Transient Traffic, Self-Definition, and Thoughts for My Morning

So, like quite a few others, I'm getting a huge traffic spike right now. The cause is fairly obvious. And while I expected a rise in traffic, this has utterly dwarfed any expectations that I might have had. At this point, it looks like I will see more than a month's worth of traffic in this single day.

I also expect that traffic to die off and leave me to my normal core of readers and searches over the next few days. Of course, the comments on the post in question have tended towards the inflammatory--which is why I might close off the thread here soon.

Here's the question of the day: with this level of interest (I am far and away not the only one seeing a jump in traffic on the topic), and with passions running this hot, just how important was the Nick Berg murder?

Is this another 9/11 moment for the country, where we see the eyes of our enemy and find ourselves moved to action? Is this one of those events that continues to define our nation's drive? Or is it simply a blip on the screen--a transient moment that will soon be forgotten? Obviously, I hope that it is an event that helps to strengthen our national will to combat terrorism and the people who would stand in the way of our helping establish a new government in Iraq.

Through the Daniel Pearl murder, the attacks on embassies, mosques, police stations, civilians, and our own symbols of democracy and power, and through the killing of Nick Berg, the enemy has defined himself as a brutal, vicious animal with no prick of conscience at acts that we consider vile. The enemy is willing to carry this just as far as they can--happily killing every American that they can, wounding where they can't kill, and sowing the seeds of terror where they cannot yet reach. The enemy has defined himself in the starkest, desperate, and extreme of terms.

Where the terrorists have shown themselves to be patient and unyielding, we have yet to prove what metal stiffens our spines. Definitions of America's will often seem transitory--wavering with public opinion and the regular churn of leadership, sometimes seemingly resolute, and other times unwilling to face the hardships and deprivations of war.

This murder was both a tragedy and an invitation. We have been invited to prove our will and ourselves. If we allow this to be just a momentary interest, then we will have defined ourselves in the worst possible terms: precisely as the weak-willed culture that our enemy has always seen.