LETTER: Don’t use terrorism to fight terrorism

In Dale Netherton’s Sept. 16 letter, “America has power to destroy terrorists,” he proposed that America simply determines vaguely where Osama bin Laden is hiding at any given time and “decimate that area.” I’ve never taken a political science course or participated in a mock government, but it seems to me that “decimating” part of someone else’s country to destroy one terrorist is not only overkill, but a horribly naive suggestion. Sacrificing international relations by violating another nation’s sovereignty would be a very efficient way to lose what little support we have left from the rest of the world.

As to the statement that our refusal to indiscriminantly bomb another nation will determine “whether history will see us as courageous or not,” I can only shake my head. Destroying a 40-mile radius around a possible target is the sort of behavior we expect from terrorists. Would you crash a plane into a building full of another country’s citizens if you believed bin Laden was inside? Or would you destroy two adjacent buildings, if only because you couldn’t be sure which one he was in?

Mr. Netherton proposes that America fight terrorism with terrorism, and regardless of whether you believe that we are already on that path, this proposal cannot possibly sound like an improvement. Terrorists fight like guerrillas — not only that, but you can rest assured that killing one man at the expense of whatever other harm you might do with your flagrant misuse of power would not stop his faction. In fact, it might garner more support from countries hostile to the United States. Personally, I’m not sure they’d be wrong.

This is the sort of ignorance that gives the United States a bad image.

Eric Tremper

Senior

Computer Science