But it does mean that we are doing all that is humanly possible to prevent and defend against terrorist acts directed at our citizens, workers, and facilities and, those efforts failing, to pursue the terrorists until they appear in court to answer for their criminal acts. And there is another important point to make here, Mr. Chairman. Americans do not want to hunker down in their embassies and their consulates and await the next attack, as inevitable as that next attack may in fact be. That outlook is against all that we stand for. It is against the very spirit of our people.
Terrorism is a part of the dark side of globalization.
However sadly, it is a part of doing business in the world - business we as Americans are not going to stop doing. Indeed, if we adopted this hunkered down attitude, behind our concrete and our barbed wire, the terrorists would have achieved a kind of victory. We don't want to avoid controversial causes, nor shrink from our fullest responsibilities overseas, nor slow or cut back on our overseas travel or the flow of our citizens throughout the wider world. After all, they are often our best ambassadors. At the end of the day, what America is to the world is not only what we say or do, it is who we are.