Given the recent coordinated attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, I think everyone is upset and perhaps even a little scared.

I know I am. I might even guess that many of us are angry and believe that the U.S. government should retaliate as soon as possible.

While I can understand this feeling, I want to suggest that we think about something different: how can we as a community here at Penn State promote a "real peace." By "real peace" I do not mean simply a political peace. I mean a peace in which the various peoples of this world are able to improve themselves economically in an environment of mutual respect.

This has always been the signature of the American dream, but it is a dream denied to many around the world in part because of American multinational corporations backed by the U.S. military. Consider the targets of yesterday's attack.

These are not accidental targets. Although American politicians are calling yesterday's attack cowardly and crazy, the targets are in fact very meaningful.

Many people in the third world have felt for the past 20 years that the United States is "attacking" them both economically and militarily.

There are some people who believe that the World Trade Center and the Pentagon are not merely symbols of our attack on them, but the very real instruments of that attack.

This is not a completely crazy idea. In fact, the U.S. has bombed Sudan and Pakistan in the last two years and it bombed Iraq again just recently. American companies in Pakistan once exploited children.

While we are tempted to demonize our enemies, I think it is important to understand where they are coming from.

This attack is no crazier or more cowardly than our recent attacks on them. Once we understand that, we can consider real options for making our world a better place.

It is time, now more than ever, for the U.S. government to signal to the nations of this world that we do respect them, and that a "real peace" (that is to say, an economically supported peace) is our goal.