First am glad that you've provided a place to express my gratitude to all those who go beyond their duty to protect and heal us every day. This includes not only the police, the firefighters, the doctors, EMTs, the military, the intelligence agencies but also those who provide these organizations and agencies their support including dedicated public officials, contractors, and fund raisers. Our response to this challenge has been widespread across our communities and says volumes of good things about our society.
But I also want to say a few words about the enemy. These are not men with some unbalanced chemical levels, or missing synapses in their brains, but rather men responding logically to a dangerous and flawed world view. The principle flaw in my view is the low value they give to life and the individual in general. Their actions cannot simply be explained away as the natural tactics of an enemy with few resources fighting a larger opponent. Because other men in similar circumstances have fought the enemy by attacking military supply lines and employing other valid guerrilla war strategies often winning their war. These more humane men would attack factories, for example, and unfortunately k1ll civilians but not as a primary objective, not to foster terror.
The men we are fighting are called terrorists properly and not for any political reason. Their primary tactic, objective, is to weaken the will of the populace by direct attack on them. I personally view firebombing cities, a tactic also used to my outrage by my own country in the last world war, as a direct attack on the populace and not the war machine of the enemy. The latter occurrence I would call a regrettable, and I wish we would see it as criminal, use of a total war doctrine as opposed to terrorism but the effect is the same to those k1lled. The terrorist fights the military as a last resort, or for self defense, and strikes the populace in his attacks because these attacks will get the most press and are the most likely to succeed.
If your world view does not place much value on life then it is a logical thing to attack the enemy where it does the most damage and benefits your cause the most with as little damage to your own forces. I do not think our enemy understands that we sincerely hold to a different view of reality that places very high value on life. So that his attacks actually have the opposite effect of hardening our resolve, making us more willing to sacrifice and suffer to see that his cause does not succeed.
I would remind our enemy that in the past we have not been satisfied with merely defending our country and containing his forces. We have paid the price and marched into his strongholds and made him accountable for what we consider crimes against humanity. We have then tried to help his kin and country rebuild and to get a more rational view of things. I am proud of our strength and our generosity in the face of the enemy. It is my hope that we win and win never bowing to use any of his foul methods in fighting.
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