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Introduction
After the smashing of three aircrafts into the symbols of American economic and military might we have learned, in a very hard way, to recognize that terrorism is indeed a clear and present danger to our people, our economy, and our way of life. The next step is to decide how we will fight this menace - without compromising and sacrificing in the process the very values for which we are fighting, lest in the process of eliminating terrorism we eliminate ourselves.

Basic Philosophy
War against an enemy remains hollow unless we are clear about the moral grounds of the conflict. Terrorism is condemned and denounced on the grounds that means cannot justify the end. It may be true that most acts of terrorism are grounded in ignorance and hopelessness, and on this account one may sympathize with the cause for which the group committing terrorism stands; yet the act of maiming, murdering, and mutilating innocent people, who are in no way a party to the issue, cannot be supported or allowed. Civilization is about upholding higher human values against mundane disputes and political priorities - even in the face of tyranny and oppression.

The Paradox
Having laid the moral argument for our fight against terrorism let us turn to a fundamental paradox related to the issue and our response to it. We must not in our fight lose sight of the moral ground we are fighting on. We must never start to go blind in this fight and start to work against the very values that we are fighting for. Civil liberties are our way of life, which grow out of the concept that every one has a right to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. Democracy is the mother of civil rights. If we start to cut down civil liberties, start peeping into peoples private lives start stop and search patrols at will and whims of those who conduct them, and become hostage to safety and security we will have the same atmosphere of repression and artificial regimentation which we abhor - and which the Al-Qaeda loves and thrives in. So the paradox is: ends don't justify the means, neither for the terrorists nor for us, so we cannot do to the terrorists what they are doing to us. Then what to do?

Paradox Resolved
The paradox can be resolved by understanding what the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), argued in a case in 1977. Nazis planned a march in a Jewish suburb of Chicago. The ACLU supported the Nazis. The argument of ACLU included inter alia, "…the people who most need to defend the rights of Ku Klux Klan are blacks…and who most need to defend the rights of Nazis are the Jews" (Lewinski, 1988). What does this argument mean? Very simply put, it means what one of our Presidents meant when he said that injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. If we want to uphold our rights we have to respect the rights of others. Terrorism is a symptom and not the disease. We must concentrate on fighting and eliminating the disease - which is ignorance and hopelessness. These two, in turn, grow in poverty, injustice, dictatorship, dogmatism, and lack of freedom and democracy. Until people all over the world are given the right to rule themselves and live a life of their own choice in a democratic and egalitarian manner we will see conflicts, and as long as we see conflicts we will see terrorism. So our enemy is not the terrorist but the dogmatic and tyrannical system that breeds the terrorist. The very basis of democracy is that given the freedom to choose, people, in general, or at least their majority, make the right choice. Democracy believes in the collective intellect of people and gives them the right to make mistakes as long as the majority of them agree to make them. This right denied, people turn to other means of expressing opinions - one of them being terrorism.

Conclusion
Terrorism cannot be fought with terrorism because terrorism is only a symptom and not the disease. We cannot start cutting down civil liberties and changing our very way of life, which we want to preserve, and which the terrorists want to destroy and defeat. Victory against terrorism is not defined by what percentage of terrorists we eliminate but by what percentage we eliminate the conditions, which breed terrorists. Terrorists are bad guys and we cannot kill all the bad guys. That is the primary premise why we do not believe in capital punishment as against most of the Asian countries. Let us not defy our own dreams and values. Let us create conditions where bad guys are not bred, instead of killing them and in the process defeating ourselves.