I wrote about the death of the man in Florida last week, and I've gotten a lot of responses about it, both on the post and on the phone. I'm following up here with some thoughts to expound upon what I meant.

I feel like we've been told that the man's death is THE ONLY thing that could have possibly happened. I'm not suggesting they should have stopped and given the man a mental evaluation before acting. I'm suggesting that we shouldn't be so comfortable with killing someone! I'm suggesting that maybe there is a third way that gives some benefit of the doubt to people's humanity, or at least to the security everyone passes through. I don't know law enforcement well enough to know the answer, but I'm afraid that no one on the inside is even allowed to ask that question. There is an assumption that we must do whatever we think will work to prevent another 9/11. I'm not arguing that we shouldn't try to do that. I'm arguing about what will work. In my opinion, our invasion of Iraq makes it more likely that there will be another 9/11, not less likely. And if we get too comfortable with killing suspected bombers, then we are no longer protecting our freedom but destroying our freedom.

The air marshals are a perfect example of what I mean when I say that we have reacted poorly to 9/11.

What is their purpose? To prevent hijackings. This is fine and good, but in a direct response to the action of 9/11 we have overemphasized any security dealing with air travel. This is like the British army during the American Revolution responding to American guerrila-style warfare by adding additional troops to the front lines of their marching formations. The terrorists are simply going to find another way of attacking, another disguise. Certainly we need stepped up security, but we need limits to that security as well.

We have also stepped up security at major events (football games and such) and at very large office buildings across the nation (though not necessarily the most densely populated). What happens, though, when a terrorist bombs a medium sized, densely-populated building? Will we put "building marshals" in every office building in America? How about a sidewalk cafe bombing? What are our limits? The more of this type of security there is, the more chances there will be for confusion and accidental murders. But even if we could do this, would it actually give us more security? Or would it be a never-ending catch-up game? As far as I can see, security along this line of thinking will only come when Imperial America conquers the entire globe, tracking all peoples' movements and all movements of monies (of course this is taking it a bit too far, but I'm trying to make a point; albeit one that is not too far off the truth of our invasion of Iraq).

I think we responded to 9/11 all wrong from the beginning. I think we should have stopped for a second and asked why these people hated us so intensely and if there was anything we could do to alleviate some of that. Killing tens of thousands of innocent people tends to create more extremists, not lessen their intensity. Israel has been fighting this war for security for decades, and they've not gotten any more security by doing it, and they do have army people walking around everywhere with machine guns slung over their shoulders - and I do mean everywhere, its rather unnerving.

What could we have done differently? We could have listened to what they had been trying to tell us for years. We could have stopped and listened first. We could have reassessed our policy of blind, and often unjust, support for Israel over and against Arab Palestinians (one of the terrorists' major complaints). We could have cooperated with Muslim officials in certain countries to limit the flow of American entertainment, full of drugs, sex, and alcohol, that in their view destroys their peoples' faiths and lives. We could have begun here, listening and responding, and then asking for something in return - such as police forces (perhaps monitored by American intelligence agents) that destroyed terrorist training camps and attempted to arrest and prosecute leaders of terrorist cells.

Turkey adopted this philosophy after decades of failed security against the Kurds, and it worked beautifully. Instead of holding the Kurds down in punishment, they decided that they would begin to spend tax money from the whole country in a way in which Kurdish communities received three times as much per person as did Turkish communities. As soon as the government stopped discriminating against the Kurds and tax monies began to provide necessary infrastructure that pulled Kurds out of poverty and into a normal life, they had very little to be upset about, and they stopped listening to the extremists among them who taught that the Turkish government should be overthrown. The Turks offered a cash reward, and the people actually turned in the top Kurdish extremist. Then, instead of killing him, they offered him a deal. They said they would let him go, though keep a close eye on him, if he would teach against extremist solutions to the problems they had.

To me, that is a more Christian response to terrorism than what the Bush administration has done.

I'm not suggesting it could have been that simple to deal with Al Queda, but I am saying that we went to war unjustly - not as a last resort. I believe that democracy is the most morally superior form of government the world has known, however I question whether it can be forced from the outside. It has worked best when throughout history it has been born from within the populace of a nation as they rose up together against some injustices, as the American Revolution was born, and the French, and even the ancient Greek democracy.

I believe the best way to combat terrorism is to promote democratic voices that already exist within countries where terrorists reside, and to deal justly with those countries, and even with the terrorists. This at least gets closer to the meaning of "love your enemy" than does the dropping of thousands of bombs and blatant disregard for belief systems and worldviews. By doing so we might even turn some enemies into friends, rather than creating more enemies (both the creation of more terrorists and the turning of Europeans and other friends into enemies).