Underground Limestone Castle

America's critics: Getting a global hard-on

Doing the right thing brings an enormous risk of being unpopular - just ask George Bush. With Saddam Hussein, we had a violent dictator who not only rewarded the families of suicide bombers but allowed his sons to torture Iraqi Olympic athletes who failed to return home with sufficient awards. His invasion of Kuwait, repelled by coalition forces, only seemed to embolden him, and the economic sanctions which he and many others pronounced an unfair depredation of the Iraqi people were gleefully skated around by him and his cohorts. Meanwhile, he was allowed to pursue whatever weapons programs he pleased, with a timid and feckless group of U.N. "Weapons Inspectors" offering little more than gentle prodding of him to reveal his projects. When he kicked the inspectors out of the country - need we be reminded that this was in direct violation of an arrangement he himself agreed to? - he was then free to both develop whatever he wanted, and transfer the evidence to whatever hiding places he wanted. Do the snarling critics of America's efforts ever stop to consider what he could have been doing during those times? Hussein's subsequent and grudging "Permission" for the inspections to continue was deemed sufficient by the U.N., and even praised.

In the name of basic decency, the removal of Hussein was a wonderful thing for the world, and yet the madness that pervades those who opposed this act of good will refuses to recognize this. Following this twisted logic, America is not only to be criticized for its "Illegal invasion", it is to be arrested and put on trial by the rest of the world.

So now we have a University professor by the name of Churchill, proclaiming that the 9-11 attacks were in fact retaliation for the economic sanctions against Iraq and children that were allegedly killed in a U.S. airstrike. Leaving aside the absurdity of the slaughtered children charge, the message here is that economic sanctions shouldn't have been imposed on Iraq. According to this logic, Hussein should have been allowed to do whatever he wished in Kuwait, and presumably, wherever else he felt like it. As the sanctions were imposed under U.N. auspices, one wonders why the hijackers didn't fly the planes into the U.N. building. But to argue with the nonsensical ramblings of a jaded college professor who can only take delight in issuing indictments of institutions rather than making improvements is to miss the bigger picture and ultimately, to waste time.

These arguments are based on the notion that America itself should stand trial for its larger "crimes" against the world, a popular notion which is kicked around constantly. As Michael Moore so eloquently taught us, those nutcases who are cutting the heads off other people are actually brave and noble freedom fighters who are standing up to the oppression of the U.S. government.
With this perspective in mind, a generation of relatively well-off Americans can now denounce their own country for a litany of crimes which are simply understood to be established fact. "Meddling in the Middle East" is a common phraseology of this view, but there are plenty of others.
Can you imagine what would happen if Osama Bin Laden were captured alive and taken to the U.S. to stand trial? This would be the greatest opportunity ever for that radical 1960's mindset, whereby Western Civilization itself would be put on trial. It's horrible to picture, but there would be protesters outside the court house every single day for however long that circus of a trial would take, bearing signs proclaiming, among other things, that Bin Laden is innocent, that he was a "Freedom Fighter", that he was resisting U.S. "Hegemony", "Colonialism", "Arrogance", and a bunch of other things copied out of radical-left handbooks.

It is, of course, necessary for a free society to allow such kooks to spout their infantile revisionist history, but we must do a better job this time around of exposing them for who they are. The teachers and administrators of our colleges meekly rolled over for the self-appointed "Revolutionaries" in the '60's, and that must not happen again. Petulant youths who enjoyed an upbringing based on the freedoms that America has given them must never be allowed to take over the reins of society and tell us that they will now be cutting off the hand that fed them.

If you have bought into the line that America is an oppressive, horrible place based on persecution of minorities and the poor, it will probably take you a little while to wake up from your stupor - but do yourself a favor, and seek multiple sources when you are being encouraged to think that America "Deserved" 9-11. When the professor Churchills say that no one in the Twin Towers that day was "Innocent", ask what precisely they were guilty of; you will receive a highly emotional yet vague and incoherent statement.

It's teen rebellion towards Mom and Dad taken to a national scale.

posted by ET @ 1:08 PM