Smash Terrorists Now!

Austin Bay's latest article is on a subject that's pretty popular around the right wing right now; President Obama is a wimp for not immediately blowing the hell out of Yemen. Austin Bay's is not unique, but it is pretty representative.

Big mouths hooked to minds fogged with anti-American cant hindered U.S. defense efforts during the Cold War. Their descendant America haters in the Internet era provide philosophical succor to al-Qaida. The fanatics interpret apologies and guilt-trips as signs of weakness and incipient decay, the bleats of a corrupt culture wallowing in self-doubt. This is not conjecture. Pro-terrorists websites see the defeatist tripe as a divine sign al-Qaida is winning.

For decades, the Blame Amerika Crowd has made a media living alleging attacks on American citizens, U.S. embassies and U.S. territory are somehow, someway provoked by the U.S. The "America Is Guilty" smear would be a laugher except the major TV networks and The New York Times give this baloney headline credence, especially when a Republican is president.

Yeah - it's all liberals fault. I mean other than invading Afghanistan and Iraq, bombing the hell out other parts of the Middle East, strongly supporting Israel, supporting repressive regimes (like Saddam Hussein for a while) it's not like we've ever done anything to the Middle East.

In fairness I think many of those (particularly our alliance with Israel and the invasion of Afghanistan) can be defended. But it is somewhat sad to believe that some in the middle east might disagree. I'm reminded of something Paul O'Brien said a while back about a particularly heinous Captain America comic book.

For christ's sake, the central argument of this issue fancies itself as a comparison between the moral values of Al-Qaeda and the USA. Even without turning Al-Qaeda into one-dimensional cartoons or airbrushing American history, it would scarcely be a challenge to bring the USA out on top in this argument. But the suggestion that the other side might have a point, or that the USA could be remotely flawed, is inadmissible in this comic. Repellently, a flimsy facsimile of a counter-argument is put forward so that it can be brushed aside, under pretext of showing the opposite side of the argument. That's your counter-argument, get back to waving your flags.

But no in the world of small minded Austin Bay, there are no reasons for terrorists to hate and no reason to consider what we might do differently.

We are back to "If we kill enough of them Muslims they're bound to start liking us." Fortunately the man actually in charge doesn't seem to subscribe to that point of view.