"But the artists and filmmakers who are fondest of that handy platitude are never able to tell us what the answer is, particularly in cases involving terrorist acts, acts that generally exist outside the context of sane moral reasoning. Diplomacy, obviously, is a much more civil and ethical way of solving disputes than violence is. But if terrorists were responsive to diplomacy, we'd have to call them by another name."

Talk about simple-minded platitudes. So George Bush is right? "They attack us because they hate our way of life." Violence is the best answer to terrorist attacks?

Political terrorism is not the act of insane mass murderers. In the context of violent political conflicts it is quite sane and rational, and sadly often quite effective. Would Arik Sharon have pulled out of Gaza without Palestinian terrorism? Not likely. And look at all the "benefits" bin Laden has reaped by his attack on the U.S. He has gotten the U.S. involved in two wars that are draining our energies and which serve as recruiting and training grounds for his jihad against the West. He even got the U.S. to withdraw its bases from Saudia Arabia (one of his key demands). Quite sane and rational from his perspective.

What IS irrational is the knee-jerk reaction that terror invokes: the need to lash out in revenge, the willingness to act in a way that turns you into the moral equivalent of the terrorists, the willingness to ignore the innocent victims of YOUR acts of violence who will turn around and justify their violence by your murders and on in endless cycle of blood letting. Not to speak off the irrational fear which allows us to exaggerate the threat of terrorism and to give up hard-won freedoms in the name of "protecting" ourselves.

Violence begets violence. There are many ways to respond to terrorist violence and yes diplomacy is one of them. And diplomacy doesn't mean "appeasement" or giving the terrorists what they want (in fact, the violent reaction is exactly giving the terrorists what they want). It means looking hard at complex conflicts and trying to find imaginative ways to solve them. In the end they almost always do somehow get resolved, except in the interim thousands of lives are lost and wasted for no good reason except to appease our instinct for revenge and satisfy the power lust of voracious politicians.

If the point Spielberg is attempting to make is that violence is morally corrosive I submit that absolute certainty, the conviction that whatever you do in the name of national destiny or whatever we like to call terrorism on TV today, is acceptable, is far more dangerous than the somewhat more human doubts we may have about responding to it. Morality and ethics aren't about feeling bad about doing bad things, they're about having a good enough reason to do what is necessary. In either case you may wish to watch a recent Israeli film "Walking on Water" which covers the last waning days of 'dealing with' aged Nazi war criminals. It too handles this complex issue conveniently.

Well, what's the history of terrorism? Who has used it? What finally happened? If you consider the case of the IRA, there were incidents for many, many years. It's hard to characterize how the British responded in simple terms. I don't claim to know very much. If you listened to the BBC during the 'troubles' they would never interview the IRA people. They would have other people read their words. It was a fairly sophisticated response. The IRA is not what it was. It might not be a terror group anymore, at least at the core. But only time will tell.

There are other groups, like ETA, in Spain. We have certainly had extremist groups in this country who used terror. McVeigh comes to mind. Are these really cohesive groups? The gap between the Europeans and the Americans is partly over whether terror is crime or something 'more'. Even if it is just 'crime', and it is, society will use violence to prevent it. So, on some level, this is a straw man. Of course we will fight terrorist acts.

The next level up is the kind of attack that is used by the Israelis, firing a missile at someone in a car. They 'know' the man is bad. They kill him. It's not a law enforcement response. No trial.

The essential point many try to make is that you cannot use violence if you create a cycle, a spiral, of violence. That is what the Russians seem to be getting in Chechnya, and elsewhere.

The Bush characterization of terror does not lend itself to judical response. It is often pointed out that the Europeans have a longer experience with terror. But, of course, so do the Israelis. It seems to me the Bush approach will lend itself to spirals of violence, but not entirely so.

Ultimately, all you can do is hope that people find a non-violent political answer. Did the IRA do this? You can also try to frame the responses so they are not amenable to creating a spiral of violence. This would mean working through the criminal process. This 'hope' is really just a cliche, and it wouldn't make a very good movie. Which is why you can't make too much of the movie, why the movie 'can't' have an answer. This review makes me want to see the movie.