Terrorism should be one of the number one issues dealt with. I personally feel that it has gotten worse and going to get worse since the invasion of Iraq. And I don't even think a pull out is going to make much of a difference in this case because I think the damage has already been done.

I believe most of the fear is hyped up by the government. It's good to have security, but not up to the point where you suspect/accuse anyone of threatening the security of the nation.

Most important issue of our time. A stronger millitary better equipped and strong allies in the world will defeat terror.

I rate terrorism as no more than a three star problem, for this reason: although terrorism is present, and must be contained at considerable expense and some lives, it is not a pervasive problem, nor do I personally expect it ever to be. In other words, I don't expect to ever see a terrorist in my neighborhood. They do not scare me. Many other issues rank higher on my personal importance scale than terrorism.

Terrorism is such a scare tactic; 9/11 has made people so paranoid that it makes me sick. Politicians can't even help the victims in New Orleans and will forget about it along w/the general public in a few weeks but the bastards will shove terrorism down your throat and talk about9/11 forever. If the US is concerned w/terrorism then build a wall b/w the US/Mex border.......and actually go after countries that are a threat like n.korea

Nop this is mainly used by Bush to frighten the American public into supporting his wars. over 8 times more people have died due to gun crime than terrorism in America. you know why? Theres only been one terrorist attack on america in the last four years! and yet bush has been voted in due to the fear he had raised through it and he has murdered thousands of civilians in Afganistan and Iraq as a retaliation to terrorism!

When this country was founded we took care of our own problems. Didn't wait on the government. I will protect my family, and so should you yours.

We have to get terrorism over with quickly. If we don't stop them soon there's gonna be problems.

Terrorism absolutely needs to be #1 on the agenda. Terrorism leads to loss of life and without life no other topic would matter.

What if we changed the topic to: Islamofascist Terrorists with Worldwide Reach Who Seek the Destruction of the American Economy by Violent Means? Any chance of that getting a higher rating from some of you with memories that span 2 years or less? jgls nails it, if these people are successful, what else on this list rates even a 1?

They want to kill us. Hmmm. I've got it! We should kill them first.

The root of terrorism is the rise of rationalization and the decline of respect for rule of law, sovereignty, and the political process. Acts of terror occur only after the terrorists rationalize their behavior by convincing themselves that some greater good is achieved. This is true whether the terrorists are tree spikers convincing themselves that they saving the environment, abortion clinic bombers convincing themselves that they are saving unborn babies, or religious zealots killing civilians convincing themselves that they are purifying their faith. The short-term answer is necessary and harsh, namely relying on law enforcement and military action, but this is not a permanent solution. A long-term solution must be advanced as well, which means we must re-educate our own population as well as be an advocate for philosophical change in foreign lands. Those who have rationalized their terrorist acts (eg the aforementioned tree spiking and clinic bombers) must be re-educated to acknowledge that no cause is worth ignoring the risks to life, limb and property of their actions when the disputed issues have been so thoroughly debated in the public forum and hashed out in the political process. Foreign terrorists are harder to reach and understand since they often do not adhere to the same Western ideals and philosophies as we do. Nevertheless, if this change cannot be accomplished, we are in a war which could boil down to kill or be killed. While the attacks of September 11, 1991 may have been on U.S. soil, make no mistake, that was an attack on Western thought, secularism and tolerance. The terrorists merely attacked the most visible symbols of Rome for greater effect as opposed to some outlying province.

