The Saturday morning worldview
by Liberal Eagle
"I wish you understood that there are people who want to kill us."
I hear this from war hawks all the time. Usually at the end of arguments, as if it's their trump card.
It's a little bit tempting to dismiss it as just a more sophisticated version of "yeah, well, you're a pootyhead." Do they really think those of us who were never for invading Iraq, want to stop occupying it now, don't want habeas corpus suspended, don't want to be wiretapped, etc., are walking around going "la la la la, nobody wants to kill Americans," and if the information that some people do want to kill Americans would just penetrate our thick skulls, we would suddely love Bush and want to blow up as many brown people as possible?
To believe that anyone who doesn't support the worst excesses of the Bush administration "doesn't understand that there are people who want to kill us" requires one to believe that because some brown people want to kill Americans, it is a logical response, in fact the logical response, to go to war in a country that had nothing at all to do with it, but is populated by other brown people with roughly the same religious beliefs, because, eh, one of 'em's the same as any other.
It seems not to occur to them that perhaps we think "someone somewhere, given the opportunity, would like to kill Americans" is not enough information, that we ought to also try to grasp why and how they would like to do so, whether they have the opportunity, what would be most likely either to prevent their doing so or to diminish their desire to do so, etc. I mean, sure, there are small clusters of radical ideologues all over the world who want all sorts of insane things. We should take them seriously, but just knowing that someone somewhere wants something extreme is not enough information, and failure to support the (disastrous) current policy is not a failure to grasp it.
I can already hear the gears grinding in some rightie's head. "But they already did kill some of us, dumbass! It was called 9/11!" This is the other response I always get. Well, yes, 9/11 was very bad. There are many things we could have done, could still do, that would decrease the chances of 9/11 happening again. Ramp up port security. Having invaded Afghanistan (which I supported doing), put our resources into rebuilding its institutions and infrastructure so it will no longer be a breeding ground for violent extremism. Actually catch Osama bin Laden (I think this would have been a lot more effective if we could go back and do it five years ago at Tora Bora, but ah well). The list goes on, but the point is it's mostly small stuff.
And I guess they wanted a big grand gesture, these people who think I don't understand that there are people who want to kill me. Little stuff just wouldn't make us feel like we were fighting The Terrorists. I hate that. Referring to everyone engaged in any kind of anti-American violence as The Terrorists makes them sound like some monolithic group, and they're not. Al Qaeda was a small band of guys training in the mountains in Afghanistan. Now it's more like a brand name you apply to yourself if you want jihadist street cred, so it's ridiculous to pretend that even the self-described members of al Qaeda who are blowing things up in Iraq have any connection to 9/11. And the insurgency there is home grown. It has a specific political objective: it wants the occupation to end. We are not preventing another 9/11 in any way, shape or form by fighting them; if anything, we're radicalizing more and more people and possibly causing one.
This is not terribly complicated stuff, but it's too complicated for Republicans (who are, in this day and age, kind of the Cult of Bush). Bush stands up there and declares, in a way that suggests he might actually think it, that Iraq is the central front in our battle with al Qaeda or The Terrorists or whatever group name he's using for "them" that day, and his followers run around talking like that too. And I just keep thinking, you could substitute the name "Cobra" or "The Decepticons" or "Skeletor's gang" (I'm sure I'll get letters telling me the name of Skeletor's group) and it would not sound at all out of place. This is not an adult view of the world. It's a Saturday morning cartoon view of the world. It's the Good Guys, us, vs. the Bad Guys, them. So, any time the Bad Guys attack you, the logical thing to do is go and attack the Bad Guys somewhere else, and it really makes no difference which Bad Guys as long as they look sort of the same, because the whole world is divided into the Good Team and the Bad Team.
Yes, I understand that there are people who want to kill Americans.
Do you understand anything else?
"I wish you understood that there are people who want to kill us."
I hear this from war hawks all the time. Usually at the end of arguments, as if it's their trump card.
It's a little bit tempting to dismiss it as just a more sophisticated version of "yeah, well, you're a pootyhead." Do they really think those of us who were never for invading Iraq, want to stop occupying it now, don't want habeas corpus suspended, don't want to be wiretapped, etc., are walking around going "la la la la, nobody wants to kill Americans," and if the information that some people do want to kill Americans would just penetrate our thick skulls, we would suddely love Bush and want to blow up as many brown people as possible?
To believe that anyone who doesn't support the worst excesses of the Bush administration "doesn't understand that there are people who want to kill us" requires one to believe that because some brown people want to kill Americans, it is a logical response, in fact the logical response, to go to war in a country that had nothing at all to do with it, but is populated by other brown people with roughly the same religious beliefs, because, eh, one of 'em's the same as any other.
It seems not to occur to them that perhaps we think "someone somewhere, given the opportunity, would like to kill Americans" is not enough information, that we ought to also try to grasp why and how they would like to do so, whether they have the opportunity, what would be most likely either to prevent their doing so or to diminish their desire to do so, etc. I mean, sure, there are small clusters of radical ideologues all over the world who want all sorts of insane things. We should take them seriously, but just knowing that someone somewhere wants something extreme is not enough information, and failure to support the (disastrous) current policy is not a failure to grasp it.
I can already hear the gears grinding in some rightie's head. "But they already did kill some of us, dumbass! It was called 9/11!" This is the other response I always get. Well, yes, 9/11 was very bad. There are many things we could have done, could still do, that would decrease the chances of 9/11 happening again. Ramp up port security. Having invaded Afghanistan (which I supported doing), put our resources into rebuilding its institutions and infrastructure so it will no longer be a breeding ground for violent extremism. Actually catch Osama bin Laden (I think this would have been a lot more effective if we could go back and do it five years ago at Tora Bora, but ah well). The list goes on, but the point is it's mostly small stuff.
And I guess they wanted a big grand gesture, these people who think I don't understand that there are people who want to kill me. Little stuff just wouldn't make us feel like we were fighting The Terrorists. I hate that. Referring to everyone engaged in any kind of anti-American violence as The Terrorists makes them sound like some monolithic group, and they're not. Al Qaeda was a small band of guys training in the mountains in Afghanistan. Now it's more like a brand name you apply to yourself if you want jihadist street cred, so it's ridiculous to pretend that even the self-described members of al Qaeda who are blowing things up in Iraq have any connection to 9/11. And the insurgency there is home grown. It has a specific political objective: it wants the occupation to end. We are not preventing another 9/11 in any way, shape or form by fighting them; if anything, we're radicalizing more and more people and possibly causing one.
This is not terribly complicated stuff, but it's too complicated for Republicans (who are, in this day and age, kind of the Cult of Bush). Bush stands up there and declares, in a way that suggests he might actually think it, that Iraq is the central front in our battle with al Qaeda or The Terrorists or whatever group name he's using for "them" that day, and his followers run around talking like that too. And I just keep thinking, you could substitute the name "Cobra" or "The Decepticons" or "Skeletor's gang" (I'm sure I'll get letters telling me the name of Skeletor's group) and it would not sound at all out of place. This is not an adult view of the world. It's a Saturday morning cartoon view of the world. It's the Good Guys, us, vs. the Bad Guys, them. So, any time the Bad Guys attack you, the logical thing to do is go and attack the Bad Guys somewhere else, and it really makes no difference which Bad Guys as long as they look sort of the same, because the whole world is divided into the Good Team and the Bad Team.
Yes, I understand that there are people who want to kill Americans.
Do you understand anything else?
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