perfidy

In relation to Johno's comment in a previous post:

1) You are the first person to plausibly explain how a rise in attacks might be considered a "good thing." Thanks for that. And you are right-- it IS good in a sick way, if at all.

2) In the run-up to war, we discussed the possibility that Bush wanted to whack Saddam's government as an example to others. It's not a thesis you hear very often, which is weird because it seems to me to be the single most logical of all reasons for the war. It's like we're the action hero who steps into a room of thugs who've done something bad to him and beats the shit out of the guy nearest the door-- breaks ribs, knocks out teeth, bleeding scalp, disclocated knee, swirly-- and then looks up with blood on his chin and says, "now who's next?"

1) Thank you.

2) While I have been often distracted by the minutia of why this or that reason is right, wrong, or disengenuous; at root my basic support for the war comes from that conclusion. While I think all the reasons that have been given for invading are valid to one degree or other, the core principle at work is that we needed to throw somebody against the wall after 9/11. In a sense the reasons given for the war are not justifications for an invasion of Iraq, they are merely the reasons we picked Iraq to invade.

The war on terror is a Huntingtonian clash of civilizations - on a relatively modest and restrained level. It is a clash of lifestyles. War, on one level, is merely a demonstration that our mojo is stronger than their mojo. If we are to defeat terror - it will happen because we have convinced the Islamic world that:

1. Attacking America is a supremely bad idea. That we will ruin the day of anyone who attacks us, supports those who attack us, or even looks at us funny when someone attacks us.
2. That the Islamic Fundamentalist/Baathist - Pan Arab Nationalist/Let's blow things up because we haven't got our way set of memes is a really bad way to organize your society. Because it either results in 1) above, or because it results in poverty and oppression even when your land sits atop stupendously valuable natural resources.
3. We have created at least one example that a Muslim nation can be reorganized on western lines without destroying the essential muslimness of it.

The terrorists themselves have told us how our limpwristed, ineffectual responses to previous terrorist attacks only encouraged them. It made us look weak. So, the obvious corrolary is that we must look puissant. The political wisdom that covers this situation goes back to Roman times. Be nice, until its time not to be nice. But once you change your MO, go biblical on the m-fs so that they get the idea.

War is a bad thing. But it is often better than all of the alternatives.