I remember the precious message written for the Japan Catholic Bishops Conference on Oct. 4, 2001, just after the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the United States. The message said the terrorist attacks infringed on the dignity of all human beings and that the perpetrators should be tried before the international criminal court, but that using the armed forces against the hotbeds of terrorism in Afghanistan would only add to the number of innocent victims and draw parts of the world into an endless cycle of retaliation.
The retaliatory attacks since then against Afghanistan and Iraq have brought the world into the kind of chaos that the conference warned against. Considering the reasons that terrorists tend to dash into violent action, we should instead be making greater efforts to solve common human causes of poverty, resentments, etc. for however long it takes.
The advanced countries, most of which call themselves Christian, should strictly follow the Christian doctrine against killing. The halfway approach of mixing Christianity with a military solution cannot be trusted by Islam. Terrorists are human beings; they are not original evils. We should start peaceful dialogue with the people apt to rush into terrorism.
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