As part of her answer to the question on the Bush doctrine, she said that Bush’s policy was to rid the world of Islamic extremists and terrorists. I certainly hope that is not true. And I hope that McCain/Palin would not embrace that philosophy as stated. There are extremists in any belief system. Some resort to violence, others to peaceful protest and yet others to vigorous debate. Some extremists do become terrorists but you have to include on that list extremists who claim Christianity as their justification and blow up abortion clinics.
It is not the job of the American president or anyone in goverment to “rid the world” of anybody because of their beliefs. It is their job to protect the citizens of this nation from those would who would maliciously set out to harm us for any reason.
We need for our politicians who are on the global stage to change their language when it comes to equating belief systems with malicious intent to harm. In this regard, Palin echoes some of the tone-deaf rhetoric of the Bush administration. This kind of talk reminds me of someone who attempts to be good at killing swarms of flies above a garbage pile without ever recognizing that the flies would go away if you took out the garbage. Killing flies seems more glamorous than taking out the garbage. In the case of extremism, the garbage could be poverty, oppression, displacement, lack of proper education or any of a host of other conditions that lead to desperation. We may not be able to clean up all the garbage. After all we didn’t create most of it. But we can acknowledge that it is there and also needs to be addressed for long term stability.
I am not for a moment excusing the behavior of those who go to any length to destroy others. But there are those who are indoctrinated and tricked into doing the dirty work of madmen. Who under other circumstances would have been engineers, teachers or shop owners. Some have been immersed in the sewage of hatred and revenge. Some have been offered a much better after-life and, even more important, the care of their families in this life if they are willing to go to the extreme of destroying themselves.  And some truly embrace the venom and become purveyors of hatred, even against those whose core religious beliefs are similar to their own.
Tragically, these have crossed the line from ideology to terrorism and must be dealt with no matter who wins the election.
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