The Australian Speaks for an American (Great editorial on the senselessness of appeasement)

Granddaddy Long Legs ^

[cchandler]

I've struggled for a long time to explain my views on the War on Terror, and how I feel about illogical terror placaters.

In the Credo section of this site, I tried to explain the irrationality behind equating free societies with rogue militants:

I do not believe that being open-minded demands prescribing moral equivalence to everything.

It is not unfair or bigoted to declare one thing better than the next. As long as context is provided, all things need not be treated equally.

For instance: I do not condone murder, but I can reasonably say that it is better for two people to die than two hundred. I can reasonably say that America is a better place to live than North Korea. I can reasonably say that what happened at Abu Ghraib under the U.S. military does not even approach what happened at Abu Ghraib under Saddam Hussein and the Baathists.

Ideologues often apply an all-or-nothing philosophy to the powerful that negates criticism of the less powerful. They argue that Americans can not morally condemn human rights violations in Cuba and North Korea because of the non-systemic incidents of detainee abuse (hazing is a better word) at Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib.

To many around the world, pictures of a few American soldiers on the night shift putting a naked Iraqi man on a leash is the "moral equivalent" of Baathists electrocuting a naked Iraqi man through his urethra, then cutting off his testicles and shoving them into his mouth before beheading him with a saw knife.

In a piece on Newsweek's 'Koran Flushing' story, I wrote about the liberal mainstream media's role in absolving Middle Eastern Muslims of all social responsibility.....

[cchandler]

I'm still fascinated by the "We Americans created/fuel terrorism" school of thought.

How can people who kill randomly and for whatever cause-du jour be taken as legitimate revolutionaries?

Were we Americans responsible for the D.C. area snipers too? Should we have re-thought our domestic policies so that we wouldn't force them to keep killing us?

It's just ridiculous.

[Alexander Rubin]

This sums it up.