I do not profess to be an authority on morality in a religious sense, or for knowing a successful formula for avoiding or living with killers, thugs, thieves, heathens; or greed, deceit, corrupt ideologies, rules, laws, obstacles and those who live only for themselves and to hell with everyone else. But I have a moral compass and a few built-in standards of behavior that serve me well, and several bad habits that do not.  Still, I know a rat when I see, smell, or hear one. I do my best to never get close enough to feel or taste one.  Those who embrace terror as their sole reason for living are the rats about which I write.  They have chosen to abandon the sum and substance of what it means to be human.  They are grounded in fear, hatred, envy, greed, and contempt for all those outside their circle.  They are so dangerous and so utterly devoid of virtues that killing them is not only an act of survival; it is a moral imperative on our part to do so quickly and decisively.   

Who can negotiate with a terrorist?  Who wants to?  What would be the objective except to hope for an epiphany, or a moral transformation on the order of a miracle?  The rest of humanity needs to come together, hunt them down, kill them, and seek no prisoners.  If any of them voluntarily lay down their arms and surrender, strip them of all their weapons and clothing, throw them into pit, give them the option to drink cyanide poison, or let them die by their own hands in their own filth.  They rarely if ever give their victims a choice at all. 

Terrorism is not a subject that is open to debate.  We dare not grant anyone the option to kill innocent others for the sole purpose of seeking to gain something by terror that they want but have no right to.  Finding them and killing them will cost us a heavy price in lives and resources, but that apparently is the new price of vigilance in a world stained by this new evil.