Anderson abridged (was Re: Anderson weighs in)

[Dennis Perrin]

> But what nearly everyone in America was wishing for on the afternoon
> of September 11 was not dramatic retribution via the killing of tens
> of thousands of innocents in the Middle East, but dramatic prevention
> of future atrocities. After all, 300 dead in the embassy bombings in
> 1998, 3000 dead in the WTC in 2001, and if you continue the series
> you have 30,000 dead via some CB attack in 2004, and 300,000 dead
> from a low-yield nuke in 2007.
>
> The American point-of-view is that we need to build a world in which
> nutboys who want to restore the Medieval Caliphate don't blow up
> cities full of people thinking that they are obeying the will of God.
> For nutboys like Osama bin Laden to enjoy the protection of and be
> given freedom of action by state governments is not a good thing. And
> for states ruled by the likes of Kim Jong Il to acquire weapons of
> mass destruction is not a good thing either. (The question of whether
> Saddam Hussein is more like Josef Stalin--a crafty monster who can be
> safely deterred--or like Kim Il Sung--a paranoid megalomaniac who
> might do anything, anytime, to anybody--is not one on which I have an
> informed view.)
>
> For Anderson to focus attention on what Al Qaeda did in 2001 rather
> than on what Al Qaeda is planning to do in 2004 or 2007 is, in my
> view, to turn himself into an intellectual three-card-monte player.


> Brad DeLong

Well put. I didn't see -- didn't have the patience, stomach -- but did any
of the non-ANSWER/IAC crowd condemn al-Qaeda at any of the rallies? Or for
that matter Saddam? Or was it the typical stroke fest that lefty rallies
tend to dissolve into?

You can bet al-Q is planning something. No doubt. That's where the attention
should be, and that's where, in my humble, pwogs should have their heads.
There've been a few Dems who've gone this route, and Arianna Huffington as
well; but, for the most part, it's simplistic Bush bashing minus any hard
take on a murderous, reactionary menace.

DP