A knee-jerk reaction to horror is to pull in. Cocoon.
Which is exactly what the terrorists who set off bombs in Brussels Tuesday want the world to do.
Instead, we must stand firm in denouncing them as barbarians and maintaining our resolve not to be intimidated.
We also must not go overboard in saying every Muslim needs to be watched, as Sen. Ted Cruz did in his suggestion that here in the United States police should search Muslim households. That’s outright religious profiling.
Nor should the U.S. military use its “full force and fury” to defeat the Islamic State group — another suggestion by the war-mongering Cruz, who earlier proposed carpet-bombing entire swaths of the Middle East, a violation of the War Crimes Act.
Instead, the United States should stay the course in building international solidarity against the terrorists as well as maintain its successful course in stealth attacks.
Much to the dismay of those thirsty for the battlefield, the president’s course of site-specific drone attacks has proven to be an effective means of combating terrorism with minimal cost and loss to the United States, especially in terms of our sons and daughters.
And lest we forget, when the president surveyed Congress as to its support of invading Syria in 2013, he received a resounding no from Democrats and a tepid, but equally affirmative, answer from Republicans.
After the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the United States does not have the stomach to launch another invasion in the Middle East.
The reason?
They don’t make the situation better.
Which does not mean the United States sits idly by while such despots terrorize the innocent. Not that it could. The world looks to the United States for leadership, which is a burden as much as it is a privilege, and requires measured responses and careful weighing of the myriad “fires” calling for our attention.
“There is no way we should commit to governing the Middle East and north Africa,” Obama replied recently to requests for more intervention. “That would be a basic, fundamental mistake.”
The Middle East, in other words, must be made to take responsibility for the fostering of radical extremism.
