John Young

If anything humanly redeeming comes from the staggering toll, it is this: The terrorists may have done their job too well.

A worldwide coalition could form against them just from mourners of countrymen lost in the rubble.

From Australia, Bangladesh, Britain, China, Colombia, Egypt, France, Germany, Indonesia, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, Netherlands, Philippines, Portugal, South Africa, South Korea, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Zimbabwe.

Too well, indeed. It shouldn't take invitations and party favors to bring nations together to respond to this incident. And maybe even to talk about ways we could all be more civil and proactive in our world.

In the weeks ahead when Americans use the word "we," they should step back a moment and consider if the "we" they use refers to themselves or to the "we" that is mankind.

If enough players can think of "we" as the latter, much more that is humanly redeeming can come out of Sept. 11's staggering toll.

Let's say one thing. Sept. 11 certainly bumped up Colin Powell's profile. Days earlier Time magazine's cover featured the secretary of state, not because of what he was doing but because he was being eclipsed by White House hard-liners with an isolationist bent.

Now Powell's pager is burning a hole in his pocket. Next to the president, he becomes the most pivotal man. He must employ the gift of diplomacy. Without it, the United States and a few blood brothers like the Brits will be going it alone in grid of dead ends, underground passages and human shields.

The first thing newcomers in the Bush administration might have done after this nation was attacked was review what treaties might help us respond. At times like this, we love treaties.

But a month ago treaties sounded like lint on our jacket. We are the world's only superpower. We'll worry about ourselves. As a letter to the editor said when the Bush administration was stamping "no" on assorted treaties, "Our motto is 'In God We Trust.' We trust no one else."

It's a good thing Americans didn't carry that thinking into World War II. We'd still be fighting in North Africa.

But it is wrong to consider engagement with other nations, even those with whom we've not been speaking, only in times of military necessity.

It is more important to consider the possibility that we could be engaging in ways that could make the world safer in sum. Turning down tensions. Ending feuds. Helping the hungry before famine causes civil war. Being a leader again on the environment and international family planning.

It is time to engage other nations in ways that break down barriers rather than coming around on occasion asking if we can borrow their airspace. It is a time to ask what can we do -- the "we" that is all of us, rather than the "we" of warring cultures.

From this wretched experience we could start dealing anew with conflict resolution rather than relying on conflict to make us think globally.

Friday the United States was leaning on Israel and the Palestinians to start truce talks, with an eye on helping build a coalition to combat terror. Before Sept. 11, the Bush administration was drawing criticism for standing back while the burgeoning conflict smoldered and flamed.

Now the great hope of mankind is that so many nations, including Islamic nations, will pitch in and show resolve against terror that outlaw nations will quake, and cooperate.

That would save lives. But it wouldn't bring any back. If we wait for calamity to bring the world's nations together, calamity is what we will get.