In the broad spectrum of crime, there can be no denying terrorism is in a category all by itself. It is the worst. If Bernie Madoff and Mohammad Atta were overbooked for the same firing squad, I think 99% of all those polled would pardon Madoff and perhaps even volunteer for trigger pulling duty against Atta.
In Boston, for example, how utterly despicable it is to pack nails, BBs, and ball bearings around a bomb you intend to detonate at a family event. You don’t care if the victims are little old ladies, babies, children, men, women, teenagers, Catholics, atheists, Muslims, cats or dogs. To kill or attempt to kill or maim on a large scale – and indiscriminately at that – is nothing short of demonic.
I think of terrorism as a malevolent cancer that keeps coming back. I read a column earlier today at cnn.com by LZ Granderson that expressed it better than I can. Here is an excerpt:
If September 11, 2001, made you cry, then April 15, 2013, should make you angry.
All of the laws, the creation of Homeland Security, the trillions spent, the political grandstanding and debates and yet the best we can do is make the country safer. We will never, ever be safe again. Not in the way many of us remember being safe growing up.
When I’m in a large crowded space, I check for emergency exits … and I hate it.
But like love and good, evil is an omnipresent force imposing itself on the rest of society like an untreatable cancer. So while Obama telling the American people those responsible will “feel the full weight of justice,” we are haunted by the fact that “justice” won’t bring the victims back.
“Justice” won’t undo the fear embedded in the people who were closest to the blast. “Justice” won’t take us back to September 10, 2001 … back before the word “terrorism” was on the tip of every American’s tongue.