Of all places to find a bit of truth. Dan Brown writes in his book “Angels and Demons” (Atria Books,
He shook the fiendish images from his mind. Calculated terrorism, he reminded himself, grasping at reality. Planned chaos. He thought back to a Radcliffe seminar he had once audited while researching praetorian symbolism. He had never seen terrorists the same way since.
“Terrorism”, the professor had lectured, “has a singular goal. What is it?”
“Killing innocent people?” a student ventured.
“Incorrect. Death is only a byproduct of terrorism.”
“A show of strength?”
“No. A weaker persuasion does not exist.”
“To cause terror?”
“Concisely put. Quite simply, the goal of terrorism is to create terror and fear. Fear undermines faith in the establishment. It weakens the enemy from within … causing unrest in the masses. Write this down. Terrorism is not an expression of rage. Terrorism is a political weapon. Remove a government’s façade of infallibility, and you remove its people’s faith.”
So here is the point. We can consider appeasing terrorists and we will fail. Terrorists kill appeasers. And they kill those of us who don’t appease them. There is only one choice. We have to kill them first. That means that we have to take action before they do. That means we have to take a preemptive approach to these political killers. It also means that we have to take a preemptive approach to anyone who aids and abets the actions of political killers. No games anymore. Is Mr. Kerry up to this task? Of course not.