Terrorism is a complex problem with many dimensions. It is a law enforcement problem, the nature of the crime itself is largely individual and not group based. It took only 19 people to cause havoc on September 11th. There are reasons why terrorists took aim at the United States that go beyond the overly simplistic notion that they hate our values. Such an assertion is one of the reason why there is a disconnect between our policies towards the region and the actual situation on the ground. We have to look towards ourselves to see what is wrong with some of our policies towards the region. Some say that we are not promoting our case effectively enough in the region, but that's not quite accurate. They know our position, the problem is that we are getting blowback from our policies. You can't change how a group of people think from the top and that is why many people in the Middle East support terrorism. It's an extreme reaction to the policies which coincidentally the Bush Administration claims is helping to clear up the terrorist threat. We have to look at the long term here; the Middle East is going to need a more diversified economy first if we expect democracy to take root. Popular democracy in a country with instability and poverty is going to lead to extremist governments. Obviously it's not all about our policies, they have a different conception of government. They don't separate religion from politics as much as we do. But all religions, when mixed with politics, have the same outcome. Jeffersonian democracy will probably not bloom in the Middle East for some time. The Bush people should consider the potential for this outcome in Iraq. The last thing we want is an angry terrorist state in the Middle East. Resolving the war on terrorism is going to be a long task; the key is isolating these extremist groups across the globe, that means making our policies more palatable and fair to those in the Middle East. Once popular support disappears from these groups, they will lose forward momentum. It's going to take a political leader here the US who has the guts and vision to change our course; unfortunately I don't see one in the horizon.

To attempt to defeat terrorism is to attempt to defeat a belief. To fail to grasp how it is forms and develops is to fail to understand it. Terrorism, like organised crime and extreme politics are a product of social alienation and disenfrachisement (hope that's a word!) When a group of people feel that their concerns and needs are being ignored they become resentful. In a region as religious as the Middle East this resentment can very easily take the form of fundamentalism as people search for answers in their beliefs. As the largest outside influence in the region the US will always be seen as the main target for this sort of aggression, but a very pro Israeli stance and the military approach to Iraq hasn't helped. The answer? Well, being more supportive of the Palestinians, encouraging Middle Eastern trade and grass roots democracy. Involving the UN, specifically other countries in the region in a peacekeeping role in Iraq would probably help too, as another key point about terrorism is that it involoves a 'them and us' mentality. So I don't see how involving Shia and Sunni troops would do any harm. Either way, conservative thinking that ignores the needs of the little guy won't help.

I think we're at a loss for stopping terrorism. The more we intervene, the more we become the world's bully. This will turn around and bite us in the ass, and will make us the target of terrorist attacks. All it takes is one psycho (ie Timothy McVeigh, Bin Laden, Hussein, Malvo the sniper) to get pissed off and come up with some elaborate plan and commit a terrorist act agains the U.S. It would be impossible to completely protect ourselves from terrorism. The only thing we can do is continue to crack down on illegal aliens and increase airport security.

For the people that defend Clinton and his efforts to combat terror take a look at this board. It is littered with people (after 911) who still don't get it. Most of them are in fact liberals and sadly include many moderates. This is the only issue. A wide spread population of highly trained, very successful, well financed terrorists have declared war vs. every American and Jew. They have proven how determined they are and we can afford not to sit back and wait to get hit again and again and again and again and again before we act. The terrorists wouldn't hesitate to detonate 25 nuclear warheads simultaneously in the 25 biggest American cities. They are determined to do just that and if allowed to proceed on the current trajectory they will eventually be successful. This is greatest issue of our time for those willing to fight. The others better be prepared to die.

9/11 was awful and wrong. We all know this. The UK watched it in horror, we really felt for you. But surely concentrating solely on getting rid of terrorism is not going to help your country. Take steps to make sure that your country is protected, for example: tighten up security with airports etc, fine. But concentrating on one issue? Your country needs to keep on running - there is your economy, education and a million and other one things that need to be concentrated on to make sure that it doesn't collapse.

if we don't deal with this issue, nothing else really matters.

Terrorism may seem like an important issue to the average voter, but for the United States, I feel it should not be. There will always be terrorists in the world, no matter how hard the U. S. tries to stamp them out. There have been terrorists for many years in the past, and there will be terrorists for many years to come. America is facing a Constitutional crisis, and the economy is in a terrible state. I think the government should consider our problems at home before thinking about defeating terrorists.

Um, yeah...the World Trade Center and all. I know Democrats now like to pretend that nothing unusual happened on September 11, 2001...but something did. It's only important, though, if you live on planet earth.

