How about this new world of ours?&t;!—-&t;.

Sunday, September 30, 2001

How about this new world of ours?

In this new world of ours, a guy with a sky-writing plane raises the fear that awful chemicals are being sprayed on our city. That happened this week in Albert Lea.

In this new world of ours, armed National Guard officers will be posted throughout the nation’s airports.

In this new world of ours, kids in schools use colorful magic markers to draw planes flying into skyscrapers, and it’s not just fantasy – it’s current events.

In this new world of ours, a pilot’s nail scissors can be confiscated by airport security because it might be used as a weapon – a zero-tolerance policy so desperate that it can matched only by a public school.

In this new world of ours, a guy like me can actually have trouble sleeping because he’s wondering if his family, friends or coworkers will start coming down with smallpox or anthrax, thanks to a bioterrorist attack.

This is the kind of world that Osama bin Laden, the Taliban and all the other America-hating groups want us to live in. It’s the kind of world people already experience in Israel and, to a lesser extent, in Europe.

It has been less than three weeks since Sept. 11. That’s amazing. I can hardly remember what it was like to look at the day’s national and world news each morning and not see dozens of stories about terrorism.

Most of those stories are disturbing. I read one the other day about the possibility of chemical or biological attacks on our country. If the sight of two planes crashing into the Twin Towers was awful, how about hospitals jammed with diseased men, women and children coast to coast? People travel so much that the seeds of terror would be passed from one state to the next within hours, before people even know something was wrong.

The good part is that the plane attacks came first. Now, instead of living in a pleasant state of denial about the terrorist dangers out there, the federal and state governments have been snapped out of complacency and are suddenly aware of our vulnerability. They say a couple of terrorist plots overseas have already been thwarted since the 11th, now that we’re taking the problem seriously.

If a bioterrorist attack was first, we would not have been prepared. Now, at least the country can get its emergency plans in place and build up stockpiles of antibiotics and vaccines. Will there be a day soon when children get the smallpox vaccine again? Maybe. After witnessing these last three weeks, I’d be first in line at the clinic to get my son immunized.

For the first few days, it was nice to hear our national leaders talking tough, telling everyone about the steel of America’ s resolve, blah, blah, blah. The immediate aftermath was a good time for that. Now, that’s become tiresome, because it’s all talk. I want to see action. I can wait for our forces to track down the terrorists; that will take time. What comforts me is to see action taken here to guard against future attacks. Tightening airline security, putting tons of manpower into gathering intelligence on our enemies, finally discussing ways to thwart a bioterrorist attack – that’s what will help me once again feel safe to be an American.

It may be hard to swallow; some are already crying that we shouldn’t have to put reinforced doors on cockpits, that we shouldn’t have to arrive at airports early to deal with more security, that we shouldn’t need stockpiles of medicine.

But it’s the only way I will again feel safe. Living in America has always left us isolated from happenings around the globe, and that’s probably why we’ve never felt we needed any kind of security. We’ve got a 3,000-mile unprotected border to the north, for Pete’s sake.

But things are changing. It’s not going to be the same America, but if we’re careful, it will be a livable America, and, I hope, a safe America.

Dylan Belden is the Tribune’s managing editor. His column appears Sundays. E-mail him at dylan.belden@albertleatribune.com.