U.S. should wage war on terrorist-harboring nations

News flash to Duke's administration: America is at war. The greatest threat to us is not the "fragmentation" of the "Duke community," as the recent series of prayer vigils and forums on unity would suggest. The Pentagon has been attacked, New York City has been decimated and thousands have been murdered by Islamic terrorists. If America does not take proper action, it will happen again.

At a supposedly intellectual institution such as Duke, the proper response to a such a catastrophe is rationally to identify its cause and then propose the proper solution. Since the University administration and most professors have chosen to abdicate this responsibility and turn to prayer and hand-wringing, I will do so in their stead. Black Tuesday was made possible by an American foreign policy of appeasement, which let terrorists and the nations that support them go unpunished for their crimes against the United States. The only moral and practical response to last Tuesday's attack is for the U.S. government to declare war on all nations that sponsor, support and harbor terrorists. Only by destroying its government backers can we eliminate the root of terrorism.

I encourage my fellow students to reject the calls to "stop the violence." This refrain evades the difference between the unjust initiation of violence committed by the terrorist countries and the justified retaliatory violence required to save American lives. If the United States does not use extreme violence against terrorist-sponsoring countries, violence will not stop. It will simply be further directed against U.S. citizens by terrorists and governments who know they can get away with it. Similarly, we must reject calls for "tolerance"--toleration and appeasement of the America-hating Islamic fundamentalist terrorist countries is precisely what has made the last 20 years of terrorist attacks possible. To win this war, we cannot tolerate evil--we must destroy it.

Alex Epstein

Trinity '02