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womzillaI guess it's "Advantage: Jim Henley" again.
In a long post about the "Flypaper"theory strategy ex-post facto rationalization for the invasion of Iraq--that anti-Western terrorists will all go to Iraq to blow themselves up, thus protecting us in the US heartland at the cost of the presumably expendible citizens of Iraq and members of the US military--Jim makes this point in passing:
I noticed a long time ago, mostly when arguing with thuggish Moledet supporters, that there are people who seem to take it as axiomatic that "They can't hate us any more than they already do." The "they" and "us" change with the argument, but you can take the pairs "Arabs/Israelis" and "Muslims/Americans" as primary examples.
If you think that the Arabs (as a total group) can't possibly have more hate for Israelis than they do now, then it makes sense to drop bombs on apartment building in crowded neighborhoods to kill individual criminals, or openly assasinate their leaders. If you think that the Muslims of the world can't possibly have more hate for Americans than they currently do, it makes sense to pre-emptively invade their countries in a half-assed manner that will lead to mass privation and an ongoing quagmire of violence.
(And yes, I realize that both of those supposed dichotomies have overlap--there are many Arab Israelis and many Muslim Americans. The people who adopt the "They can't hate us more" model seem not to notice, or believe, that.)
Since it's clear that it is possible for "them" to hate "us" more than "they" do, I can only conclude that people who advocate these things are stupid, or insane, or lying about their motivations. None of these make me want to listen to their theories.
In a long post about the "Flypaper"
Then there's the question of whether violent anti-American extremists are a non-renewable resource. For Flypaper to work, there has to be a fixed quantity of muslims sufficiently motivated to attack the United States, all of whom flock to Iraq to die.
I noticed a long time ago, mostly when arguing with thuggish Moledet supporters, that there are people who seem to take it as axiomatic that "They can't hate us any more than they already do." The "they" and "us" change with the argument, but you can take the pairs "Arabs/Israelis" and "Muslims/Americans" as primary examples.
If you think that the Arabs (as a total group) can't possibly have more hate for Israelis than they do now, then it makes sense to drop bombs on apartment building in crowded neighborhoods to kill individual criminals, or openly assasinate their leaders. If you think that the Muslims of the world can't possibly have more hate for Americans than they currently do, it makes sense to pre-emptively invade their countries in a half-assed manner that will lead to mass privation and an ongoing quagmire of violence.
(And yes, I realize that both of those supposed dichotomies have overlap--there are many Arab Israelis and many Muslim Americans. The people who adopt the "They can't hate us more" model seem not to notice, or believe, that.)
Since it's clear that it is possible for "them" to hate "us" more than "they" do, I can only conclude that people who advocate these things are stupid, or insane, or lying about their motivations. None of these make me want to listen to their theories.
