The moral basis for the fight against terrorism

I just read this brief article on the Huffington Post, then went on to read the full article on Yahoo.

I have always respected Colin Powell as an experienced statesman and honorable warrior, and as a moderate and moderating voice when it comes to discussions of war. He would make a good president, too, but he too well knows the pain of having to continually compromise his principles in the name of the Politics of Expediency. He's been there, done that, and came out of it worse for the wear. I was disappointed when he spoke to the UN and was coerced into lying about Iraq, because I felt he was too strong and honest a man to be co-opted, but obviously the powers-that-be are very, very powerful. Scary powerful.

I have said before that we absolutely must take the high road, and by that I do mean the moral high road. If we stay on a level well above our terrorist antagonizers, we ensure the support of all civilized and free people everywhere. But I'm thinking specifically of the EU and India, two friends of ours who would be emboldened and much better supporters of us and our policies if we truly represented the enlightened best interests of the Free and Democratic Peoples of the World. And I don't use these terms as euphemisms for the opposite, either. Sadly, by our actions in this "war" we are in real danger of becoming the functional equivalents to terrorists. And that would be a Bad Thing.

It appalls me that we would so blithely ignore the Geneva Convention and our own laws, claiming that the means are justified by the ends. First of all, I can't quite see what end they must have in mind in even choosing these kinds of means. Surely we want to convince the terrorists and assure the rest of the world that we are the Good Guys, and that it would be wrong (really wrong!) to destroy us. When we invade sovereign countries, kill civilians, torture our prisoners, conduct illegal, secret wiretaps against our own citizens, and in so doing completely ignore our Constitution and laws, we only cement the belief in our patent evilness. If Germany upped and started doing these things, we would smack them down so hard ... and we wouldn't be alone, either. What then gives us the right?

The world was with us when the towers fell. Everyone died a little that day. Today, five years later, we are hard-pressed to find anyone who even wants to talk to us, let alone go to the mat for us. Bush, amazingly, seems fully prepared to go it alone. He feels ordained by god (or something) to do what he's doing, and apparently sees this whole confrontation in biblical terms--as a battle for Civilization As We Know It. As my wife remarked this morning, "maybe he's the anti-christ, then." All I can think to respond is, "god, I hope not."

Because if all that Judeo-Christian mythology turns out to be true, we Americans are all in real trouble. Because we're on the wrong side.