One of the largest problems a free and generous society has is understanding that evil can exist. This is the "can't we all just get along?" thesis.

In the U.S., thousands of people with this attitude are protesting a possible military action. They believe that if we just give these terrorists something they want, if we stop doing something they don't like, if we say something they want to hear, then they'll go away and stop hurting us. Somehow this horrible thing that was done to us is our fault.

These peaceniks have the political version of battered-wife syndrome.

This appeasement did not work on the Huns. This did not work on the Barbary pirates. This did not work on Communists. This did not work on Nazi Germany. This has NEVER, EVER worked on the predators of this world.

There is no way to negotiate with a person whose philosophy demands that you cease to exist. Where do you find a middle ground for this? Bin Laden doesn't hate us because we did something bad to him, he hates us because we exist as a free society. The only way to make him happy would be for us to be utterly destroyed, or to submit to living in a society designed around his monstrous principles.

If you had sat Adolph Hitler and his advisors at a table, what could you have possibly told them that would make them say, "Wow. I never looked at it that way before. Okay, Jews can be regular citizens of Germany just like everyone else." Well? What would you have told them?

To have admitted that Jews were human would have negated their entire evil philosophy, and by extension, themselves.

There was just one way to deal with Hitler, and that's what we did.

There is just one way to deal with Islamic fundamentalists--you know, the ones threatening to kill the humanitarians feeding their people?--and that's what we're going to do.