After the devastation of the two world wars, and the long drawn out night mare of nuclear annihilation during the Cold War, Western society has moved more and more to a passive way of thinking. Don't get me wrong, I prefer peace over war. And it can be very difficult to beat the drum of war when your friends, neighbors, and relatives are coming home dead or wounded. But our desire for peace, and our desire to live and let live may be a luxury that we can no longer afford. Especially when we are faced with an enemy that has no conscience and cares only about achieving their goals.

Our desire for peace and abhorrence for the devastation of war is exactly what Bin Laden and the other Islamofacist were counting on when they decided to murder American civilians in the 9-11 massacre. Al-Qaida wanted to provoke America and knew that we would be left with two choices, rattle our saber but avoid the conflict, or strike out at someone who could be tied to the attack. If we made empty threats and did not carry them out, we would look weak in the eyes of the World. Al-Qaida was hoping that if we struck back there would be a world wide uprising of Muslims. Al-Qaida knew that an American response would be devastating. But the American conscience would cringe if there were a large number of civilian casualties. They also knew that the American public would not be able to stomach the inevitable casualties of our own troops. On the other hand Al-Qaida is perfectly prepared to carry on a generational conflict with no end in sight. Their hope for victory is that we would eventually tire of the conflict and negotiate for peace. We have the ability to destroy al-Qaida but it would probably take the kind of ruthless disreguard for human life that our enemy possesses. Do we have the will for that? Or will we lose by being weakened by a thousand cuts as our enemy expects.

- Thomas Paine 2

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