Learning about John Edwards

Do you buy the notion, as Cheney has said, that what the Bush administration calls the “war on terror” is a struggle that will be going on all of our lives?

“There is a struggle that certainly will go on for some time. But I do not define the struggle the way he does. He wants to talk about this as war, the war on terror. And this struggle is one that has many layers. One layer is the only one they like to talk about, which is violent, radical Islam. Is this a threat to the security of the world? It absolutely is. But there are many components of that struggle that they never talk about, which are the underlying causes, which is the underlying capability of the terrorists to recruit. It is a multi-causal thing. It is young people not being educated, being educated in madrassas, living lives of poverty and hopelessness; corrupt regimes. There are multiple contributors to the undercurrent that allows terrorism to be a force in the world. Can we stamp it out entirely no matter what we do? Probably not. If we do all the things today that we should be doing, we can weaken it to the point that America and the rest of the civilized world can manage it.”

The Salon interview with John Edwards