I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that his justice cannot sleep forever.
—Thomas Jefferson
yesterday, while questioning condi rice, sen george voinovich (r-oh) said we need to stress that the koran forbids suicide and killing women and children.
yes, that might persuade some young muslims not to engage in such actions, but suicide bombing isn't a strategy but a tactic, and to defeat terrorists we need to defeat their strategy.
their strategy is to make us overreact, because our overreaction builds resentment and frustration and alienation and resistance.
when we kill 39 innocent civilians like we did the other day, we play right into that strategy.
It's a fine line to walk. How does one avoid or prevent terrorist attacks? The two major approaches would be (1)Make the cost of attacks in lives and money prohibitive - which is what the US is trying; (2) Remove the ideological foundation for the terrorist attacks - which the US could do only by sacrificing its standard of living, which it won't, and by trying to change the fundamental nature of orthodox Islam, which it isn't in a position to do. Tough situation there.
ReplyDeleteThe only bright side is that the fundamentalist Christians aren't the majority in the US. That would truly be a recipe for disaster; two obsolete impratical and unscrupulous factions contending for world domination. Of course it would help if the US notices that all the 'properties' which it uses to define a state as a 'terrorist state' apply to itself and far more consistently over time at that.