Submitted by Christine, Jun 8, 2007 15:00

Mr. May's view is too simplistic: while poverty, per se, does not cause terrorism, it is the case that complete indifference to poverty and the suffering of people unable to help themselves engenders resentment. Add to that great profits (e.g. from oil) at the expense of the poor (in Iraq or Nigeria--countries exploited for oil) and you have a perfect formula for creating resentments which are then played upon by corrupt terrorists to breed new terrorists. Also, while I am a fan of Hillary (since I am an ardent feminist), she is totally wrong that we are safer now than before invading Iraq. It requires only the merest amount of common sense to recognize that when you invade a country and bully and kill inhabitants you are going to create more terrorists than existed before. (Whether or not the invasion is justified--it is always going to give birth to new resentments/violent reactions.) And Bush's policy of waiving felonies to get more army recruits is madness: do we really want criminals in the armed forces? It is hard enough to prevent the brutalizing of civilians without giving criminals the means to assault. Good grief, what would that say about our servicemen, and more important, what kind of people would we be arming and sending to represent us? Finally, I am not a lily-livered turn the other cheek kind of person. We need to defend ourselves if attacked. But that is not the only thing to do. We also need to be proactive in the world and put forth our better selves. We need to participate in a more noble way as world citizens, and working to alleviate poverty or at least ameliorate the miserable living conditions of so many innocents worldwide is not only the most humane thing to do, it will gain the goodwill of others towards us. Edwards' ideas are good, and the right thing to do!

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