No Flies On The U.S.
<p>In his recent article <a href='http://andrewsullivan.com/main_article.php?artnum=20030906'>Flypaper:<br />
A Strategy Unfolds</a>, Andrew Sullivan trots out some confirming<br />
evidence for the theory that the U.S. is pursuing a &ldquo;flypaper<br />
strategy&rdquo; in Iraq &mdash; encouraging the Islamist terror<br />
network to fight American soldiers there so they won&#8217;t be attacking<br />
American civilians here.</p>
<p>Mr. Sullivan&#8217;s analysis is plausible. Plausible enough that my reaction<br />
to the article, especially the last paragraph in which he urges Bush to<br />
articulate the strategy as a way of scoring domestic political points. was:<br />
&ldquo;OK, you&#8217;ve demonstrated your cleverness.  Now would you kindly<br />
zip your lip before you undermine the strategy?&rdquo;</p>
<p>The leaders of the Islamist terror network are certainly evil and<br />
arguably insane (if only in the general way that all religious<br />
believers are insane) but they&#8217;re not <em>stupid</em>.  If the<br />
President of the United States got on network T.V. and yelled<br />
&ldquo;We have a flypaper strategy!  We&#8217;re encouraging all the world&#8217;s<br />
nut-jobs to attack us in Iraq so they won&#8217;t attack us in the<br />
U.S.&rdquo;, just what do you suppose would be the result?</p>
<p>Would our favorite murderous ragheads nod agreeably, say<br />
&ldquo;Peachy, we&#8217;ll play your game and keep attacking you where you<br />
think you&#8217;re strongest?&rdquo; Or would they bend all their efforts<br />
to ginning up another mass-murder in the U.S. just to prove they can<br />
do it and the flypaper isn&#8217;t working?</p>
<p>For anyone to talk about a flypaper strategy in public is<br />
irresponsible.  For Sullivan to urge that Bush should cop to it in<br />
public in order to one-up his domestic opponents is beyond<br />
irresponsible into idiotic and feckless.  The President of the<br />
U.S. would be profoundly derelict in his duty if he courted lethal<br />
danger to American civilians by doing any such thing.</p>
<p>I&#8217;m normally a fan of Andrew Sullivan.  His writing is witty if<br />
occasionally a bit febrile, and he is clear-eyed on a handful of<br />
subjects that normally induce rectocranial inversion in conservatives.<br />
But today he should be ashamed of himself.  He has engaged in the<br />
exact same error he has excoriated in others, which is treating<br />
the rest of the world as a mere backdrop to domestic American<br />
political feuds.</p>
<p>And I have some advice for him: Mr. Sullivan, next time you feel<br />
the urge to be clever in public, do us all a favor and ask yourself<br />
how many innocent lives you might be endangering by running your<br />
mouth.  If the answer is more than zero, <b>shut up!</b></p>
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