Double standard, Published 18 June 2004, The Globe and Mail

re: Terrorism's other peril is how it transforms us by Michael Ignatieff, 17 June 2004.

For all of its insights, there was one lacking point in Mr. Ignattieff's article: while liberal democracies may obey the rule of law domestically, they frequently violate it internationally. This was certainly the case with Kennedy's Bay of Pigs invasion, Reagan's mining of Managua's harbours and his blank cheque for the Contras, with Israel's near constant insurgencies and assassinations in the West Bank and Gaza, and now with what's happening in Iraq.

When democracies allow themselves to behave like tyrannies on the world stage, they make it increasingly difficulty for the oppressed to tell the difference between the two. This behaviour, and not terrorism from small, isolated groups of knuckle-dragging, cave-dwelling extremists, is the real threat to democracy.