When US President Bush outlined his policy of preemptive operations against terrorist threats to the United States, he was by default providing any other state, including Russia, with the political–if not the legal–justification for adopting a similar policy against groups that these countries had defined as terrorists. Further, by declaring a Global War Against Terrorism, the President effectively redefined all groups who employ political violence against a sovereign state, irrespective of their cause, as terrorists. The necessity to engage in a global war against those terrorists that attacked us, has, therefore, allowed any country to petition for our support for their own war against terrorists, even if the means that they employ are inhumane or illegal. Failure to provide that support results in our being accused of hypocrisy and double standards.

The moral dilemma that we now face is that we can no longer differentiate between terrorists and freedom fighters. Therefore, by the standard of today, all of the separatist and insurgent groups we have supported in the last 100 years would now be defined as terrorist. The resistance movements of World War II, the Contras, various Cuban, Iranian, and Iraqi groups all would now have to be designated as terrorists and treated accordingly. Indeed, even American political and financial supporters of the Irish Republican cause and its political expression Shin Fein should now be considered as supporters of terrorism. It is this lack of moral flexibility that countries like Russia seek to exploit.