<HTML>While I respect the pacifist recommendations of some posters here, I do believe a non-reaction to the terror this week would be counterproductive. Once more, I appeal to Bin Laden's 1998 interview with John Miller in support for this contention. Bin Laden states:
"After our victory in Afghanistan and the defeat of the oppressors who had killed millions of Muslims [i.e., the Soviets] the legend about the invincibility of the superpowers vanished. Our boys no longer viewed America as a superpower. So, when they left Afghanista and when they went to Somalia and prepared themselves carefully for a long war. They had thought that the Americans were like the Russians, so they trained and prepared. They were stunned when they discovered how low was the morale of the American soldier. America had entered with 30,000 soldiers in addition to thousands of soldiers from different countries in the world. ... As I said, our boys were shocked by the low morale of the American soldier and they realized that the American soldier was just a paper tiger. He was unable to endure the strikes that were dealt to his army, so he fled, and America had to stop all its bragging and all that noise it was making in the press after the Gulf War ..."
In other words, Bin Laden's mindset (no doubt shared by those whose worldview he represents) despises weakness and sees it as an incentive to further, greater action. Following Somalia were the major bombs in Riyadh and Tanzania, then the WTC and Pentagon. So whether you react with violence or do not react at all, his type will strike again. One could indeed argue that non-reaction will absolutely guarantee more terrorist action, probably on an even more heinous scale than we've seen so far. That, at least, is the pattern so far. Strong reaction may, at least, knock out some of the terrorist cells currently capable of acting (and thus save lives) or, better still, cripple the network of cells altogether and undermine their bases of support.
Whatever the case, it really seems that action is called for, indeed demanded, by the very outlook of the enemy.
Garrett</HTML>
