Handcuffed by our Western values?

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

The American Declaration of Independence, quoted above, separates all Americans from the terrorists.

But the right to a safe and happy life is something universal and international: no man should live in fear of terrorists.

Man, in fact all mankind, has an expectation, a right, to life. We believe this is an “unalienable right”, in fact a sacred right not granted by man but by a higher power, our Creator and incapable of repudiation. The right to life cannot be taken by another man.

The terrorists don’t believe we in the West, or any man, apparently, has an expectation to life. The terrorists have shown they can commit, intend to commit and are committed to intentional, indiscriminate killing of innocent strangers.

What greater disparity could there be in the beliefs between the terrorists and ourselves?

Americans see themselves as men with rights “endowed by their Creator”.

Terrorists see America as “the Great Satan”.

There is a gap, in fact an abyss, in values and moral mindset between America and the terrorists.

What makes this so devious, so desperately troubling, is this. A part of the terrorist movement has, will have or wants to have nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction (WMD). The actions of the terrorists to date tell us that they are released from our inhibitions to kill indiscrimately by using nuclear weapons and other WMD.

And the terrorists are being encouraged, fuelled and even driven toward the use of WMD by the likes of Iranian President Ahmadinejad, various imams, mosques, madras’s, political activists and others. In fact, throughout Pakistan and other Moslem nations, terror has superseded a religion.

This means, for the terrorists, all treaties, all normal forms of the so-called “laws of war”, and all the normal underpinnings of negotiation are off the table.