Be Thou My Vision

Be Thou my vision, O Lord of my heart.
Naught be all else to me, save that Thou art.
Thou my best thought, by day or by night,
Waking or sleeping, Thy presence my light.

Be Thou my wisdom, Thou my true Word.
I ever with Thee and Thou with me Lord.
Thou my great Father, I Thy true son,
Thou in my dwelling, and I with Thee One.

Be Thou my battle shield, sword for my fight,
Be Thou my dignity, Thou my delight.
Thou my soul's shelter, Thou my high tower,
Raise Thou me heavenward, O Power of my power.

Riches I heed not, nor man's empty praise,
Thou mine inheritance, now and always.
Thou and Thou only, first in my heart,
High King of heaven, my treasure Thou art.

High King of heaven, my victory won,
May I reach heaven's joy, O bright heav'ns Son!
Heart of my own heart, whatever befall,
Still be my vision, Ruler of all.

Amen.

Substance, Material, and the Enduring Self

One of the most important ideas in A.N. Whitehead’s Science and the Modern World is the recognition of the limitations of scientific materialism. Critics have often held that materialism is self-defeating since it struggles to account for non-materialist events such as thoughts, ideas, consciousness and the self. However, what Whitehead offers is a different critique, mainly that what appears to be solid, material stuff is merely the enduring pattern of events. In this way Whitehead gives a more satisfactory explanation for ideas and, more importantly, the self. The challenge for the scientific materialist is considerable when it comes to providing an explanation for beliefs, ideas and subjective experiences. Alvin Plantinga makes this point in his Against Materialism, asking just what, exactly, a belief is for a materialist (here). For most materialists, all that exist are physical, material processes and interactions. On that view, a belief would have to be something material. In other words, there would have to be a spot in the brain, perhaps, wherein one finds the belief that, say, p is true. Whitehead’s claim is not entirely different, but deals with the very fundamental question at the heart of the distinction between science and philosophy.

The questions which science and philosophy seek to answer are often the same, but the very nature of the two approaches limits and directs the way in which the questions are answered. Whitehead explains that one’s answer to the subject-object distinction is central to one’s ability to account for ultimate reality (Whitehead, 145-148). In this way Descartes’ rationalism proved untenable since it reduced all material things (objects) to essentially mental constructs of the subject. The problem for philosophers of this persuasion was explaining the uniformity of mental constructs once they had undermined the reality of the objects. The empiricists, of course, upheld the reality of the object by means of the experience with those objects by individuals. This epistemological debate is well-known, but Whitehead’s point is that neither side can adequately ground their position since rationalism ignores the regularity of experience and empiricism undermines reason and rationality.

Part of the reason that the debate no longer runs on the quite the same lines is because of the merging of science and philosophy. One of the most troubling questions for both camps was the recognition of the self. How a purely mechanical being could experience self-awareness or how a purely rational mind could believe in the questionable existence of a body and a self situated in the world needed answering. Whitehead’s explanation of the body can be understood at least partially as the detection of the chemistry and biology working together to express a totality and report to the being as a single being (Whitehead, 148). The body, he says, is not the mere collection of its parts, it is an entity all its own. It is also not separate from the universe of events which Whitehead elaborates upon elsewhere. Crucially, the body is able to reference itself in relation to the world because “it knows the world as a system of mutual relevance, and thus sees itself mirrored in other things” (Whitehead, 148-149).

Whitehead clarifies further that there is a distinction to be made between what he calls bodily patterns and bodily events (Whitehead, 149). The event is simply that which is expressed or uniquely existing, but is a part of the pattern which endures. This is essentially his explanation for a person’s being able to understand the self and for the self to endure from one moment to another, which is a requisite for meaningful experience. In other words, on the materialist view, bodies are made of material, and that material is unthinking and does not endure. However, experience tells us that we comprehend our bodies and maintain our notion of self, even as it relates to different space-time scenarios.

In Plantinga’s paper, he deals with the idea of having specific body parts, or organs, or cells replaced, while experiencing the enduring self no less. A prosthetic leg, or a even a new heart, it seems, does not change who a person is, or how the person endures. It is logically possible, then, that every cell could be replaced in a sufficiently fast manner so as to not lose functionality, and yet the self should endure. On Whitehead’s account, this is no surprise. Fundamental particles are events, which adapt as they become parts of patters, so that an electron may behave one way in one scenario, and another in a different scenario. That is, at the particle level, there is not a sense of specificity until the particles or events are attached or joined to a pattern, where they then enter into the pattern and become part of the enduring pattern, even as they are an event unto themselves.

