Editorial: NYC tower plan a triumph over terror

The lasting memorial of September 11, 2001, will be a striking feature of the Manhattan skyline - a tapered tower, slightly torqued, with a spire on top. The cornerstone for the "Freedom Tower", laid on July 4, is dedicated to those who lost their lives in the destruction of the Twin Towers and "as a tribute to the enduring spirit of freedom".

Even now, not quite three years after that dreadful morning, the inscription seems at first glance a little too grand. That might be a consequence of the American reprisals, notably the denial of legal rights to suspected al Qaeda members captured in Afghanistan, the unprovoked attack on Iraq and the ill-conceived occupation. Already those outside America no longer feel the full force of the horror and outrage when the United States was the target of an unprovoked attack by a shadowy, stateless organisation whose name and cause were unknown to most Americans.

The Freedom Tower promises to be as prominent as the Twin Towers were. Rising 541m, it will bid to be the highest building in the world, topping Taiwan's Taipei 101 (508m) if the Freedom Tower's unoccupied upper structure counts.*

In time a building of such scale will be better known than the event it commemorates and many tourists who come upon the cornerstone might wonder what happened there on the date memorialised. That would be no bad thing. It would mean that the names Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda, and their perverted jihad, had been consigned to history, receiving only passing reference as a band of fanatics who briefly scared the mighty United States and sent it in search of vengeance in the Middle East.

The authors of the cornerstone have no idea whether September 11, 2001, will turn out to have been an isolated event or, as President Bush would have it, the first blow in a war on terror that he expected to be long and tough. If stateless terrorism is indeed the ongoing security threat of the 21st century, the Freedom Tower will be an enduring inspiration. What better response to the attack on the World Trade Center than to put a high tower back on that spot. A park or some similar memorial might have been more respectful to those who died there but it would have presented a victory of sorts to those who took deliberate aim at the symbols of American power and prosperity. The chosen project is a declaration that the US is not afraid to build back into the sky even if the occupied floors do not go as high as before.

That would be a statement of mere bravado - a standing challenge to terrorists to try again - if it did not also imply that the US is confident it has vastly improved its internal security. The "enduring spirit of freedom" requires enduring vigilance. The freedom to travel on aircraft that can fairly easily be hijacked and turned into suicidally guided missiles is not freedom as it should be. Air travel is a little less free and easy as a result of September 11 but with the more rigorous passenger security precautions, freedom endures.

It might be too much to expect that the lesson of September 11 has led authorities to anticipate all possibilities for saboteurs to infiltrate the mass services of an advanced liberal society. But the Freedom Tower will tell those bent upon exploiting the possibilities that they will not have more than a passing impact, that democracy and commerce will be defended and modern life will continue.

But they should also know that democracies will not be content with defence. September 11 brought almost universal determination to root out organisations pursuing any cause through international acts of terror and destruction. That unity has been damaged by the unilateral pursuit of an Iraqi regime that had nothing whatsoever to do with September 11 but the shared resolve remains to carry the battle to the elusive enemy. As the Freedom Tower rises on Ground Zero, it might refocus powerful minds on that unfinished war.

* CORRECTION: In the original version of this editorial, we stated incorrectly that Malaysia's Petronas Towers (452m) were the world's tallest buildings.