A letter disguised as Jennifer Lopez fan mail is sent to American Media, a Florida-based tabloid publisher. A letter accompanied by pornography is mailed to a Microsoft corporate office in Reno, Nev. Letters are delivered to the New York Times and Tom Brokaw of NBC news. And most recently, a letter reached the office of Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle in Washington, D.C.
All contained potentially fatal anthrax bacteria and all were postmarked in cities in which at least one of the Sept. 11 terrorists had lived. Most likely, they are the work of Al Qaeda or the network's sympathizers.
To the terrorists, the recipients embody what we as a nation are, or rather, what they think we are. They see us as a society of immorality and cultural excess, made up of a tabloid pop culture fueled by the mass media, big corporations and corrupt politics. In response, the terrorists pass a puritanical indictment on us with this latest series of covert, cowardly attacks.
This misguided judgment stems from the extreme nature of their beliefs. It is based on the idea that we, in the words of former Iranian leader Ayatollah Khomeini, are "the great Satan." The terrorists have valid objections to our Middle East policy, but they also use our culture as a flawed justification to perpetrate deadly violence against us. This is what separates them from Muslims who simply hold fundamentalist beliefs.
There is nothing wrong with individuals who prefer a more regulated society and posses a different moral standard than the prevailing laissez faire Western notion. The terrorists use violence against us because of their perception that the Western world is a juggernaut set out to impose its "sinful" culture on the Muslim world, thereby hypocritically attempting to replace our world view with their own.
In reality, the west is spreading itself peacefully in the marketplace of ideas. People around the world embrace the Western culture as a matter of personal choice. This spring, a terrorist bomb killed 16 teenagers at a discotheque in Tel Aviv, Israel. That hasn't stopped the city's nightlife. In Afghanistan, the Taliban's official policy is to beat anyone who plays Western music - but people still listen to American CDs in secret.
In response, the terrorists attack our society by attacking our sense of safety while we attempt to determine the exact origins of the anthrax attacks. But fear is exactly what motivates terrorists: they are afraid of our culture. To them, it is a disease that must be eradicated. That is why they mail us their disease in envelopes containing symbols of unadulterated Americanism.
But it is clear that these actions are destined for failure. The anthrax attacks only target the means that perpetuate our culture, but are unable to destroy the ideas that shape American government and society. America exists first and last in the impenetrable minds of its people.
As of now, the diseased letters have not been successful. Although some things have changed - most notably the cessation of normal mailroom operations - Tom Brokaw still broadcasts on NBC at 6:30 p.m., the New York Times delivers "all the news that's fit to print" every day, and supermarkets still sell tabloid gossip.
But even in the improbable scenario of the terrorists launching a plague that wipes out the entire American media, our ideas still thrive within our citizenry. A fringe group of terrorists is not capable of battling a country that has over 200 years of civil liberties and freedom for its armor.
It's an insult to even try.
