How is this anything other than appeasement? Why not make the terrorists really happy and vote for Nader, Badnarik, or Cobb, the Green candidate: any one of those would certainly lower the hatred level much more efficiently than Kerry, who is pretty well committed to carrying on in Iraq and the greater war on terror.

Another problem, he says a key question is how many terrorists are we creating? First, we aren't "creating" any terrorists, we are fighting a war we didn't start, against those who hate us for who we are and what we believe. If we do ANYHING against the terrorists, we are, to follow this theory, "creating" more terrorists. So is Kaus saying the best course of action would be to do nothing?

This is illogical as well as repugnantly craven. The object of the war on terror is not the incremental, feverish reduction of the "level of hatred" among those inclined to hate us - what had we done to raise the level of hatred prior to 9/11 other than exist? - the object is to crush the aspirations of Islamists everywhere, and capture or kill all whose aspirations will not be crushed.

Appeasement, mollification, conciliation cannot fit anywhere into the plan: these things make success against terror less likely, not more likely. Bin Laden's primary justification for the attacks of 9/11 was that we were a decadent, weak, lazy - as well as evil - people who wouldn't defend ourselves and were therefore ripe for the taking.

He no longer feels this way - should we return him to this comfort zone where he once again believes he can attack with impunity? I think not, Mickey.