Addendum to Last Post

In response to what what commenter mentioned, I stand corrected. It was my belief, however unfounded, that terrorists were comprised of the lowest classes of Islamic society. Apparently terrorists come from all classes of society, including the wealthy. But this makes the situation ever more troubling.

The question remains: what makes a terrorist? If they are all not created equal and not cut from the same cloth then how are we to identify them before they go on about their sordid business? I certainly don't agree with suspended habeus corpus and warrantless wiretapping but in desperate times people with less regard for liberal values will take matters into their own hands. They already have and come another attack, more and more civil liberties will be enfringed for the sake of national security. Abraham Lincoln suspended habeus corpus during The Civil War and Woodrow Wilson passed a controversial Espionage Act that sent populist crusader Eugene Debs to jail for years. Fear is a powerful thing and I find that people are only civilized when their lives and livelihoods are not at stake. When they become threatened, they become just as uncivilized as our prehistorical ancestors.

What floors me is that these people don't play by the rules. I cannot fathom sacrificing my own life to destroy the lives of others, just as I'm sure our grandfathers could not fathom Japanese Kamikaze bombers who deliberately crashed their planes into Allied ships during World War II.

As a footnote, after Robert E. Lee was defeated at Gettsyburg, it was proposed by one of his general staff that his remaining forces fight guerilla warfare against the Union. This action could have prolonged the Civil War for years but Lee declined. He believed that it was against the rules of civilized conflict to resort to such tactics. And indeed, it has been to the befuddlement of many Western powers as to how to fight and win against an enemy of Guerillas. This was true in Vietnam and it is true here.

Terrorism has become the challenge of this century and I for one wish I were wise enough to know how to combat it successfully. I do know this. It is my hope that moderate and liberal Islam will reign in its more radical elements. I may be a tolerant person, but come another 11 September and come enough flagrant terrorist attacks, many Islamic countries may find they literally cease to exist. There is too much at stake from a financial standpoint. We cannot allow terrorists to disrupt the world economy and bring us all down. Furthermore, the monied people of the world realize this and I fear that sooner than later, we may launch another Hiroshima or Nagasaki to preserve Western society.

I don't adhere to this "end-times" philosophy that came into popular favor after 11 September and I don't think that this is Biblical Prophecy come true. I do know that every epoch of history has been comprised of struggles between rational versus irrational, fair versus unfair. And if we are to allow Civilization to continue we cannot allow terrorism to continue to haunt our dreams and corrupt us.