The buildings' tenants were a cross-section of a productive economy: insurance companies, engineers, banks and investment houses, law firms, educators, employment agencies, construction companies, travel agencies. The tenants included great names in American finance--Morgan Stanley, Bank of America, Lehman Brothers. They included Empire Health Choice, which provides health insurance and medical services to millions of people in New York State. Dow Jones, one of the world's great publishing companies, had offices in the South Tower. The top floors of the North Tower housed the transmitting facilities for the major broadcasters in New York. Fuji Bank of Japan occupied three floors, and scores of businesses from other countries had offices in the building. Befitting its name and the intent of the builders, it was a crossroads of international commerce, a symbol not only of wealth but of trade as the civilized mode of human interaction.
"World trade means world peace," said the chief architect, Minoru Yamasaki. "The World Trade Center buildings in New York had a bigger purpose than just to provide room for tenants. The World Trade Center is a living symbol of man's dedication to world peace. …The World Trade Center should, because of its importance, become a representation of man's belief in humanity, his need for individual dignity, his beliefs in the cooperation of men, and through cooperation, his ability to find greatness."
These towers became landmark of the skyline of New York City, which has always been a powerful symbol in its own right, a beacon of freedom and opportunity. From the Statue of Liberty to the Empire State Building, that skyline was forged from the melting pot where the best in man is refined from the accidents of race and nationality. In Ayn Rand's Fountainhead, the famous novel of a New York architect, one character says that when he sees the city, "I feel that if a war came to threaten this, I would like to throw myself into space, over the city, and protect these buildings with my body." Many of us wished we could have done just that when we saw the towers finally crumple and collapse.
Technology, achievement, trade, law, peace, freedom—these were the values under attack. They are not American values but human values, the values of civilized life.
Though it is not yet known for certain which particular terrorist band committed the atrocity, we have every reason to believe they sprang from a fanatical subculture of Islamic fundamentalism. But our enemy is not Islam, which created one of the world's great civilizations, nor is it the Arab or Iranian or Afghani peoples. Our enemy is the nihilism of this subculture.
The terrorist leaders claim to speak for Palestinians. But the grievances of that people, even if legitimate, cannot explain the motivation for this act, much less justify it. The terrorists claim to speak for the victims of Western imperialism. But any literal imperialism is a thing of the past, long since redressed by the wealth that Europe and America have showered on these countries. It is clearly not the military or political power but the cultural power of the West that they resent.
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