:: Netmarcos' Notes ::

:: Friday, January 30, 2004 ::

David Frum's Diary on National Review Online includes a couple of letters from his readers in response to the debate over the "intelligence failures" leading up to 9/11 and Iraq. There is a lengthy, well thought out repsonse in defense of the intelligence community in general that should be read by everyone, at the top of the column, but it is the shorter peice at the end and Mr. Frum's response to it that caught my attention.

“What does the 'War on Terror' mean? Wake up America, the US has done just as much promotion of 'terrorism' as any other country. It has supplied arms and training to countless foreign guerilla groups, including Osama bin Laden and the Taliban, and helped to planned coups and the assassination of foreign leaders (eg. President in Chile in 1973). If this doesn't count as terrorism what does?

“There are real answers to curtailing fundamentalist Islamic terrorists (like economic aid and education), but overthrowing these Governments and installing American puppet-'democracies' is just going to magnify the resentment.

“You cannot stop terrorism by the Orwellian-type controls suggested in this book, the only way to stop terrorism is to nullify the reasons why the terrorists are willing to commit these acts in the first place, to remove the cause that they are fighting for.”

It’s splendid to see the two most common leftist clichés smashed together into such shattering self-contradiction. On the one hand, we are told that the Chileans etc. are victims of American terrorism. Then we are told that it’s the duty of the victims of terrorism to examine their own behavior and “remove the cause” that the terrorists are fighting for. But if the right way to stop terrorism is to palliate terrorists – and if the United States is a terrorist state – then why aren’t others obliged to placate the United States by “nullifying the reasons” that the US acts as it does? The US did not in fact assassinate Salvador Allende, or even have a hand in his overthrow – but if it did, shouldn’t the reader by his own logic blame the Chileans for failing to “remove” him?

:: Mark 12:27 PM [+] ::
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