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In the aftermath of 9/11, Americans were angry, fearful and scrambling for answers.

In the days that followed the terrorist attacks, President George W. Bush and Congress prepared their response, starting to work on stronger counterterrorism measures and preparing for a war in Afghanistan, where the Taliban had housed al Qaeda networks for many years.

A few Americans turned their rage against Muslims who were living in the United States.

Within a few days, Muslims, as well as individuals mistakenly perceived to be Muslims, were attacked. The Sikh owner of a gas station in Mesa, Arizona, was killed by a man who went on to shoot a Lebanese clerk at another gas station.

Near Dallas, Texas, a man shot and killed a 46-year old Pakistani who owned a small grocery store. In Cleveland, Ohio, a man drove a Ford Mustang right through an Islamic center.

Nine years after 9/11, there is a lot for Americans to contemplate as they look back. Although people have focused a lot of attention on Bush's appearance before a group of New York firefighters at ground zero, another highly significant moment took place on September 17.

That day, at the Islamic Center in Washington, the president delivered a powerful message about the need to keep America's response to 9/11 from turning into a war against Muslims. This message was as important to his war on terrorism as the strategy of regime change, or pre-emptive war.

Unfortunately, this is a principle that has been slowly and dangerously undermined in recent weeks as a result of the controversy over a proposed Islamic cultural center and mosque a few blocks from ground zero.

Speaking at an emotionally charged moment, just six days after the attacks, Bush told the audience that it was vital for Americans to understand that the terrorists did not represent the Muslim tradition.

"Those who feel like they can intimidate our fellow citizens to take out their anger don't represent the best of America; they represent the worst of humankind, and they should be ashamed of that kind of behavior," Bush said.

The president reiterated his firm commitment to protecting the constitutional rights and honoring the important role of the Muslim community in the United States.

In no uncertain terms, Bush said: "The face of terror is not the true faith of Islam. That's not what Islam is all about. Islam is peace. These terrorists don't represent peace. They represent evil and war."

America, he said, "counts millions of Muslims amongst our citizens, and Muslims make an incredibly valuable contribution to our country. Muslims are doctors, lawyers, law professors, members of the military, entrepreneurs, shopkeepers, moms and dads."

Many Muslim leaders were impressed by the president's speech as well as by how most Americans were responding to the trauma.

"Americans have shown great maturity," Sayyid Syeed, the secretary general of the Islamic Society of North America, told the media. He reported the calls he was receiving expressing support for his community greatly outweighed the hate crimes.

Over the coming years, Bush stuck with the argument that he made on September 17. While Bush would come under criticism for many aspects of his war on terrorism -- including policies such as the use of interrogation tactics that critics called torture -- he continued to be very clear in his defense of Muslims.

The president returned to the Islamic Center on June 2007, reminding his audience of his earlier speech: "We gather, with friendship and respect, to reaffirm that pledge -- and to renew our determination to stand together in the pursuit of freedom and peace. We come to express our appreciation for a faith that has enriched civilization for centuries."

Bush's philosophy is now under fire. In response to the proposal to build an Islamic center near ground zero in New York City, a heated national debate has unfolded about Muslims in America. While some focused their criticism on whether this was a proper project so close to the site of the attacks, many others turned it into a different kind of discussion.

Some national Republican leaders, including Sarah Palin and Newt Gingrich, have made provocative comments, helping to make it a national issue. Gingrich warned of the "radical Islamists" he said were behind the project, comparing it to Nazis putting up a sign next to the Holocaust Museum in Washington.

At the local level, the debate has taken an even more dangerous turn.

A Florida pastor, Terry Jones, announced he would burn copies of the Quran. Even when he came under criticism from a broad spectrum of leaders, including Gen. David Petraeus, he did not at first desist.

Palin did condemn the pastor by tweeting that "book burning is antithetical to American ideals," but then tied the two issues together when she went on to say that "people have a constitutional right to burn a Koran if they want to, but doing so is insensitive and an unnecessary provocation -- much like building a mosque at ground zero."