Radical muslim terrorists want to kill us all and this is ranked #18 while a couple of pervs wanting to get married is ranked #4! What the hell is wrong with you people.

It is clear that terrorism and the threat of terrorism is the most important issue facing our country at this time. When American voters go to the polls next year, there will be two things on their mind: the economy and terrorism. Terrorism is the first enemy that we have had to face in this century, and the struggle continues. Strength is necessary, and sometimes, the use of force is necessary as there is no negotiating with terrorists. We cannot, of course, expect to eliminate all terrorists and terrorism itself. Terrorism is not an entity; it lives in the minds and hearts of men. However, we can certainly make every effort to defend ourselves and defend our allies against this growing threat. In the final analysis, terrorism is the single most important issue facing our country, and indeed the world. With the right kind of leadership and reasonable (and achievable) goals and objectives, we can win this struggle by containing the threat.

I realize this is important, but there are far more important things to worry about. By worrying about terrorism, americans are screwing up our economy. This is exactly what Bin Laden wanted and he got it.

The reason why this war on terror is just not convincing people is first, most people are idiots, they have a very short memory span and tend to forget or ignore the devastating attacks of WTC, Bali, Morocco, S.Arabia, Israel, etc. Already some people question whether the other side is really that bad. But what makes it worst is that from the start the American admin, chose to just call this a war on terror or terrorism. That was just stupid. In actual fact it's just plain chicken, it was playing into political correctness. Just the other day Bush commented about the attacks on the UN & Israel, he said this kind of terrorism is totalitarian in nature and that they [the terrorists] want to impose their world vision on all of us. Although correct, he once again fell short on naming the real culprits here, he played into political correctness. Bush and his admin better than anyone know what these terrorist movements have in common. This is the real problem here; people don't know who their enemy is, where he is, how he gets recruited and what the hell he wants. Our enemy is not terrorism, that's just too vague, we're not up against for example ETA, IRA, & FARC (all these notable terrorist orgs). Our enemy is not just Osama and his merry men. Our enemy is ISLAMIC FUNDAMENTALISM in all its forms. Al Qaeda means base or maxim; they are in actual fact a sort of armed wing of an Islamic movement whose goal it is to destroy and convert by force the entire Judeo-Christian world. This is their goal, they aim to start by attacking Israel and EUA, Britain and any of their allies. This is their true Jihad. In the west they are using their mosques to recruit new martyrs to give their lives for this struggle. But it's not just Al Qaeda, there are dozens of radical movements all over the Islamic world and in the west, they are all brothers in a common cause to convert the world to Islam. What we see in Israel today is an example of this frontline battle between the west and them. It's not about territories, it's about driving Israel into the sea and once they do that they want to resume their great Islamic expansion of the rest of the world. It is similar to the Roman Catholic religion in the Middle Ages trying to impose their religion on all the states of Europe. In fact it is much worse as these are no longer the middle ages and the type of religious intolerance practiced by these fundamentalist movements will lead whole civilizations into an Afghanistan type reality. We need to (especially in the west) know that these people are our enemies, and this fight has to be won no matter what the sacrifices are. WE NEED TO KNOW THAT THIS IS A WAR ON ISLAMIC FUNDAMENTALISM TERRORISM!

I say we mercilessly nuke all terrorists and their supporters.

Protecting the nation against our enemies, foreign and domestic, is one of the few legitimate and urgent responsibilities of the Federal Government.

this is vital

Obviously the best choice here. We were attacked, now we need to defend ourselves. Its not how many people have died, its how many people could die in the future. The only choice on this list that could kill us, its the most important definetely.

Clearly the only critical issue on this list.

definitely more important than gay rights, for example......

