by Howard Zinn

About the author: Howard Zinn is a columnist for the Progressive, a monthly journal of left-wing opinion. He is also author of several books on politics and history, including A People's History of the United States.

The images on television were heartbreaking: People on fire leaping to their deaths from a hundred stories up: people in panic racing from the scene in clouds of dust and smoke.

We knew there must be thousands of human beings buried under a mountain of debris. We could only imagine the terror among the passengers of the hijacked planes as they contemplated the crash, the fire, the end. Those scenes horrified and sickened me.

Then our political leaders came on television, and I was horrified and sickened again. They spoke of retaliation, of vengeance...