Retribution
by Audrey Schulman
Sept. 13, 2001

For 48 hours straight now an F-15 fighter has been circling over Boston. I woke last night several times and listened. It has the compressed sound of distant rage. I've even seen it a few times, so far above, its triangular wing-shape idling along, its deathlike sheen.
And I wonder what it's doing up there? Is it meant to scare any terrorists who might be dawdling in Boston?

That thing carries missiles. It carries bombs.

This is a major metropolitan area. If one or two of the terrorists are cornered in a pizzeria on Newbury Street, will the plane swoop down and drop its payload?

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"All Arabs beat their wives," said an educated writer to me yesterday. "They believe if they kill a Christian, God will give them more nookie in heaven."
Up until Tuesday, she was a democrat, liberal and educated.
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About 10 years ago in Boston, Charles Stuart, after brutally killing his wife and unborn child, told the police a black man had done it.
Without question, the police arrested a black suspect within the day. The newspapers all reported the police's victory.
Stuart was white.
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"I want you to understand," said Bush, his brow furrowed. "We will make no differentiation between the terrorists and those who harbor them."
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This group of terrorists was so brilliant they masterminded the stealing of four commercial planes on time and without warning. They seamlessly hit the Pentagon, one of the most protected buildings on earth, as well as two of the most valuable buildings, without a hitch, within an hour of each other. Accomplishing effortlessly what other terrorists must just dream of.
Are these the kind of people who would forget their luggage at the Boston airport with a copy of the Koran and a flight manual in Arabic?
I ask you, a Koran? A flight manual in Arabic? Doesn't the clarity of the clues potentially seem a little Charles-Stuartesque?
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Clinton, after the embassy bombing in Africa, bombed the Sudan, a completely uninvolved country, because military intelligence reported it contained bin Laden's bomb-making factory.
The factory turned out to actually be a pharmaceutical company. A monastery was next door. Both were destroyed.
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The FBI has had a bad PR year, what with misplacing a large portion of McVeigh's case information, having a Russian spy discovered in their midst and losing a whole pile of hard drives full of top secret information.
Right now, they must be so desperate to accuse someone, to save face. Find some culprits quickly, no matter what.
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The fighter just circled by again. Its roar is like the sound of the US's outrage. In the sunlight it glints with fury.
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I have a 16-month-old baby. Before Corey was born, I used to think of people on the street as likely to be unkind, associating them more with angry motorists than with the people I know and love.
In the last 16 months, my opinion has changed. Everyone smiles at Corey, they wave at him. They stop to discuss their own children. A cab driver told me about afternoon naps with his baby son on his chest, an old man described his daughter's smile. Two bare-chested punk boys yesterday with metal studs through their nipples wiggled their fingers at Corey and grinned with the innocence of youth.
Once, what I can only guess to be a Beduin couple stopped me, the woman in full Muslim veil, no part of her body visible but her dark hands and smiling eyes. She held her weather-beaten fingers up to touch my son's face, ululated high in her throat to entertain him. Corey grinned back, delighted. The couple couldn't speak a word of English, but I connected better with them than almost anyone I've ever met at a cocktail party.
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NATO has already created an alliance of "retribution" as President Bush calls it. An alliance to punish the perpetrators of the hijackings. A consortium of 19 of the most powerful countries in the world.
This consortium might be declaring war on only 40 or so men. Most of whom are already dead. A group that might have no connection to any government plot. A group smaller than most softball teams.
People will be so eager to see bombs fly. It would feel so cathartic, so just. If all this death has been caused by just a few men, will we be able to stop after just a few executions? Withdraw the airplane carriers, land the planes?
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The F-15 bomber circles again.
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On the other hand, what if the terrorists turn out to be from Ireland, will we be as eager to send in the bombers?
What if they were separatists from Quebec? Anti-globalists from Seattle?
How much of our wish for bombing comes from a belief it will definitely be Arabs?
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I guarantee you, no matter where a bomb is dropped, there will be 16-month-old babies. There will be parents who love them.
When they hear the bomber, will they look up as I do, will they hold their child closer?
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Nothing we can do now will bring the people who have died back to life.
One of the few ways we can honor their memory is to not kill more innocent people and children. Check the FBI's facts before assigning guilt. Question our assumptions before lobbing bombs.
We should ensure that the people we punish are those who are actually guilty.

*Audrey Schulman was born in Montreal, Canada and has traveled extensively through Asia, Africa, Europe and North America. She says, "Writing didn't turn out to be as easy as I had at first imagined. I had tremendously bad luck with publishers, ending up writing nine novels over nine years before one was selected for publication. I also couldn't get into writing school even with the manuscript, THE CAGE, which later on would win many accolades, get translated into 9 languages, and be reviewed positively by even THE NEW YORKER."