Christopher Shays: “On September 11 we were brutally awakened to the harsh realities we dreamed might never reach our shores. With the…”

“On September 11 we were brutally awakened to the harsh realities we dreamed might never reach our shores. With the thousands of dead, we buried forever any illusion the scourge of transnational terrorism could not strike here. Former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called it our ``wake-up call from hell.'' We have awakened to a recurring nightmare of escalating brutality and carnage unfettered by moral or political constraints. Each attack is practice and prelude for the next. Global terrorism turns our strengths against us, exploiting the freedom, pluralism and openness we cherish to spread hate, fear and death. On that day, our world changed in ways we are still struggling to understand, our vision still blurred by disbelief and tears of grief. Since then, there have been times I find myself longing for a return to the Cold War. The numbing calm of mutually assured destruction seems in retrospect more tolerable than the unnerving wait for the next random act of barbaric terrorist mayhem. But if the global upheavals of the last century yield one lesson, it is this: the dynamic triumphs over the static, and we dare not indulge the urge to pause and reminisce. To be sure, the post-Soviet Pax Americana is not quite what we expected. The Cold War is over, yet the world is a more dangerous place.”