A symptom, not the problem. Build good international relations. Start by deposing the worst foreign policy despoiler since whichever prez abandoned laissez-faire (all right, I admit - I don't remember who it was)

How many people have died in the last ten years in the US from terrorism? Let's just say between 3 and 4 thousand. How many people have died in that same period of time from cancer? How about heart disease? How about car accidents? How about domestic crime? So why is it that we are willing to spend billions on terrorism, but not cancer or heart disease? Why is the government restricting our civil rights, but won't force car manufacturers to build safer cars? These things are all clear and present dangers, yet we turn our backs to them.

Anyone that threatens the great US of A should be strung up and shot. We are at the forefront of fighting terrorism and I say nuke our enemies, in particular Iraq, Iran, North Korea, Libya, Syria, Sudan, Yemen, and all the other peoples out there that oppose us.

This is a fight for our very survival, in my opinion. Much like with the high seas pirates of centuries past, we are now dealing with an enemy which is hard to pin down, and which will certainly battle with tenacity the likes of which we haven't seen in a long time. It should be at the top of this list.

Ive never looked up to the goverment because i knew they dont know as much as WE the people do..But now they know even more what THEIR mistakes have caused! We need to get on the Ball America! Wake and smell the roses!

How the hell do you rate terrorism?!?

Its importance as a political issue? Guess what. If any one of us die from a terrorist attack no other political issue will matter to us anymore, will it? How can anyone rate it as unimportant?

This is the thing most important to our nation? We are in a sad state of affairs when worrying, arguably unnecessarily, about the actions and motives of bottom feeders is more important than things like education and health care. You know, those things that actually pertain to our nation and the people. I realize that we are under the threat of attack and I also realize that many people think that the only way to make things better is to bomb things incessantly or as most people like to think of it 'get revenge and prevent future catastrophe.' I just see it as big men with big guns trying to make themselves feel better. We need to concentrate on us, on what we as a nation can do to rebuild ourselves. And by putting something like terrorism at the top of our list, all we are doing is worrying our heads off and asking to be taken advantage of.

Definitely should be a top priority. Let's put a stop to terrorism before more innocent people are needlessly murdered.

I agree with Lord of the Waves. This chapter in American history is really a revelation of our hypocrisy and oblivion we had been living in while this was happening in other countries. Prior to September 11th, it really was over-looked, but the truth is that terrorist operations have been occurring in our country and there are always going to be militant organizations that will turn to terrorism to escape their devastating situations. The underlying root of terrorism is most likely the suppression and poverty in which people of third world countries live. Hopefully, the U.S. can find a sufficient manner in which to eradicate terrorism and all other violence from this earth. It will be a far from easy task that may take decades, but it is imperative to protect the free world.

Until the date of 9/11/01 nobody believed this to be an important issue. Sure it is important but not the top of the charts material. It displays the incredible hippocracy that us americans live every day.

I just want to express how... disgusting it has been to watch all these anthrax threats pop up and how so many of us Americans act like nothing has happened. Sure, we should go on living our lives to show the terrorists that we are still strong, but I don't recall any time in America's history when we've had such dangerous threats; anthrax is pretty much unstoppable. Terrorism is a very important issue now. And it seems there is a very thin line between terrorism and war, depending on how we react to it all. This could get bad and unless we have tight security and stand strong... who knows what'll happen.

Remember when all there was to argue about was whether to continue honoring rhetorical accounting gimmicks like the Social Security "lock box"? Funny how an act of war can realign your priorities. My wife was talking to a Gore-supporting friend of hers who said, "well if I had thought there'd be a war, I would have voted for Bush." Everyone reading this please promise that you'll never again confuse the real responsibilities of the Executive Branch (defending the nation, honoring the Constitution, etc) with made-up "crises" that are meant to tug at your emotion (i.e., subsidizing prescription drug purchases; lowering student/teacher ratios from 1:24 to 1:23; blah blah blah).

