' " Eisenhower said.

McCarrick said he hopes that Sept. 11 did not permanently transform America into a fearful nation.

"This kind of thing can really upset a generation," he said. "It can upset a whole society. But you have to go on and keep living."