We are all New Yorkers

Published 9:00 pm Wednesday, September 12, 2001

Now, we are all New Yorkers. And we are all proud of the New Yorkers and Washingtonians who rushed to respond to the crime against America and humanity.

In a sense, too, the whole world was American on Tuesday, sharing in the suffering inflicted by vicious mass-murderers. Make no mistake, humanity regards this as a crime against all peoples. Around the world, people with any hold on moral values are appalled at the barbarism of the crimes’ perpetrators. In Beijing, horrified people watched their TVs into the middle of the night. From Perth, Australia, a 15-year-old girl named Sarah e-mailed this newspaper enclosing a poem she had written and a note that ended: "Thank you for all you have done, America, and even though I am not American I cry in sorrow … GOD SAVE AMERICA!"

Although they have said plenty of prayers, many of our friends in New York have had little time for tears. Some of them — Americans of every professional and ethnic background — have joined in the rescue and recovery efforts on lower Manhattan. They are heroes, just as were those who died carrying out Tuesday’s rescue efforts. There were other heroes, including the men who, after learning by cell phone of the other terrorist attacks, apparently fought back against the hijackers and forced their flight down in Pennsylvania.

Of course, elsewhere there are some, perhaps not many, who don’t understand that the victims — not the perpetrators — were martyred. But, with focused and patient leadership quite apparent in Washington, D.C., the national leaders of such people likely will face choices. The rest of the world recognizes the threat to peace in barbarism.

President Bush, with the experienced help of Secretary of State Colin Powell, has already begun to build the type of international coalition that will be needed to respond to Tuesday’s acts of war in ways that have lasting effects for peace in the world. The victims — innocent human beings — deserve that.