What Whitehead is able to do is show the inadequacy of the materialist view from a position of process, where Plantinga and others have done so from a position of immaterialism. The disagreements therein are beyond the scope of discussion here, but it is important to see where Whitehead’s ideas fit into the notion of ideas, the mind and the enduring self. Although Whitehead does not here elaborate on the implications for consciousness, subjective mental states, qualia or the soul, one can employ the process ideas in filling the explanatory gaps left by a materialist position which leads to both the untenable rationalism and naive empiricism of modern philosophy and science. The interaction between parts and whole, events and patterns is, even if found wanting in other areas of analogy, particularly apt in addressing the problems of material, substance and the enduring self.

On the possiblity of an actual infinite

[S]ome have argued that it may be impossible to count to infinity, but it is possible to count down from infinity. But this objection seems patently absurd. For one thing, the number of members in both series is the same. Why would one be easier to cross than the other? Second, assume that someone had been counting toward zero from negative infinity from eternity past. If a person goes back in time form the present moment, he will never reach a point when he is finishing his count or even engaging in the count itself. This is because at every point, he will have already had an infinity to conduct the count.

J.P. Moreland, Scaling the Secular City, p. 31

Neil DeGrasse Tyson's Epistemology

One often finds epistemological questions that can be best answered with common sense. In other words, it seems common sense to most people that it is sight which tells us that, say, the sun is shining, that it is day rather than night, that we are inside instead of out, and so on. In Death by Black Hole, Neil DeGrasse Tyson generally acknowledges such experience as giving us a type of knowledge about the world. But for him, it is not just our senses which give us most of our knowledge, but our senses in conjunction with advanced scientific hardware and mathematics that tells us what the world is really like.

Seen this way, Tyson’s epistemology is essentially classical empiricism updated to acknowledge those mechanisms which expand our senses and clarify what our senses see vaguely (or not at all). One thinks of bacteria, sound waves, the light spectrum, and so on. However, even without denying that microscopes and telescopes give us knowledge about the world around us not accessible by our senses, one might wonder if Tyson has left something vital out of the equation. That is, the epistemological statement that knowledge is gained only by the senses is self-defeating, since that very claim to truth is not known by the senses. Tyson fails to mention the role of reason in answering how we know what we know, but his admission that we use mathematics presupposes reason, given the nature of mathematics. Historically those who believe mathematics gives us truth about the world have been divided, and this is where Tyson’s epistemology stands or falls. A look at the nature of mathematics and reason will help clarify Tyson’s epistemological claims.

Attacks against the empiricist position have traditionally turned on the claim that our senses are misleading and do not give us an accurate representation of what the world is really like. Examples such as Plato’s Allegory of the Cave and Descartes ball of wax illuminate this position. The claim is that our senses tell us something about the world, but that they are mistaken quite often. We can think of Berkeley’s example of a person who sticks a warm hand and a cold hand into the same tub of water. The person will judge the temperature of the water in two different ways, but surely the water is not actually two different temperatures. Likewise, Tyson explains that the history of science is full of examples of reality being quite different than our observation of it. Our errors about the size, shape and rotation of Earth, its place in the universe, and the movement of stars and other celestial bodies have all been based on empirical observations (for example Tyson, chapter 3).

This is the reason Tyson has amended his epistemology to include “the direct application of sense-transcendent mathematics and hardware” (Tyson, 29). The hardware, then, is what tells us the chemical makeup of substances, the empirically verifiable nature of the universe and so on. The really interesting part of his claim is the part about “sense-transcendent mathematics.” How do we know mathematics gives us truth about the world? The answer is far from obvious, and is of course hotly debated by philosophers and mathematicians. But for an empiricist such as David Hume, mathematics gives us truth, but that truth is vacuous. It is only true by definition because we make up the rules. For him, there was no transcendent or abstract realm where mathematical truths existed, and therefore math gave us no real truth about the world.

