The Blog | Ed Hamilton: What do the Terrorists Want, and Can We Give It To Them? | The Huffington Post: ". . .President Bush says that the terrorists are not enemy combatants, and there was a point when he was right. They were just despicable criminals until he elevated them to mythic 'enemy' status by treating them with the respect of declaring war on them. A lot has been said of how Clinton was soft on terrorism, but, excuse me, weren't the bombers in the 1993 plot to blow up the Trade Center successfully apprehended, prosecuted, and put behind bars? Clinton didn't blow his top like Bush and start attacking everybody.
While it's an understandable human response to want to kill the people who seem to threaten our American way of life, it's essential to that very way of life to set a moral example in following the rule of law; to do otherwise justifies the terrorists in their actions by making us just like them. Israel's response to Hezbollah's act of provocation, to cite another example, is just what Hezbollah wants. Groups such as Hezbollah and Al Queda can't survive in a climate of openness and freedom--and neither can the religious right in our country or in Israel. Liberalism is immeasurably stronger than blind fear and hatred and superstition, and it inevitably wins--by persuasion rather than violence--in a truly free market of ideas. . ."
Do as I do. . .
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