War Is Not the Answer 

My school, City-As-School, is in downtown Manhattan. So when I heard that two planes had hit the World Trade Center, I immediately left school to see what happened, walking south a few blocks towards the towers. 

Thousands of people were in the streets looking up at the buildings in total shock. Strangers were gathering, speculating on what was happening. 

I saw huge, gaping holes in the two towers, oozing a massive cloud of smoke. The air smelled horrible and stung like tear gas. It seemed incredible, like the end of the world. 

Scared for My Future 

I couldn’t stand looking at it anymore, especially when I heard people were jumping from their offices to their deaths, so I walked uptown to try to find some friends. 

Within an hour after the towers were struck, and after witnessing one of the towers collapse, I heard a plane overhead. Feeling like that plane might also come crashing down, I ran and hid in a stairwell. 

I was scared for my immediate safety, but I was also scared about the future. I had a strong feeling that the U.S. was going to go to war, as we did after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. 

I Wanted Revenge 

After the devastating attacks of September 11, many Americans wanted revenge. Even I, who was taught not to hate, wanted to see people killed to avenge the murder of the thousands of people in the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. 

I wanted to see any country, with any involvement, get pounded by bombs. I felt like beating up someone or breaking something. I wanted to join the military and go kill Osama bin Laden-the main suspect in the attack-myself. 

But by the weekend after the attacks, after thinking about the situation more clearly, I remembered my rationale for opposing the death penalty and vengeance killings: As Gandhi said, “An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind.” 

Against the Death Penalty 

It’s a natural response to want to kill your attackers when you’re attacked, but just because it’s natural doesn’t make it right. 

Years ago when I figured out that I was opposed to the death penalty, I told myself that if my parents were ever killed I still wouldn’t seek the death penalty. I’d work to keep my emotions from getting in the way of rational thought. 

War and death will never turn back the clock to before September 11. Nothing will bring back the lives lost. Like the death penalty, if we kill killers out of vengeance, then we’ll become killers ourselves. 

Terrorists and the Taliban 

And in this situation, there’s another problem with striking back: the terrorists of September 11 don’t represent any particular country. Instead, they’re scattered throughout the world. 

The Al Qaeda network, which is believed to be the terrorist organization behind the September 11 attacks, exists in small groups, or cells, working inside dozens of countries. 

Many leaders of Al Qaeda, however, including Osama bin Laden, are based in Afghanistan, and the Taliban, which holds power in Afghanistan, have been protecting them. So Afghanistan is the main target of the U.S. reprisal. 

We Need to Be Careful 

On October 7, the U.S. and Britain began striking back at the Taliban, sending missiles and bombs into Afghanistan. 

Now that our retaliation has begun, I hope that the U.S. is careful in any move we take, or else this war will result in the deaths of more innocent people, on both sides. If we carpet-bomb cities, we will needlessly kill thousands of Afghan civilians. 

“It’s natural to want to kill your attackers when attacked, but that doesn’t make it right.”

In the eyes of extremists, that would only justify killing American civilians, and could lead to additional terrorism in the U.S. Some in the Islamic world who see the attack on Afghanistan as an attack on Islam may be more willing, not less, to engage in terrorist activities, and that would defeat our goal of ending terrorism. 

Intelligence, Not ‘Smart Bombs’ 

It is essential to have as many “friends” or allies as possible to defeat terrorism. We’ll need to keep a broad international coalition that will support a “war against terrorism.” 

Intelligence that might prevent terrorist attacks is better than the “smart bombs” used to retaliate after an attack. If we antagonize Islamic countries, they won’t want to give us any valuable intelligence about possible terrorists. 

We must also be careful in our support of the Northern Alliance rebel army (also known as the United Front), which is currently fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan. 

The United Nations and the organization Human Rights Watch report that the Northern Alliance is guilty of human rights abuses such as killing civilians, burning houses, widespread looting and recruiting child soldiers. Strategically, we may need to support the Northern Alliance, but we also have to put pressure on them to stop their abuses. 

Help Palestinians More 

I also believe that as part of the war against terrorism, the U.S. foreign policy needs to be significantly altered to change the conditions that foster terrorism. The U.S. needs to change its foreign policy not because that’s what terrorists may request, but because it’s the right thing to do. 

For example, I believe we need to rethink U.S. support of the Israeli government. Our support of Israel in the Israel/Palestine conflict has been identified by many policy experts as one of the primary causes of Muslim animosity towards the U.S. The U.S. could do more to help establish a Palestinian state and stabilize the situation there. 

End Embargo of Iraq 

Another reason for the hatred of the U.S. government in the Islamic world is our country’s bombing of Iraq during the 1991 Gulf War and the following embargo, which contributed to mass starvation in that country. The embargo prohibits any country from trading with Iraq or giving the country aid, including humanitarian aid like medicines and food. 

The embargo has failed to loosen Saddam Hussein’s grip on Iraq, but it harms the Iraqi people. Ending the embargo would allow Iraqis to obtain food from the outside world, which would save thousands or even millions from starvation. 

Strategically, it might also make sense to have outside organizations and countries improving the lives of Iraqis so they’d be in a position to stand up to Saddam Hussein. 

Do More to Fight Poverty 

A larger problem is that throughout the world, the U.S. is perceived as having extreme wealth that it does not share. In a world where a billion people struggle to live on $1 or less a day, the U.S. could and should do more to alleviate poverty. 

People may be less likely to want to kill Americans if we show them that we care about the plight of the world’s poor. We should spend as much on humanitarian aid as we do on the military. 

As part of a humanitarian program, we should support public education in places like Pakistan, where many children have no choice but to go to fundamentalist schools that teach hatred. 

Revenge Solves Nothing 

I’m not alone in my belief that war is not the right response to the terrible attacks of September 11. People directly affected by the attack, like Phyllis and Orlando Rodriguez, whose son Greg died in the World Trade Center, argue against fighting a war in the name of the loved ones they lost. 

In a letter they wrote to The New York Times a few days after the attack, the Rodriguezes said they worried that, “Our government is heading in the direction of violent revenge, with the prospect of sons, daughters, parents, friends in distant lands dying, suffering, and nursing further grievances against us.” 

That response won’t bring peace and justice to our world, they wrote. “It will not avenge our son’s death.” 

Revenge will solve nothing. It will turn this world into an even darker place. I am sick of all this slaughter. Let’s not kill the loved ones of families in other countries in the name of “justice.” There is no justice with bombs and rockets. There is only death and destruction.