While Tyson does not directly address the ontology of numbers and mathematical concepts, his work as an astrophysicist is a testimony to the usefulness of mathematics, and he does, in fact, include them in his epistemology. Without entering into the highly technical discussion of the philosophy of mathematics, it is sufficient to note that if one holds that mathematics gives us truth about the universe, what is really being affirmed is the usefulness and applicability of human reason. For example, if one understands the concepts of “2”, “4”, “addition”, and “equals”, the sum of 2 and 2 being 4 is unavoidable. Likewise, our ability to understand mathematical concepts from geometry, like the sum of the interior angles always being 180 degrees is not discovered by measuring every triangle in existence, but only by our use of reason. In this way, our knowledge of triangles is not from our senses, but from our reason.

For one to use mathematics on the level of an astrophysicist one must have a certain level of faith in the reliability of numbers. The launch of a space-shuttle is planned using mathematics that are known here on the earth and elsewhere in the universe. Physical constants such as gravity and the speed of light, as well as the laws of conservation can all be expressed mathematically, but what this shows is that, regardless of the ontological status of mathematical concepts, we use our reason to understand mathematics. That is just the type of thing mathematics is. And this is ultimately what Tyson has failed to include in his claim about how we know what we know.

The presupposition of human reason is made, but the implicitness of the claim is rather suspicious. To include “sense-transcendent mathematics” without including reason would be like including the sense-expanding hardware without including the senses. Indeed, microscopes work, but they are only useful to one with good vision. Likewise, mathematics work, but only to one with the ability to use reason. So what is the problem with the explicit omission of reason if it is understood?

When one accepts human reason as an avenue for knowledge, as one must to allow for our understanding of mathematics, one must also allow for truths known a priori. In other words, there are things we can know without the need of experience at all. They are know prior to our experiences. We can make claims about triangles we have never seen. We can know things about parts of the universe we have never visited. These are truths known a priori. Even if a claim arises from some previous experience, it can be known without a specific experience. For example, what we know about one star might arise from what we know about other stars, but it need not be from our experience of that specific star. In this way, the definition of knowledge changes from simply those things we know from science and mathematics to something like justified true belief. In other words, the claim that we can only know things available to our senses with the help of hardware and mathematics remains self-defeating because the claim itself cannot be verified by its own standards of senses, hardware or mathematics.

We can supply numerous other examples of truth claims for which we do not have empirical data, but which are nonetheless reasonable to hold. It is important for any epistemology to admit that there are things we can know that are outside of what Tyson has given us. The important distinction might be that, for things we know scientifically we may have more rigid standards. Because science is a methodology, such methodological constraints may be necessary, but even the acceptance of mathematics betrays the need for reason and truth known a priori. Tyson is not always clear about what we can know, strictly speaking, since he says that “after the laws of physics, everything else is opinion” (Tyson, 37). Of course Tyson believes we can and do have truth; it is likely that he is being clear to hedge his bets in light of the great number of claims that have been shown to be false throughout the history of science. But nevertheless, human reason and its use in our apprehension of truth in the universe cannot logically or consistently be denied, as Tyson himself implicitly affirms, omissions notwithstanding.

Green Cars

My thoughts exactly, from a hilarious review of the new Honda Insight:

"Of course, I am well aware that there are a great many people in the world who believe that the burning of fossil fuels will one day kill all the Dutch and that something must be done.

...

But what about the eco-cost of building the car in the first place?

...

The nickel for the battery has to come from somewhere. Canada, usually. It has to be shipped to Japan, not on a sailing boat, I presume. And then it must be converted, not in a tree house, into a battery, and then that battery must be transported, not on an ox cart, to the Insight production plant in Suzuka. And then the finished car has to be shipped, not by Thor Heyerdahl, to Britain, where it can be transported, not by wind, to the home of a man with a beard who thinks he’s doing the world a favour.

Why doesn’t he just buy a Range Rover, which is made from local components, just down the road? No, really — weird-beards buy locally produced meat and vegetables for eco-reasons. So why not apply the same logic to cars?"

Death of a Bicycle

A brief change of topic is in order to mourn the loss...

Winning the War on Terror

There is this idea--this justification--that after 9/11, everything changes. That is, with regard to the War in Afghanistan, the War in Iraq, and the greater global War on Terror and its efforts at home, the events of September 11, 2001 must effectively restructure our way of life. And furthermore that the ways in which we have previously understood rights and both justice of war and justice in war are now subject to new rules and a radically different conception of what is and is not permissible. For the Bush administration this has meant justified expansion of the use of security forces and the armed services both at home and abroad; for Benjamin Netanyahu it means curtailing some civil liberties and basic rights to assume “an active posture against terror”; for Howard Zinn it means retooling America’s foreign policy to end the military superpower status and reinvent ourselves as the global humanitarian superpower.

