43 lines
2.9 KiB
Plaintext
43 lines
2.9 KiB
Plaintext
No Flies On The U.S.
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<p>In his recent article <a href='http://andrewsullivan.com/main_article.php?artnum=20030906'>Flypaper:<br />
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A Strategy Unfolds</a>, Andrew Sullivan trots out some confirming<br />
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evidence for the theory that the U.S. is pursuing a “flypaper<br />
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strategy” in Iraq — encouraging the Islamist terror<br />
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network to fight American soldiers there so they won’t be attacking<br />
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American civilians here.</p>
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<p>Mr. Sullivan’s analysis is plausible. Plausible enough that my reaction<br />
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to the article, especially the last paragraph in which he urges Bush to<br />
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articulate the strategy as a way of scoring domestic political points. was:<br />
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“OK, you’ve demonstrated your cleverness. Now would you kindly<br />
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zip your lip before you undermine the strategy?”</p>
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<p>The leaders of the Islamist terror network are certainly evil and<br />
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arguably insane (if only in the general way that all religious<br />
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believers are insane) but they’re not <em>stupid</em>. If the<br />
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President of the United States got on network T.V. and yelled<br />
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“We have a flypaper strategy! We’re encouraging all the world’s<br />
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nut-jobs to attack us in Iraq so they won’t attack us in the<br />
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U.S.”, just what do you suppose would be the result?</p>
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<p>Would our favorite murderous ragheads nod agreeably, say<br />
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“Peachy, we’ll play your game and keep attacking you where you<br />
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think you’re strongest?” Or would they bend all their efforts<br />
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to ginning up another mass-murder in the U.S. just to prove they can<br />
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do it and the flypaper isn’t working?</p>
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<p>For anyone to talk about a flypaper strategy in public is<br />
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irresponsible. For Sullivan to urge that Bush should cop to it in<br />
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public in order to one-up his domestic opponents is beyond<br />
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irresponsible into idiotic and feckless. The President of the<br />
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U.S. would be profoundly derelict in his duty if he courted lethal<br />
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danger to American civilians by doing any such thing.</p>
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<p>I’m normally a fan of Andrew Sullivan. His writing is witty if<br />
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occasionally a bit febrile, and he is clear-eyed on a handful of<br />
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subjects that normally induce rectocranial inversion in conservatives.<br />
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But today he should be ashamed of himself. He has engaged in the<br />
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exact same error he has excoriated in others, which is treating<br />
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the rest of the world as a mere backdrop to domestic American<br />
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political feuds.</p>
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<p>And I have some advice for him: Mr. Sullivan, next time you feel<br />
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the urge to be clever in public, do us all a favor and ask yourself<br />
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how many innocent lives you might be endangering by running your<br />
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mouth. If the answer is more than zero, <b>shut up!</b></p>
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<p><a href="http://enetation.co.uk/comments.php?user=esr&commentid=106533559497921692">Blogspot comments</a></p>
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