SACRAMENTO, CA - The terrorist attacks on America reveal the true nature of what the nation faces: groups prepared to commit mass murder by any and all means. The response in California to the terrorist attack reveals the true nature of a movement that says it is devoted to peace and justice, but is really concerned with classic left-wing posturing.

The self-styled “anti-war” efforts are centered in the Bay Area, home to left-wing former congressman Ron Dellums and now to Barbara Lee, his former aide and the only member of Congress to oppose the resolution authorizing the president to use military force.

California Peace Action, a 35,000-member group, is pushing for a “non-violent” approach that avoids any military action and relies on international courts. Andrew Page, the group’s northern California political director, explains “To expose these terrorists for what they are and to let the world look at them and scorn them is the way to really take away their power.” Any military action, he said, is “just the wrong approach.”

The Peninsula Peace and Justice Center staged a rally similar to those during the Persian Gulf conflict 10 years ago. Rallies have also been held in San Francisco and Davis. UC Berkeley professor Michael Nagler is hosting a teach-in called “Beyond Violence: Exploring Alternatives to War.”

These developments are perfectly predictable, entirely understandable and, as far as national policy is concerned, totally without significance.

The notion that international courts can shame mass murderers into repentance and take away their power descends to levels of absurdity seldom, if ever, equaled. Those who believe that attacking America is a religious duty, gains them additional points in the afterlife, and who are willing to sacrifice themselves in order to murder more Americans, will not be persuaded by any court, nor by any argument. Their actions are the violence that is inherent in the system, as it were. And the notion that a response to the mass murder of more than 6,000 innocent civilians can avoid force recalls the maxim that everything has limits except human stupidity.

Policymakers, the media, and the public should understand that what we are dealing with here is a fundamentalism of the Left as rigid as anything held in rural Sudan or Afghanistan. In this fundamentalism, America is an evil, capitalistic place. Whenever America acts in the world, this movement immediately mobilizes, launching slogans such as “Food not Bombs,” and “Stop the U.S. War In Central America” or wherever. The movement is not “anti-war,” in the larger sense, only against the military campaigns of the United States.

The war in Vietnam, for example, continued after American withdrawal, but without a peep of protest from the supposedly anti-war ranks. Fidel Castro’s colonial campaigns in Africa touched off no demonstrations. This movement is not only one-sided but reactionary. It devotes more wrath to the American response than to the murderous act of terrorism itself.

The test for any ideas advanced as public policy is not their own ad copy but how they actually work. There is no evidence that appeasement, anti-Americanism, and pacifism will advance the causes of peace and justice, let alone security.

Policymakers should ignore this false advertising of the Left and get on with the difficult job of dealing with mass murderers in a way they understand.

K. Lloyd Billingsley