The terrorist attacks of September 11 left many Americans shocked:

"How could they do this to such a kind and generous people as we?" We continue confused and conflicted as how to apprehend other terrorists and prevent further attacks. We will learn when we look more carefully into the current health of our society. Political correctness has not only softened America into vulnerability to terrorist attack, it continues a major hindrance in identifying terrorists and preventing a reign of terror worldwide.

Much criticism has been leveled at the intelligence community for not giving the nation adequate warning. In fact, it did not. We were unprepared, because we were unwarned. Some collected intelligence data were not processed expeditiously. Some never reached those whose job it is to take action upon them. Many red flags were raised but ignored.

However, it is not entirely or even primarily the intelligence agencies and their officers that are to be faulted, but, rather, politicians. By the latter I mean a good deal more people than those holding political office. I mean all we who act in a largely political manner for largely political purposes.

We have become a society in which political correctness is often all that matters. The basic flaw of political correctness is its lack of and disinterest in moral rightness.

We would like other nations to trust us, and we would like to trust them.

While proactively putting trust in an individual often challenges this individual to become trustworthy, the larger the group the less effective is this psychological device. It is least successful

with nations, especially those whose culture does not value trust and sees duplicity and deception as normal. Terrorists have been mentally molded and physically trained in just such nations. We have made serious mistakes in over-trusting some nations, and this is the work of government administration.

Racial profiling (whatever actually constitutes that) can easily be misused so that an individual is abused for no other reason than being, or even appearing to be, a member of a targeted ethnic group. But frequently race, even fully involved, is incidental to other factors that are the specific issue. If it should be certainly known that a given country trains its young men as terrorists and that only this country does so and then we find a young man from this country in our country for no good reason and we learn he is stock-piling explosives and making sketch maps of government facilities (hypothetical and not this simple), is it unfair discrimination to ask him some good questions?

I think not. Yet, it is precisely this politically correct nervousness that caused some politically appointed officials to reject warnings actually given by intelligence sources. Moreover, the sources were chided for bringing up politically embarrassing things about "our friends." After a few such rejections, intelligence supervisors put the brakes on their operatives who then stop asking questions and, so, have no answers with which to warn us.

The dust around the World Trade Center hadn't begun to settle before some media were scurrying to promote Islam as almost the world's leading advocate of peace and one never sullied with violence. Some liberal religious spokesmen fell over themselves to show how "ecumenical" they are. Although innocent American Muslims deserve to be protected and it is our duty so to

protect them, such claims are neither theologically nor historically honest.

By no means can it be said "all" or even "most" Muslims are terrorists,

yet among them is in fact a huge number who are precisely this.

If we refuse even to question a Muslim in a questionable situation because it might appear discrimination, we are guilty of making political correctness the creed of our nation. Let us ensure we are morally right and be less obsessed with being politically correct.