Lest we forget, the terror of that day remains with us in many ways. Above all, we feel it in the way our lives have changed. We knew little about the politics of Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan or Pakistan, but we have been forced to learn because the tragedy had its origins in those nations where Islam is the main religion. 

Our leaders have gone to great lengths to frame this conflict in the context of terrorists acts and not in terms of a religious war between Islam and the Christian West. But each day we must confront new evidence that Islamic leaders in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere continue to preach hatred, distorting our intentions and making heroes of "the fifteen", the group of Saudi men who participated in the crashes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. We have struggled throughout the year to understand the depth of that hatred that engendered so much animosity. 

Some facts have become quite clear: the economic disparity in their own nations have caused the poor to enlist in the ranks of groups like al-Qaida, Hizbollah, Hamas and others. Add to that the territorial and political conflict in Palestine that bin Laden hijacked for his own evil purposes, and the fact that Pakistan could be jeopardized by the Taliban and al Qaida forces that fled from Afghanistan. 

The myriad of conflicts could detract from one simple fact: bin Laden and his comrades declared war on the United States, and this country was forced to respond by going to Afghanistan to deprive al Qaida of protection and to remove the oppressive Taliban from power. 

To paraphrase George W. Bush, this war was brought to us and we brought justice to them. Nevertheless, as we calibrate our response to deal with the terrorist menace, we are forced to come face to face with the fact that poverty and oppression are at the root of the violent forces that threaten world peace. 

Therefore, it is important to understand that while we seek to put an end to the terrorist networks and to punish those who have funded and sheltered it, we must deal with the root causes. The internal debate related to this issue should help us to state a clear an unequivocal policy. We must not merely go in pursuit of revenge and punishment because that is not a solution. An analysis of the present situation and its origins might make us uncomfortable with past policies that aided those oppressive regimes, but we must look them in the eye and tell them to reform or else. 

We have come to realize that some of those governments are not our friends, and Islam is not our enemy even if many of those who practice it do hate us. The reality is that the oil money has not trickled down and the poor people in those countries see us as the ally of their oppressors. An enlightened United States policy, therefore, must seek to deal with that distorted image of our country and enlist the aid of those societies in the search for peace and understanding. 

We have to take stock of what the terrorist acts did to us economically and to our sense of security. We must not forget the images of the collapsing towers in order to bolster our resolve. However, our present stance is not about vengeance but about justice and the desire to restore a semblance of normalcy to our lives. 

We might not be able to go back to the careless optimism of yesteryear but we, as a true world leader and a nation united in the memory of that September tragedy, have a duty to point the way towards a better future for all of humanity.