Still for others it may be a nonsensical idea in a time when, after 9/11, everything ought to stay the same, with respect to the inalienable rights that lie at the foundation of the Constitution, and out of respect for the fact that, while quite large in scale and totally unjust, terrorism should not be seen as a new threat or as suddenly a more worthy foe now that America has been attacked. In other words, terrorism has long been a tool of fanatics, well known to the US government, and has cost many thousands of lives elsewhere, and should be addressed as such, if there is to be a “war on terror”. Asserting that everything now changes has been perhaps so easy for America to do in part because of what the world granted immediately after the attack in terms of sympathy for the American people and authority in bringing justice to the attackers. That the hijacking of planes was inexcusable was proclaimed virtually across the international board, and in some ways may have led to the posture of the US that it had free reign over the war and was justified on a unlimited basis because of the grotesqueness of the attack. However, once the war began, and the effort extended to the entire notion of terrorism instead of a more narrowly defined goal of only justice against the perpetrators the obvious inconsistency arose whereby the United States had to define terrorism in ways that exempted its own actions that could have fallen under most definitions of terrorism.

Eqbal Ahmad, in an address given in October, 1998 at the University of Colorado at Boulder, pointed out at length this fact that terrorism has not been adequately or officially defined by the United States. He outlined what he called the “official approach” to terrorism, and one of those points is the fact that “the official approach to terrorism is a posture of inconsistency”. Terrorism is approached not intellectually, he contends, but emotionally, where “officials don’t define terrorism because definitions involve a commitment to analysis, comprehension, and adherence to some norms of consistency”. The reasons for this are obvious enough, as public support for military response and might are not aroused by intelligent discourse but by emotional outrage. Not to mention that since the US has at times supported terrorists in Central America and the Middle East against governments, it becomes clear that a strict definition of terrorism would not serve well in a war that is supposed to be about the very eradication of the thing itself.

The other reason for the US avoidance of specific definitions of terrorism is that terrorists change. And not the terrorists, really, at least not always. More specifically, their respective strategic positions with respect to the United States is what is known to change. Where the Zionists in Gaza were terrorists, they became freedom fighters, and where Osama bin Laden was a US ally and became its foremost enemy. This inconsistency is facilitated by the whimsical and shifting notion of what makes a terrorist a terrorist. Indeed, the US has supported any number of objectively terrorist regimes in the name of the lesser of two evils or national self interest all over the world, as Ahmad explains in great detail.

What Ahmad aims at is the idea that if terrorism is to be confronted or defeated it must be understood, not simply hated. His position is that terrorism absolutely has causes, and that the US has historically ignored causes or justifications of any sort and instead shouted down the very idea to say that terrorism is blind, without cause or reason, that terrorists do not have a legitimate position and that the only goal of terrorism is barbarism. Ahmad certainly does not seek to justify terrorism as a legitimate means of communication or resistance, but it is still the case that understanding the motives of the terrorists must be understood if war is to be won against the very option of terror itself. Certainly there is an element of Islamic fundamentalist terror that can be understood as hatred of the West, but to dismiss every action and idea as causeless is to exacerbate the hatred such groups would have for America. The official response to terrorism that Ahmad discussed was given before the September 11 attacks, and deals largely with the historic approach taken by the US government toward terrorism. The fact that it was delivered before the attacks means, of course, that it does not speak to the notion that now everything changes, but perhaps addresses the fact that there remains an overarching issue long ignored and now realized that terrorism as a tool must never be acceptable.

But given that the terrorist attack on 9/11 happened, and with such incredible means and results, a new discussion has begun to take place. While of course ignoring other examples of terrorism, the discussion has been scaled down to specifically Islamic fundamentalist terrorism. What Benjamin Netanyahu has called for is “an active posture against terror” by the United States. What this means, among other things, is that the U.S. ought to seek out terrorists with increased security measures, increased interrogation, limited freedoms for its citizens, and a different set of ideals--one that emphasizes the responsibility to confront terror by means of “overwhelming technological and logistical advantages” over and above any imagined absoluteness of rights and liberties. It means government intelligence watching for terrorist activity day and night, monitoring fringe groups and “employing preemptive surveillance, search and seizure, interrogations, detentions, and prosecutions” whereupon there is evidence of terrorist activity.

