What is the Correct Response?

While on my home page today, I saw an interesting article from the New York Times. It reminded me of the driving question of the unit we’re currently studying: How does someone deal with perilous times? This article is about the hotel bombings that took place yesterday in Pakistan. At the time of the article, the death toll was at 53, but expected to rise because there are still people who are unaccounted for. This is obviously a perilous time in Pakistan because the bombing spreads fear through the Pakistani people of future attacks. The attacks are thought to be an attack on the new democratic government. It will be interesting how Asif Ali Zardari, the new president of Pakistan responds to these attacks and leads his nation through this period of perilous times. One of the tough decisions he faces is he has promised to continue fighting militants, but it is believed that when you do this, they retaliate by bombing civilians, as seen in the attack yesterday. But if he lets the attacks go unnoticed, he will almost certainly be criticized. Another decision Zardari has to be careful with is how similar he makes the Pakistan democracy to the American because of the strong Pakistan opposition to American policies. This could be a deciding factor in the amount of support he receives from the people of his country.
This relates to our new unit because the driving question is: How does someone deal with perilous times? We are looking at real examples of when this happened with the Puritans. That wasn’t the only example of how people deal with perilous times, though. There was 9/11 when all of the USA looked to President Bush to lead us through that period of fear and suspicion. It has been seen countless other times in the world, but each time the group of people responds a little differently. I believe the question is still looking to be answered, though: what is the perfect way to deal with perilous times?