Q. Violence begets violence. What did war ever solve? Do we have to reply in kind � to get down to their level? Haven't we learned more than "an eye for an eye" in the last thousand years? You cannot bomb in my name.
A. Violence can, in fact, often breed an endless circle of violence (note Northern Ireland) � but only if there is no clear moral consensus, and it is practiced solely in equal measure. But overwhelming violence in response to great evil, while tragic, is not therein evil. Such a military response constitutes real humanity and bravery because it is not rhetorical or cheap, and stops the killing on the part of the killers. Those who work in peril 20 hours a day on carriers and behind enemy lines on the ground did not ask for this war, but they are nonetheless fighting to ensure that their own children and those of others to come do not have to make the sacrifices they are now so bravely enduring.
War � whether to end slavery, to ruin the Nazi death camps, or to dismantle the Japanese military � has in fact ended great evil inflicted on millions. And if we don't reply now � as we didn't to Hitler after Czechoslovakia, the Italians in Ethiopia, or the Japanese in Nanking � murder unchecked goes on to kill millions. Ask the Cambodians, Bosnians, or Tutus. We have learned from the last 2,500 years that human nature is unchanging and that the well-intentioned efforts to disarm and outlaw war are dangerous � and that such utopian pacifism is always at someone else's expense: usually those poorer, less educated, and not so "sophisticated" as yourself.
Can you please tell me what you would have advocated on December 8, 1941? And if we cannot in your name bomb the source of our terror, can our domestic forces at least use deadly force here at home to protect civilians from more crashing airliners and suicide bombers?