Although the pastor agreed to cancel the Quran burning after a call from Secretary of Defense Robert Gates warning it would put American lives at risk, the incident stoked the fires of hatred.

If this kind of inflammatory rhetoric continues, it will erode a central and crucial principle in the war on terrorism. It also contradicts the nation's constitutional and pluralistic traditions -- the very traditions we want to defend from terrorism -- while doing irreparable harm abroad.

When Bush spoke at the Islamic Center, he took a pivotal step in defining how he wanted to defend the nation and go about punishing the aggressors who killed thousands of civilians. His message cannot be forgotten.

Should local and national debate move in a different direction, we will be paying the cost as a nation for decades to come by destroying our image in the Muslim world, thus playing into the hands of the terrorists.

We'd be abandoning the very best ideals that our country has to offer.

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These people behind this movement are no different than the Jesse Jacksons of the world. They're looking to give anyone with opposing views a big you by building this masque where they want to build it, and they're confident that our messed up system of law and zero morals and ethics will allow them to do it.

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They're simply sending a message back home to poppa Osama that things are going just as planned.

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'Cause the moment we compromise our rules to get rid of undesirables, we show the crack in our armor, and all who wish us harm have a means to hurt us.

I will not advocate the destruction of America, not even by inches, not even to stop a perceived threat, no matter how scared or angry I get. Whatever tenacity we use to adhere to our principles will equal the strength of our shield against harm. If we falter, then we make ourselves defenseless.

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secure in the knowledge that the country was not going to be attacked again and he would chart a rocky, but ultimately safe course through rough seas.

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This much we know: America needs its demons. We need our enemies, our menacing and dark-eyed nemesis, that foreign and terrifying thing we do not understand and against which we must rally and wail, push and pule, fight and destroy.

This is, as the legend goes, how we define ourselves, how we give our tribe and its happily flawed capitalist/Christian system meaning, purpose and a reason to kill anyone who dares to disagree. Too young as a country to know ourselves at any depth, too mal-educated to have any real and lasting confidence, we just lash and burn, too afraid to shut up and hear the quiet roar of our own grand irrelevance. Same as it ever was? Like you even have to ask.

Communists. Arabs. The Japanese. Blacks. Native Americans. Hippies. Gays. "Gooks." Immigrants. Chinamen. The poor. Women. Teenagers. Vegans. Science. What's the problem with this nation? What's really eating at our soul and threatening our honest love of an angry God, apple pie and giant homoerotic firearms? It ain't us. It's them. They're trying to mess with our heads, steal our freedom, impregnate our virgins, poison the water supply. Damn them to hell, and where's my shotgun?

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Stockholm syndrome is a term used to describe a paradoxical psychological phenomenon wherein hostages express adulation and have positive feelings towards their captors that appear irrational in light of the danger or risk endured by the victims, essentially mistaking a lack of abuse from their captors as an act of kindness.

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Chronically frightened authoritarian followers, looking for someone to attack because fighting is one of the things people do when they are afraid, are particularly likely to do so when they can find a moral justification for their hostility. Authoritarian followers feel empowered to isolate and segregate, to humiliate, to persecute, because in their heads they can almost hear the loudspeakers announcing, “Now batting for God’s team, his designated hitter, (their name).” High RWAs are more likely to sentence common criminals to long jail sentences, are more likely to be prejudiced, are more willing to join “posses” organized by authorities to hunt down and persecute almost any group you can think of. They seemingly have a lot of hostility boiling away inside them that their authorities can easily unleash. Indeed, this authoritarian aggression is one of the three defining elements of right-wing authoritarianism.

Events like the attacks of 9/11 can drive large parts of a population to being as frightened as authoritarian followers are day after day. In calm, peaceful times as well as in genuinely dangerous ones, high RWAs feel threatened. . There’s always a national crisis looming ahead. All times are troubled times that require drastic action.

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