This position has been taken by a great number of those on the political right, as well as the Bush administration with the likes of the U.S.A. Patriot Act which, although complicated, allows for many such measures to be employed at the discretion of the government and its information-gathering agencies. It seems like a common sense position at times, and in some respects is--curbing our security forces unnecessarily would certainly be inadmissible. But what seems striking is that the same people who generally do not support government intervention into things like the markets because of the government’s patent inefficiency and bureaucratic, cumbersome nature suddenly give full faith and credit to the same government as if those issues will cease to be. That somehow the government will be effective and precise in this department--and in it alone--is obviously flawed. This becomes even more so when the intelligence is part of Homeland Security, which is often just local authorities without proper training and the wholesale firestorm against any idea which seems to be out-of-bounds, whether it is a terrorist group or not. Simply pointing to behaviors in which terrorists might engage (even pamphleteering or indoctrination) does not expose terrorists necessarily.

Netanyahu properly points out that we have never had absolute free speech, and may have some reasonable restrictions placed upon it. For him, this extends to any number of other rights, and their being stunted by the government in the fight against terrorism is necessary. He claims that to not limit these freedoms and risk not defeating terrorism is to also deny basic human rights; those that are under attack when terrorism strikes. So it becomes in this sense a trade-off. Either rights are monitored during security concerns or terrorists may have an easier path to terror, which will also limit freedom. This argument is not without merit, but seems problematic for the very reason that those who have access to security and intelligence will inform the public about what the dangers are, and the public will be forced to believe the government, handing in its claims on rights, therefore leaning squarely on the government for what they previously held claim to not because the government granted it to them, but because God did. Those rights that the Constitution exclaimed could never be taken away are now doled out by the government only when it is safe to do so, effectively silencing the public during times of war. Duty and subordination are simply sold to the public because of a terrifying and eminent threat--emotion over intellect--and limited social institutions like religion and the press will have a difficult time holding accountable those at the top.

Netanyahu believes that anti-terror measures and limited rights for a time are successful ways to combat the evil of terrorism, and he points out the various countries around the world who have done so. Britain, Germany, Italy and France, he says, have all established anti-terror guidelines and systems that many would see as a denial of civil liberties. They all had a moment of clarity that forced their hands, so to speak, and although this particular argument was made prior to 9/11, Netanyahu would presumably conclude that we should now have reached America’s moment; that after 9/11, everything changes.

Professor Howard Zinn has proposed a vastly different approach to the whole notion of fighting terrorism. Writing early on in the War in Afghanistan, and even before the War in Iraq or the greater War on Terrorism, he saw in the fight a just cause, but a patently unjust war. Our techniques and methods of bombing cities was tantamount to terrorism itself, killing innocent civilians and displacing entire cities at a time. Without entering the messy business of what justice in war truly means, it is sufficient to note that the U.S. has, at times, engaged in the killing of civilians that, even if necessary or unavoidable for some cause or another would be regarded as a terrorist activity by many around the world. Zinn’s conclusion is that our military presence and tactics have incited much of the anger toward us, and a committed policy of humanitarianism over militarism would quell many of the angers and hostilities of the world. We stop fighting evil, perhaps, with the goal of removing some of its fuel and take an absolute stance on the moral high ground in not engaging the terrorist.

Both strategies seem to fly in the face of what America’s foreign and domestic policies have hoped to achieve. We have typically fought evil abroad (if reluctantly), and protected rights at home (except, of course, for Japanese Americans in WWII and other isolated but unacceptable moments of thievery of rights). And while both seem to distinguish themselves from the norm in unsavory ways, they both also hold an appeal to most people. Many have granted the government the power to do what needs to be done and given away certain freedoms. Many others are sympathetic to the idea that we could use defense spending on humanitarian aid and more positively affect the world. That this would do anything to stop the hatred of terrorist organizations though is, of course, debatable. One strategy has the proven techniques of anti-terrorist campaigns in its corner, the other the high-flown hopes of changing the terrorist mindset and removing American forces from areas which could be perhaps better served food than bombs.

Richard Falk wrote just days after the 9/11 attack that the military would need to exercise restraint and diligence in defeating terrorism because its nature means that it is “a war without military solutions... a war in which the pursuit of the traditional military goal of ‘victory’ is almost certain to intensify the challenge and spread the violence.” Falk is identifying the same type of issue as Ahmad in the need for America to seriously entertain the notion of causation in terrorist threats and attacks. He also lobbied for the type of multilateralism that would embrace sympathy from the world instead of the type of unilateralism that would undoubtedly turn the tide of support to anger and resentment. What happened is what Falk feared, a sort of military overreaction.

