A Colorado Democratic socialist candidate is facing criticism after comments about terrorism, foreign policy, and America’s role in the world triggered a new debate over how some voices on the far left discuss national security.

Melat Kiros, a candidate backed by the Democratic Socialists of America, was questioned after comments she made regarding the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel and later remarks connecting terrorism to U.S. foreign policy decisions.

During an interview with Colorado’s Next 9News, Kiros was asked about previous remarks where she described the Hamas attack as “an inevitable consequence of apartheid, of occupation, decades of occupation.”

Kiros rejected the idea that she believed Israel “had it coming,” but argued that understanding violence requires examining the circumstances she believes contribute to it.

“It’s about understanding the conditions in which violence and war happen, right?” Kiros said.

She continued by arguing that Israel has faced accusations of “apartheid and occupation” and that frustrations over Palestinian conditions have existed internationally for decades.

The discussion then turned to the September 11 attacks. Reporter Kyle Clark asked whether Kiros believed the 9/11 attacks were also “an inevitable consequence” of U.S. foreign policy.

Kiros responded: “Inevitable in the sense that we destabilized a lot of the Middle East, which led people to believe that another act of violence was the only response.”

She added: “And again, just like I said before, our responsibility is to get rid of those conditions that lead to violence in the first place.”

The comments drew backlash from critics who argued that explaining terrorism through grievances risks shifting responsibility away from the terrorists themselves. The debate comes as Democratic Socialists of America-backed candidates have gained more attention in Democratic primaries, challenging longtime party figures from the left.

Kiros previously faced controversy during her legal career after she was fired from Sidley Austin in 2023 following an open letter criticizing law firms’ responses to campus antisemitism issues and Israel-related debates.

There’s a phrase that used to mean something in America: good and evil.

Somewhere along the way, parts of the activist left decided that every act of barbarism needs a footnote, a historical lecture, and a list of reasons why the villain was supposedly forced into it.

And that’s where things get very dangerous.

A terrorist walks into a situation and makes a choice. They choose violence. They choose murder. They choose destruction.

The victims do not become less innocent because somebody wants to write a graduate seminar about the attacker’s feelings.

The really revealing part of these debates is the language.

Words like “conditions” and “context” sound reasonable — until they become a way to blur accountability. The same people who demand everyone recognize every possible factor behind violence often become strangely quiet about the personal responsibility of the people who commit it.

Imagine applying this logic everywhere else. A criminal commits a crime, and the first question becomes, “What conditions created this?” That may be part of a serious discussion. But the first question should still be: who did it, and why?

America has flaws. Every country does. But the idea that the United States somehow creates its own enemies by existing is a worldview that has become far too comfortable in certain corners of the political left.

The average American understands something that political activists keep forgetting: You can debate foreign policy without excusing terrorists.

The danger is when a movement stops asking, “How do we defeat evil?” and starts asking, “How do we explain why evil happened?”

Those are not the same question. And America better remember the difference.