Fight Terrorism by Fighting Poverty? You Don't Say?!

Oh this is rich:

Gates considers roots of terrorism: "Declining to say whether the U.S. and its partners are winning the war on terror, Defense Secretary Robert Gates called Saturday for more focus on combating poverty and other underlying causes of extremism."

In 2001 when the relatively calmer heads of social liberalism (humanists) suggested fighting terrorist threats by understanding its roots, those voices were decried as "emotional", "weak", "dangerous" and worse, "un-American".

Make note (a-gain) that liberals are YEARS ahead of conservatives in their ability to understand the human elements underpinning behavior, and the first to point them out.

That includes liberal SOLUTIONS for problem behaviors.

Of course they then spend the interim defending their IDEAS while conservatives figure out how to appropriate those ideas as their own (while at the same time projecting their wrong-headedness as the liberal position).

Liberals; defend less, do more. Nothing speaks louder then success.