In addition to multilateralism and United Nations Security Council authorization, Falk argues that “if retaliatory action fails to abide by [international law and the just war tradition]...then it will be seen by most as replicating the fundamental evil of terrorism...as violence directed against those who are innocent and against civilian society.” This is of course a similar argument to the one made earlier by Howard Zinn, that our just cause becomes an unjust war when it displaces and disregards communities and makes casualties of innocent civilians. Even the most staunch of those against the UN and against the need of a world community for self defense should find attractive the notion that America would continue to uphold those things it aims to stand for, that make it worth defending in the first place. World support both militarily and monetarily would likely stem from America upholding the sanctity of innocent life and justice in war. Certainly the Bush Administration called upon the world for support against the terrorist regimes, and Falk further suggests that “a struggle against global terrorism even in its narrowest sense would require the most intense forms of intergovernmental cooperation ever experienced in the history of international relations.” Reducing the sole burden from America of defender of Western values like secularism and pluralism, freedom and democracy would be advisable and welcomed, but would require a different approach with regard to how Washington viewed the world beforehand.

Winning the War on Terrorism has become so vague and complicated a notion that its justification for continuance is as shady as ever. Winning the war might mean becoming less militarized and more humanitarian; it may mean limiting freedoms for a time to militarily strike the ability of terrorist cells to operate. Or it may, on the other hand, mean entirely reconfiguring the way the US views terrorism. It might mean that we no longer respond unilaterally to terrorism and that we consider it something to be understood, not as a viable means but as the reaction to something in the world, valid or otherwise. It might mean the assured destruction of all known terrorist camps and supporters, but that meaning would perpetually struggle with the simple fact that ideas do not often die with people, and the underlying contempt would almost certainly persist.

That terrorism is unacceptable has been well established by all reasonable parties in the discourse on justice and war. Without a doubt, the United States was justified in wanting justice and action against its attackers. But not all agree on what exactly should be the appropriate path toward such justice, and now, seven years after the attack the notion that after 9/11, everything changes may be at the end of its road. Although clearly an attack so large means that some things will change. The world has seen terrorism, however loosely and incoherently defined, brought to the forefront of international discourse. Although, for many in the world it was already the case, now America has simply tuned in. Decent people all over the world have hated terrorism and terrorist organizations in the Middle East and elsewhere for many years, but now that America has acted militarily is ways so similar to them they may have invited the same reaction to its shores as against the terrorists themselves.

Richard Falk succinctly summarized that the US could not itself seem to be a terrorist group, or in any way appear to fall in line with state terrorism, while at the same time condemning the terrorist organizations. “Such a double standard,” he wrote, “will damage the indispensable effort to draw a credible distinction between the criminality of the attack and the legitimacy of the retaliation.” We have seen this to be the case, and we shall continue to so long as the flag is permitted to fly that says, after 9/11, everything changes.

The proper response may take parts from all those previously mentioned--curtailed rights, humanitarianism, an understanding of terrorism--but they must all be subordinate to the very idea that, regardless of what is done to the United States--if it is what we have always said it is--that some things ought to change and some things ought not to. There must be a change in the US understanding of the need for world support and there must be some definitions on what winning the war really means. But there must not be a change with respect to how the US approaches justice and there must not be a change in the manner in which its citizens are dealt with. Overbearing security measures and a redefining of freedom in the name of defeating an unknown enemy will never be the means by which a war should be fought or won. To say that now things must change because of the magnitude of that terrible day is to bring into question what the principles this country rests upon are really worth, and to defiantly supersede what the world already knows in terms of terrorism and war. It is possible and desirable that the United States should cling to its vociferously proclaimed standards and ideals and resist the urge to militarily dominate this enemy, thereby winning the war for any and all who hope to continually celebrate upon those lofty and hard-fought mountaintops of liberty and justice for all.

(written in December, 2008)

See also:

Benjamin Netanyahu, Fighting Terrorism. “The Question of Civil Liberties" 1995. Pgs. 27-50.

Howard Zinn, "A Just Cause, Not a Just War" December, 2001, The Progressive.

Eqbal Ahmad, Terrorism: Theirs and Ours. Seven Stories Press, New York, 2001.