Religion often partakes of the myth of progress that shields us from the terrors of an uncertain future.

The next few months are critical to Pakistan's future direction as a democratic state committed to promoting peace fighting terrorism and working for social justice.

To stop terrorists before the strike we must do three things: deny them entry into the country curtail their freedom of action inside the country and deprive them of material and moral support from within the country.

Not to mention the fact that of course terrorists hate freedom. I think they do hate. But believe me I don't think they sit there abstractly hating freedom.

They call them terrorists I call them freedom fighters.

We are expected to believe that anyone who objects to the Department of Homeland Security or the USA Patriot Act is a terrorist and that the only way to preserve our freedom is to hand it over to the government for safekeeping.

Just as the Security Council was largely irrelevant to the great struggle of the last half of the twentieth century - freedom against Communism - so too it is largely on the sidelines in our contemporary struggles against international terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

You learn that you either are going to have a police state where you don't have any freedom left or you're going to build a world that doesn't create terrorists - and that means a whole different way of 'getting along.'

They have called Operation Iraqi Freedom a war of choice that isn't part of the real war on terror. Someone should tell that to al Qaeda.

They know the importance of their mission and of America's commitment to combating and defeating terrorism abroad and they know that they are making a real difference in bringing freedom to a part of the world that has known only tyranny.