Ace at Ace of Spades HQ recounts his evolving perspective.
Money quote(s):
"After 9/11 I was pretty sure what I wanted to see was Option 2. When Bush took nukes off the table, I was disappointed.
I did then, and still do, criticize Bush for being a Born-Again Christian. By which I mean: informed by the Christian ethics of mercy and regard for human life.
Which I thought were nice and everything but... too constraining.
After 9/11, I had a much less Christian sort of thought about how to deal with a murder cult.
Bush sort of changed my mind, and pursued, I thought, what seemed to be a less savage, more noble course. I gave him credit for that. Maybe I (and people who thought like me) were in fact giving license to genocidal hatred. Maybe Bush's decision to keep things civilized was a good one.
I was proud of what Bush, and the troops fighting for America, did for me, and for all of us. It wasn't just that they delivered justice -- justice could be more cheaply delivered via massive bombs dropped on cities and towns. They also delivered something finer than justice. Compassion, mercy.
I wouldn't have chosen that course -- but I was glad that cooler (or, warmer) heads chose it for me.
But as this goes on I am going back to thinking those are expensive luxuries and I no longer wish to pay for such things."
1 comment:
I personally believe that we are seeing the cost pay out in places like Tunisia, Libya, egypt and even Syria. maybe Yemen to a degree, but who knows who is who over there. I don't think that this is going to get any easier in the short run. In fact, I expect AQ, etc to fight even harder to turn the events to their favor. We have to fight harder to prevent it.
As I wrote a friend recently, who would have thought that in a few short years, people would be shouting for freedom beside or above allah ahkbar?
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