These terrorists aren't trying to kill us because we offended them. They attack us because they want to impose their view of the world on as many people as they can, and America is standing in their way.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
There are people who wish to do us harm in the most heinous way. They want to kill Americans simply because they are Americans. They wish to destroy our culture and Nation because they don't like our freedoms, they don't like the fact that we are prosperous.
Islamic terrorists do not need an excuse to attack the United States. To attack us is what they do; they attack us for what we are.
Most terrorists are people deeply concerned by what they see as social, political, or religious injustice and hypocrisy, and the immediate grounds for their terrorism is often retaliation for an action of the United States.
They've hit us and we've got to hit back hard, and I'm not just talking about the terrorists.
It isn't those of us who oppose American aggression in the Muslim world who need manipulative, exploitative reminders about 9/11; it's those who cheer for these policies who are making a follow-up attack ever more likely.
Despite fearful rhetoric to the contrary, terrorism is not a transcendent threat. A terrorist attack cannot possibly destroy our country's way of life; it's only our reaction to that attack that can do that kind of damage.
The fight against international terrorism isn't just a fight against a bunch of misguided extremists; it is a fight to defend the values that we hold dear.
The real terrorist threats are George W. Bush and his band of brown-shirted thugs.
Setting aside moral considerations, those who flirt with hate speech against Muslims should realize they are playing directly into the hands of al-Qaeda and the Islamic State. The terrorists' explicit hope has been to try to provoke a clash of civilizations - telling Muslims that the United States is at war with them and their religion.
It's clearly the intent of the Islamic State to strike us here in the United States. And that's why we have to go on offense in the war against the Islamic State to fight them where they are before they fight us here in the United States.