I think we are getting far too hung up on this issue, but it is still important. Need to find out what (WHAT, not who) caused the terrorist attack on 9/11. I personally think we Americans ourselves had a role in it; we invited the attack with our cockiness. The terrorist(s), Osama bin Laden and John Doe (I refuse to believe bin Laden acted alone), also plaed a part. And JERRY FALWELL should put a sock in his mouth for his horrible comments. I felt like crying the first time I heard what he said! I'm sure you all will agree that Falwell and Pat Hitler Robertson are verbal terrorists, whose purpose is to inflict pain on the innocent. Terrorism, of all kinds, must be eliminated. Take care, everyone.

I woke up Tuesday morning to the sounds of traffic reports and weather. All was right with the world until I returned from taking my shower. It seemed that in the brief time of my daily wakeup, the entire world and my view of it had changed so utterly and completely that it will most likely be the largest defining moment of my life and my generation. At first, it seemed that perhaps the airplane crash had been accident: a terrible horrifying accident. But just as I was beginning to think on this terrible catastrophe, another plane slammed into the other tower with a force of the most extreme and explosive nature. I knew then that it was terrorism, and before I could begin to absorb what I was seeing on my screen, I heard that the pentagon had fallen victim to the same fate. I was shocked and horrified. I wasn’t concerned that the same thing would happen to me. I don’t live in a large city or work in a large building, but I was afraid for the people of my country, my brethren. Now I am angry. I require vengeance for my people. We must hunt down and dispatch the people who have committed this most heinous act against us, for they are our enemy. They have issued a surprise attack upon us, the likes of which we have never seen before, and we must respond with swift and blinding action. I have no qualms about saying this because they have struck first, and I say unto you that anyone who harbors my enemy is my enemy. Anyone who would finance my enemy is my enemy. Anyone who would organize my enemy is my enemy. Anyone who would rejoice in the streets at the misfortune of my countrymen is my enemy, and anyone who is not completely forthcoming with information about my enemy, take pity on them for they are my enemy too. Action must be taken to not only remove this thorn from our side, but to destroy it and any others that may crop up, to obliterate it, and bring about suffering as we have suffered. I call for military action against my enemies for apparently, they are many. My eyes have been opened to the evil in the world and it is my enemy. I seek retribution and I shall not stop until I have it. I say unto my enemy, and this is the last I shall say to him, that you have made an egregious error. You may think I am all talk, but I assure you that a good portion of my people feel the same way as I do, and more feel this way every day. I assure you we will take action. America has not seen tragedy such as this since Pearl Harbor and you quickly forget what happened when last someone surprised us. I can speak to you no longer though, for you are dead. Anyone who would stand with me as an American: he is my ally. All Americans who stand with me regardless of race, creed, color, heritage or religion are my friends. No American whether they are hyphenated or not is deserving the hate which has evidently been brought to bear upon my Arab-American brothers and sisters. We are American, all of us, and we must stand against our collective enemy irrespective of his whereabouts. I am an American, and I wish only to go about my business, but I ask you to take pity upon my enemy now for he has made a fatal mistake and sealed his doom. We will not abide this action, and he will be brought to justice in this life or the next.

Mankind has seen a steady progression of developments in the methodologies for fighting wars: land warfare of various types (including trench warfare & guerrilla warfare); sea warfare; air warfare; biological warfare; nuclear warfare. Now we have arrived at point where we must commit ourselves to developing a strategy for countering the most recent "twist" in warfare methodology: terrorism. Certainly acts of terror were committed in times past. Their prevalence now, however, combined with countless avenues for execution and the obviously increasing potential for devastation, demands a clear strategy for dealing effectively with terrorism. It must be a strategy that, when acted upon and carried forth, strikes trepidation in the minds of those who would consider an act of terror as a means to an end. It is not enough any longer to simply declare war upon another nation and be done with it. President Bush was absolutely correct when he surmised that terrorism, and indeed our response to it, is THE war of the 21st century. My heart hurts for those in New York City and Arlington, VA who suffered and who continue to suffer from the devastating events of September 11, 2001. My mind wonders at the depth of depravity and moral vacancy of those who are eventually proven to be responsible for those events. I hope they find some sort of mercy in the here-after, because those who are still alive are about to find it in very short supply in the not-so-distant future!