Sept. 11, 2001

MARINA DEL REY, CA--The terrorist attacks on the World Trade Towers and the Pentagon are an act of war, said Robert W. Tracinski, a columnist for Creators Syndicate and a senior fellow at the Ayn Rand Institute.

Our enemies have attacked, not a mere military base or warship, but the very center of our civilization, said Tracinski. An attack of this size, carefully timed and coordinated, is the product of a large organization that can only operate with the support and protection of a foreign government.

Tracinski noted that our failure to retaliate against the governments responsible for previous terror attacks made today's slaughter possible. Pointing to the Khobar Towers bombing in 1996, the bombings of our African embassies in 1998, and the sinking of the USS Cole less than a year ago, he concluded: Through our actions, we have assured the terrorists, and the governments that sponsor them, that they will escape retribution. That message must now be decisively reversed.

We must recognize, Tracinski continued, that since this morning a state of war has existed between the United States and the countries who sponsor, support, and harbor terrorists. It does not matter which one of them had a direct role in today's attacks. They supported previous attacks, have promised to attack the US repeatedly--and may do so again tomorrow. They are all accomplices in the same threat.

Tracinski invoked the words of Franklin Roosevelt after Pearl Harbor: We must not only defend ourselves to the uttermost but make it very certain that this form of treachery shall never again endanger us.