Bin Laden and his followers, drawing on a large pool of disaffected educated often middle class young Arabs, are not about ending poverty or even murdering the Jews of Israel for the sake of the Palestinians. They are about murder.

I have a 10 year old daughter. I fear that her whole life will be filled with worry about the memory of September 11 and future acts of terror. If the United States is ever attacked again imagine the next version of the "Patriot Act." How many rights will Americans be willing to give up? How little will we resemble the nation we all want.

If the Progressive community cannot make protecting America and indeed the entire western world the first priority why should anyone vote for a Progressive candidate?

This does not mean sending soldiers all over the world and making an endless war. That is a guarantee for the end of our liberties without any warranty that the nihlists will b e defeated.

Bush's incompetence is stunning. We should have done a far more complete job in Afghanistan. Bin Laden should have been eliminated and the Taliban forever crippled and the country put on a path to peace and people to wellbeing.

In Iraq the stupidity of the Bush Administration has been stunning. We need to stop acting like we are fighting the Nazis and work on protecting Iraqis so they can be safe and have water and power and jobs. We need to encourage normal politics in Iraq.

To fight the nihlists we must stop saying that we are in a war on terrorism. Terrorism is a tactic not an enemy. We need to heal the rifts that Bush has made with the rest of the world and unite with police, security and intelligence forces of the world to disrupt the financing, and communications of these groups and track them down and arrest or kill them. There will be no quick or easy fix but with Bush in office it will never be done.

The United States and even more Europe has to rethink the balance in the Middle East between stability and democracy and developement. We should encourage market capitalism in the region since it will not only make people better off it will unset the traditional culture that is so embbed there. We must risk the regimes that have used oil wealth to hire chauffeurs for the women and fund terrorist groups. Progressives are in a perfect position especially unions to help the Middle East with its vast resources to reach the level of say South Korea.

Bush is a fool and way too ignorant for the world's wellbeing. The tough guy talk is a substitute for thinking. However, if the Left does not see and call the evil for what it is I fear not only many years of terrorist acts but a slow diminution of our liberties.