I mean, if we're perceived as mindless goobers who masturbate to cable TV or gun-toting psychopaths who let our states execute our most proficient gun-toting psychopaths, I say: fuck 'em. It's our party and we'll fry if we want to.
(I happen to believe in stronger gun control and that the government shouldn't be in the business of executing its citizens, a policy that provides no proven detterent and only offers vengence for the victims--but bear with me here).
No, we shouldn't care a whit about what others see as our flaws. Except for one group: suicidally enraged fundamentalist Muslims who want to kill us.
These folks, we should keep in mind.
Which isn't to say that people already as committed and irrational as Al Qaida should be mollified or reasoned with. No way. Any and all self-described terrorists and enemies of The United States need to be hunted down and obliterated. Violence only understands violence. Al Qaida, Hamas, Hezbollah, Mighty Morphin Power Rangers--whoever.
But unfortunately, a perfectly sensible Muslim just might become a wee bit irrational when a 5,000-lb. U.S. bomb flattens his house and incinerates his frail mother, pregnant wife and 2-year-old son.
Which is why President W.'s neo-con fantasy crusade in Iraq will cost Americans far more than the hundreds of billions of dollars and the lives of over 1,000 American soldiers.
This war, and any such additional bungled attempts to "spread democracy" like some kind of steroid cream across the desert, only makes us less safe.
Don't believe me? Hear are some highlights from a recent Pentagon Report by the Defense Science Board, created for--and subsequently ignored by--Secretary of Defraud Donald Rumsfeld:
On “the war of ideas or the struggle for hearts and minds”, the report says, “American efforts have not only failed, they may also have achieved the opposite of what they intended”.
“American direct intervention in the Muslim world has paradoxically elevated the stature of, and support for, radical Islamists, while diminishing support for the United States to single digits in some Arab societies.”
"Muslims do not ‘hate our freedoms’, but rather, they hate our policies. The overwhelming majority voice their objections to what they see as one-sided support in favour of Israel and against Palestinian rights, and the long-standing, even increasing support, for what Muslims collectively see as tyrannies, most notably Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Pakistan and the Gulf states."
“Thus when American public diplomacy talks about bringing democracy to Islamic societies, this is seen as no more than self-serving hypo crisy. Moreover, saying that ‘freedom is the future of the Middle East’ is seen as patronizing … in the eyes of Muslims, the American occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq has not led to democracy there, but only more chaos and suffering. US actions appear in contrast to be motivated by ulterior motives, and deliberately controlled in order to best serve American national interests at the expense of truly Muslim self-determination.”
But if the president says we're safer, then we must be. After all, why would he lie?
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