IT'S WHO WE ARE: Not what we do. Victor Davis Hanson with his characteristic clarity dissects and dismisses the fallacy that America is the cause of which terrorists are simply the effect. Ted Kennedy's favorite verb lately is "enflame." He says that's what our actions do to the Islamists fundamentalists: enflame them to kill. Hanson uses history to show how nuts that is.

Civilization has only two choices. It can continue appeasing these murderers, looking in vain for "root causes" of the mayhem.... Or the United States and its allies can deny suspect Middle Eastern males entry into the West while distancing themselves from all Middle East dictatorships, which neither punish nor even shame thousands of their citizens whose money and psychological support fuel murderers across the globe. We wait for a Western leader with the intellectual integrity and guts at last to say, "Enough is enough."