Ah. There's the rub.
>>What is the "proper" reaction in this case?
I was at the airport yesterday and a couple of pilots were discussing this. One of them said, "Well, I sure am glad the election turned out the way it did. Can you imagine Al Gore handling this?" The other replied, "Yeah. He'd want us to go over and hug them to death."
I found the remarks curious for a variety of reasons (which I'll spare you in deference to yourself and Beep). However, the one thing we cannot do, imo, is allow the rage that I myself felt immediately following the tragedy, and that many others continue to feel, to dictate our response. But even that depends on what the purpose of the response is. If we only want to strike back - kill anyone or anything for fear of being perceived as having done nothing, then all this saber rattling, nuke 'em talk, etc. makes sense. But is that what we truly want? Wouldn't it be better if we diminished (to the extent possible) the likelihood that this will happen again? Thinking we can kill every like minded person in the world is a fool's errand. And unless you can accomplish that, an exclusively violent response will be ineffective.
Massive retaliation against those who "might" be "associated" with those responsible could bring even more violence, heighten anti-US sentiment and encourage even more oppressed people to believe that we are "evil", leading to more atrocious actions.
