Vernon Ehlers: “I rise to talk about terrorism from my perspective, both as a Member of the Congress and as a scientist. It is very…”

“I rise to talk about terrorism from my perspective, both as a Member of the Congress and as a scientist. It is very clear that the purpose of terrorism is an effort by a nongovernmental agency or group of individuals to disrupt the activities of legitimate governments and to do so by instilling fear in the citizens of that particular government. We have to recognize that that is the main purpose of terrorism. The cause may be hate, the cause may be a simple interest in vandalism, but the purpose is to disrupt and to cause fear. There are various ways to respond to that. One, of course, is a military response, which this country is doing in response to terrorism. But equally important is to defeat terrorism by not letting the terrorists disrupt our country, by not letting them generate fear in our country, but rather by recognizing what their purpose is and to defeat them by not yielding to the terror and to the fear that they want to instill. Obviously, when the terrorists attacked our Nation and killed roughly 6,000 people in a horrible, horrible attack on the New York World Trade Center, we as a Nation became very disturbed, as we have every right to be, and we are responding to that action militarily. But I am concerned about the response of fear that we also see, the fear of flying, the fear of going places, and the withdrawal into our homes. That is precisely what the terrorists want, and I encourage the citizens of our country to overcome that fear.”