Right wing: What could possibly be motivating these people?
Al Qaeda: We're not kidding, get your troops out of our countries!
Right wing: It can't be anything we've done.
Al Qaeda: You've got thousands of troops in our land, get rid of them!
Right wing: They must hate freedom.
Al Qaeda: Cease your imperialist aggression against our sovereign countries!
Right wing: They must hate democracy, too.
Al Qaeda: Get the hell out of our country!
Right wing: Lalalalala~! I can't hear you!
Top generals: Our presence in Iraq is fueling the insurgency. It is imperative that we decreasing the level of troops.
Right wing: You're just a bunch of quitters. We have to stay and beat up them fanatics!
Robert Pape: My research has shown that overwhelmingly suicide-terrorist attacks are not driven by religion as much as they are by a clear strategic objective: to compel modern democracies to withdraw military forces from the territory that the terrorists view as their homeland.
Right wing: Nonsense! They're terrorists out to kill us, you can't bargain with them.
Israel and Saudi Arabia: Actually, the vast majority of them weren't involved in terrorism of any sort until you invaded their country.
Right wing: Why do you hate America?
And so it goes....
I've come to the conclusion that many of the people who support the Iraq war aren't really concerned with being effective or actually defeating terrorism; they're more concerned with being "tough". We've got people who defend torture despite its being morally repugnant and completely effectless (in the comments):
Funny how support for strong tactics against terrorists is aligned with lower intelligence. You either adapt and survive or die, in which case I guess all the intellectual liberals (misnomer) would disappear. Yes, if we just cut off spending on the military and set all the detainees free, I will feel so much safer, and I'm sure the terrorists would just leave us alone.
Do you think the fact that we have not experienced a terrorist attack on US soil since 9/11 is just a fluke? No - these guys are busy fighting in Iraq or else they are stuck in Gitmo.
Since you are so quick to condemn these tactics - tell me how you would deal with islamic extremist terrorists you have in custody? Would you invite him to lunch? Do you think slapping him with wet noodles will make him tell you where that dirty bomb is? Oh that's right, we cannot embarass or harass this wonderful example of a human being.
How would you deal with Taliban fighters arrested while firing on our troops? And I am referring to the real world here - not the liberal wet dream of a peaceful world where no fatwas have been issued against all things American.
Basically, anything short of abusing them is coddling them. And we can't have that, because we need "strong tactics against terrorists"--strong implying that we have to show them how tough we are, instead of actually using tactics that are effective. The same thinking is espoused by administration members: most recently Condoleeza Rice ("Any champion of democracy who promotes principles without power can make no real difference in the lives of oppressed people."), but also by Karl Rove ("Conservatives saw the savagery of 9/11 and the attacks and prepared for war; liberals saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers."), and repeatedly by Bush and Cheney. I think it was put most bluntly by Michael Ledeen, though: "Every 10 years or so, the US needs to pick up some small crappy little country & throw it against the wall, just to show the world we mean business."
It's not about protecting our country. It's not about reducing terrorism. It's about being the toughest kid on the block.
P.S.: The paper by Robert Pape is available in PDF format. I do have a problem with it, in that it seems to focus only on suicide-terrorism; I have to wonder if including all forms of terrorism would change the results any.
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