When I was a little girl, I saw a cartoon based on Rudyard Kipling’s Rikki-tikki-tavi, the mongoose hero of The Jungle Book who defeated evil cobras. I didn’t like the cartoon, primarily because the villainous snakes terrified me; therefore, I watched it only once. One line, however, has stuck with me for thirty years. One of the cobras hisses to the human child it is threatening, “If you move, I will strike. If you don’t move, I will strike.” Scary, even now.

Maybe it is especially scary now.

For the past six years, our political, military and even religious leaders have been using the threat of another 9/11-like terrorist attack to promote their decisions. If we don’t invade Iraq, we’ll be attacked. If we don’t pass the Patriot Act, we’ll be attacked. If we don’t allow our phone conversations to be monitored, we’ll be attacked. If we leave Iraq, we’ll be attacked. If we don’t ban gay marriage, we’ll be attacked.

Now, Rudy Giuliani, hero of 9/11, has warned us: if we elect a Democrat to the Presidency, we’ll be attacked.

Please forgive me for my profanity, but that is bullshit. (Sometimes the most appropriate word happens to be a profane one.)

Here is what I must say to anyone who gives me the line again: it doesn’t matter. It just doesn’t. Perhaps it sounds like a pessimistic thing to say. I certainly don’t like saying it, but I do believe it. Terrorists don’t care much about big-idea politics; I doubt many of them have any better understanding of the differences between Democrats and Republicans than President Bush has of the differences between Shi’ites and Sunnis. We can pass any law we want, or not pass it. We can monitor phone conversations or not. Leave Iraq or stay. Ban gay marriage or sponsor a cross-country gay pride parade. Doesn’t matter. Not at all.

These terrorists are like the horrifying snakes that gave me nightmares as a little girl. If they get the opportunity, they will strike. Period.

Most people don’t want to face the idea that there are things we cannot predict, cannot control, and cannot prevent. Most people want to cling to the idea that every thing that happens, happens for a reason; therefore, if we just make the right decisions, we can ensure that the right things happen. If you follow that impossible line of thinking, (as Voltaire did superbly in Candide – great book, you should check it out if you haven’t already!) then every baby whose father dies in the Iraq War, deserves to be fatherless. Every child born with cystic fibrosis deserves their pain. Every mother who loses a son or daughter to a drunk driver, deserves their tragedy. They made the wrong decisions.

These are hateful ideas. They necessitate the existence of an angry and unforgiving God who cruelly punishes every tiny transgression. They allow us to wallow in paranoia, fear and fury. They force us to walk on eggshells, second-guess our every move and sift through our own pasts to determine what we have done to deserve our fates.

Sadly, for most people, hate, fear, and anger come easy. The terrorists certainly know that. They feed on it.

Unlike President Bush, Dick Cheney, Rudy Giuliani and the many evangelicals running around screaming about terrorist threats and divine punishments, liberal Christians realize that God’s plan is unknowable. He doesn’t say, “Oh, Joe used my name in vain today; I’m going to give him cancer.” We also accept that true evil is not something we can prevent. It is; it always has been; it will be until the end.

So again, I say, it doesn’t matter. Stay in Iraq or get out. Elect a Democrat or a Republican or even an independent. It does not matter to the terrorists, folks. If we move, they will strike. If we don’t move, they will strike.