The Toll of Terror.

• Position: Why wars and terrorism are not answers

We write just one day after the terrible terorist attack on New York City and the Pentagon. We are in shock, as is the rest of the nation. We grieve for the thousands who died, the thousands who are wounded, and their families.

But we resist the call to arms, and we are made sick by the blood lust in the media and among the populace.

The United States should protect itself and its citizens--no doubt. That is a constitutional requirement, and the obligation of all nation states. But to wage war may only seed the clouds for future acts of terror. And to act precipitously, as it seems Bush will do, all but guarantees that the United States will hit some wrong targets and inflict needless suffering on hundreds--maybe thousands--of innocent people.

Recall the Clinton bombing of the Sudanese pharmaceutical plant in Khartoum in 1998, which destroyed much of the medical supplies for that country. Clinton said the plant was linked to nerve gas production, but never produced the evidence. Recall the missiles during that same bombing mission that strayed into Pakistan instead of hitting their targets in Afghanistan. Are we going to see more of those?

Bush seems indifferent to the "collateral damage" that any large military action will cause. But what kind of morality is it for Bush to decry the killing of civilians and then go out and kill some civilians himself?.

Commentators tell us that this is the second Pearl Harbor. On December 8, 1941, FDR got a declaration of war from Congress. No Congress has issued such a declaration since, though President after President has waged war. If Bush is to go to war, the least he could do is follow the requirements of Article 1, Section 8, of our Constitution. Otherwise, it will be another lawless act, and another diminution of our democracy.

The Pearl Harbor analogy has frightening connotations. Two months after Japan's surprise attack, the U.S. government rounded up Japanese Americans into internment camps. Now it seems highly improbable that Arab Americans or Muslim Americans will be rounded up, but what does seem quite possible is that the media's obsessive focus on a non-differentiated Islamic fundamentalism--mixed in with nativist sentiment that is always on the shelf--will create a cocktail of hate crimes.

"We should drop nuclear weapons on all of Islam," said one anonymous caller, who left a message with American Muslims for Global Peace and Justice in Santa Clara, California.

"Islamic Americans in many...