A foreign policy driven by fear

A foreign policy driven by fear: "When Timothy McVeigh bombed the federal building in Oklahoma City in an act of domestic terrorism, this was treated like the criminal act it was. No one declared war on the right-wing militias that had given birth to the thinking that underlay his actions. We have learned to live with and contain these forces that sanction the overthrow of our government, and they remain marginalized.

Why could we not similarly contain the radical Islamists who seek our destruction? The answer, of course, is fear. They are foreign to us and therefore more threatening, their motives and methods obscure. So we attack them (and those who resemble them) and try not to notice how like them, brutal and ruthless, we are becoming in the process.

We also seem not to notice how our lashing out is creating more of them. We act as if we can revoke some basic rules of human behavior: We are not defined by what we say but by what we do. Illegitimate means cannot be justified by laudable ends. We can't spread freedom by lies and torture.

We are frightened by what we cannot understand: death, foreignness, religious fanaticism. What we ought to consider is what our fear has driven us to become."