I have been disturbed for quite a while about the framing of the war on terrorism. To me the real danger is from the Texas fascists, not the Islamist fascists.

President Bush says we are safer if we arrest bombers, but we all know you can drop one 500-pound bomb from a jet fighter and create 10 times as many holy warriors as the 24 people just arrested in England. In other words, we can never kill or arrest enough people to make us safe. The only way to make us safe is to end the situations that create the war.

The United States has not done anything to rebalance the world economy. It has not taken its Army out of places where the people on the street do not want it. It has not ended its dependence on oil, its backing of tinhorn dictators, and all of the other stupid things the West has perpetrated on the Third World over the last 80 years.

We will never be safer by building more weapons, staffing bigger armies, restricting civil liberties, torturing teenagers. We are safer only if we disarm, stop supporting demagogues, and stop trying to control the global oil business.

As Sam Smith, one of the wise men of American politics, says, we actually have to talk with people in order to understand what they want, and reach a peaceful accommodation. We will never solve the problem if we talk at them or rely on the 500-pound bomb as a major means of communication.

We have to break the cycle of violence. We cannot wait for others around the world to do so; it is up to us.

Peace begins with me: When George Bush begins to understand that, the world will be a lot safer.

GREG GERRITT

Providence