I wrote the following unpublished letter to the editor in 2004 in response to a published letter. With the recent attacks on Great Britain, it seems a good time to repeat it.

Terrorism exists because small groups of individuals recognize that method as the only probable action available to achieve their goals. They believe they can not accomplish their desired outcome through legitimate means. The use of violence and intimidation against the innocent is justified by them as a legitimate means to an end. In an imperfect world, terrorism will always exist as new, radical causes and their supporters develop because of real or perceived injustices.

To blame George Bush for 9/11 is like blaming Franklin D. Roosevelt for Pearl Harbor. In fact, FDR would be more culpable since George Bush was in office for less than a year before 9/11 while FDR was in his ninth year as President before the attack. Furthermore, a world war was raging on for more than two years before Pearl Harbor. Neither one, as far as I know, could foretell the future.

There are basically three policies with variations on the theme available to deal with terrorism. Give the terrorists what they are demanding--appeasement. Ignore the actions of the terrorists believing in the long run the mayhem they commit is of minor importance in the scheme of things--benign neglect. In a variation of this policy, the immediate participants of an act of terror are pursued but the leaders and groups as a whole are not. The third policy position is to actively pursue the terrorists causing far more damage to them than they do to us--war. (Remember terrorism as a method of achieving one's ends will probably never stop being used until the LORD returns.)

For years the U.S. has been following the policy of dealing with the foot soldiers who actually carry out the terrorist act. I applaud President Bush for changing our policy. It's about time both sides were fighting the same war.