Ronald Reagan declared war on terrorism, Bill Clinton declared war on terrorism, and now George W. Bush has declared war on terrorism.

George Herbert Walker Bush, you might say, declared war on terrorism, since Saddam was behaving like a terrorist, certainly, in his invasion of Kuwait. I very much regret to say that this is one of those problems that is not so much ultimately solved as dealt with, managed. In the Reagan years we worked hard to try to manage several groups of terrorists that were attacking Americans right then. We worked very hard to prevent the sale and spread of weapons of mass destruction. We worked very hard on trying to persuade our allies not to sell basic components of weapons of mass destruction. At each stage, I’m sorry that the president in question didn’t do more. It’s not a criminal matter. Due process of law is for Americans. It’s for people who accept the obligations of citizenship in a democracy. And if there’s anything these people didn’t do, it was accept any obligations whatsoever of citizenship in the world. I just don’t think they deserve our due process in our courts. This particular bunch has been escalating their attacks for a good 10 years, beginning with the first bombing of the World Trade Center and on to the bombing of our embassies and the bombing of the U.S.S. Cole, and we have not really responded. They have grown more and more violent in their attacks on us. And if we don’t do something that deters them, we are going to find ourselves and our society destroyed by these people. A democracy cannot survive and function under such fire.

I believe that it’s a military problem. It would be a very serious mistake for the United States not to respond with force. I do not usually ever advocate the use of force to solve problems. I just think that this is a major challenge, and that we’re forced to, in order to protect our civilization. And I mean our civilization. I don’t just mean American civilization, I mean modern civilization. What they are targeting is modern civilization. It’s open and free; it permits women to participate; it’s egalitarian and inclusive. I believe they are seeking to destroy modern society.

I have felt that it has been important for the president and others to make entirely clear that Americans do not in any sense approve of any scapegoating of Muslims. We don’t regard this as a Muslim act, actually. We regard this as an act of a fanatic, extremist political group, which in the first instance represses its own people. They start with tyranny against their own people, and they move on, and they’ve tried to move on too far this time.  

Jeane J. Kirkpatrick is a senior fellow at AEI.