How we must respond

My answer: Hit quick, hit hard, accept that there will be unwanted casualties both on our side and among nearby civilians but that this is the price to begin a campaign to prevent as much as possible future events. Terrorists thrive on ambiguity and see hesitation as weakness. I am not willing to trade our safety for their demands.

Writing in the Jeruslam Post, Gerald M. Steinberg writes:

“In America and the other democracies around the world, as well as in Russia and China, the inhuman attacks in New York and Washington should leave no questions regarding the need for powerful and consistent action to uproot terrorism from its foundations. As the leader of the modern world civilization, and as a result, the primary terrorist target, the US is the only force that can lead the campaign to rid the world of this threat….No shelter for terrorism must be allowed to remain no quarter can be given, or the plague will resume with even greater fury.”

In the NY Times, William Safire writes:

“Lashing out on the basis of inadequate information is wrong, but in terror-wartime, waiting for absolute proof is dangerous. When we reasonably determine our attackers’ bases and camps, we must pulverize them–minimizing but accepting the risk of collateral damage–and act overtly or covertly to destabilize terror’s national hosts.”