Letter: We must take aggressive stand against terrorism

Friday, April 11, 2003 | 9:12 a.m.

Sondra Cosgrove's name-calling in her April 6 letter won't clarify the issues on the war debate. People who love America are patriots, whichever side they take. The division among us is not a question of patriotism. It is a difference in philosophy, risk tolerance and strategy on dealing with the world of terrorism revealed by 9-11.

Anti-war people prefer a more defensive, more internationally safe posture in the fight against the world of terrorism. War only with international consensus and support. Some, perhaps, say no war, period. If this means greater risk of another successful terrorist attack on America, it is the price of being a law-abiding "good guy" in the international community.

It is the nations who create or aid terrorists and the nations who, blind to the danger, tolerate terrorism. We must destroy not only terrorists but rogue regimes that support or, who by their history, show they likely support terrorists. And we must crush rogue regimes that would create and use weapons of mass destruction before they can use them.

I, too, am not fooled by the political rhetoric that says we are "liberating" the Iraqi people. We are freeing the Iraqis from a regime as ruthless as Hitler's but, to me, that is only a spin-off, a fringe benefit of this particular part of the war against the world of terrorism. That the politicians and media and the less articulate pro-war types seize upon this emotional phrase does not make the pro-war stance wrong. It merely distracts from the real reason we fight this fight.

ED EWERT