My point is that it would be a gross distortion of facts to judge countries like the US solely on the basis of the war on Iraq - there is much much more to this country than this war - which is an unfortunate episode, but an episode nonetheless.
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Yes, I get your meaning.
But the scale of the crime, you see, is so immense that it casts a very long shadow...like a battering husband who, despite whatever interesting and laudable character elements he may possess, is known mostly for his terrible brutality.
So I agree there's much more to the US -- which is, of course, my home, the place that shaped me from birth and which I both enjoy and fear to varying degrees on a
weekly basis -- than "episodes" such as Iraq.
I also agree that Jihadis do not enjoy a similar sort of complexity and multifacetedness. They are not revolutionaries (at least, not in any productive sense) but delusionally fixated on achieving purity-via-violence. Origins can be reasonably debated, but the present form is what it is. I don't want to die horribly because I was unfortunate enough to sit in a cafe targeted by a suicide bomber. No one else should have to die this way. So, no romanticism of the mad bomber from me.
But these American "episodes", as you put it, dating from the founding, have been dramatically destructive and there's little indication there won't be future such episodes (indeed, there's a sizable domestic constituency rooting for just that).
The tendency to do tremendous damage becomes, over time, certainly not the only feature but the one which makes others increasingly difficult to accept with unalloyed appreciation.
No, I'm not talking about naive liberal guilt but something else...a profound discomfort, a deep unrest caused by the knowledge that missiles are hitting targets and bombs are pulverizing lives to dust...often...and my complex, lovely, ugly, generous, hateful, foolish, creative motherland is the source of this woe.
.d.
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