I'm not taking a side here, but what I've been hearing a lot of lately on talk radio, in print commentaries, on the street, etc., is the idea that to win a war against anti-American terrorists and their sneak-attack strategies, you have to fight on the same level -- i.e., the Russian troops who were willing to kill hostages in order to defuse the recent Chechen building-seizure crisis in Moscow. Holding to "the moral high ground" and fighting an "honorable war" will only result in lots of TV news camera shots of weepy relatives standing by at mass funerals, these people say. I find some logical merit in that idea, but I'm also troubled by the possibility that a) we didn't know for sure that terrorists were in that car; b) we didn't try to arrest them first; c) we may have killed innocent people along with the "guilty"; and d) conceding the moral high ground may reduce us to low ground in global opinion ... which, we have demonstrated over and over, does matter to America -- the idea that we are really only as strong as the size and strength of our allies and our coalitions.<p>I don't know. I sometimes think I'm ideally suited to be a journalist precisely because I never come to a conclusion on anything like this -- I always feel I need more information and newer perspectives. That's why I can't vote -- I study the issues and the candidates, I listen carefully to all sides, and I go into the booth, stare at the ballot, and after several frustrating minutes, wind up shaking my head and leaving with an untouched piece of paper. A hanging chad in its entirety, as it were.
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