The Strawmaniest

Where do you get off?

Karen Hughes, serius GW buddy from back in the day (where she was director of communications for him as governor), and current embarrasment for the US the world over as undersecretary of state (see her 2005 tour of the Middle East), has the gall to write an op-ed in USA Today on 9/12 called "Where's The Outrage?" complaining how there has been a lack of condemnation of the terror.

I know the tale she's been pushed to tell, that focusing on the US response intead of ...the horrible things... that terrorists do is...undermining....our safety...and security, or something like that, but her piece is really a piece of shit. It's utterly transparent and seems to have been written by someone in a kindergarten debate class.

Up front she kicks in the teeth of the millions of americans that have protested and criticized as loud as they can for the last five years, demanding a focus on making us safer instead of blindly swinging a bat in a room full of wolves.

Five years after the Sept. 11 attacks, one essential ingredient is still lacking in our international response to terrorism: the concerted moral outrage of everyday citizens of every faith and country.

Then she trivializes the situation in - say - Baghdad or Kabul with this crap:

[W}here are the mothers organizing against terrorism as American mothers did against drunken driving? Where are the fathers promising to teach their sons to choose to live rather than choose to die? Where are the religious clerics and congregations of all faiths arguing that no just and loving God would call on young men and women to kill themselves and others in the name of religion?

To be fair, many voices, Western and Eastern, Islamic and Christian, have spoken out against the violence. Yet the criticism seems oddly muted.

She's all over the map, saying why can't a group of mothers come storming into a suicide planning meeting and pull their kids away by the ears, and then she switches back, pretending she was talking about that "all faiths" shit. And "oddly muted?" What country do you live in? Who the FUCK has not spoken out against the violence?

On she goes, flailing about in half-formed ideas and half-formed appeasements:

Those who speak of a clash of civilizations seem to forget that Islam is part of America, that an estimated six to seven million Muslims live and worship freely in America.

Who?

[W]e believe in the dignity and value of every person. The fifth anniversary of Sept. 11 is both a reminder of the inhumanity of the extremists we are up against and the humanity shared by most citizens of the world. The color of our skin, the language we speak and the way we worship may be different, but much more unites us than divides us.

We had this feeling 5 years ago, and the actions of the Bush Administration burned it all away with vitriol and arrogance.

So why aren't more of us doing more to stop the terror?

First, I believe most of us hope that terrorism is an aberration. Unfortunately, I do not believe it is true.

The 3 things I liked most in my vacation were seeing Mickey, sleeping in a tent, and riding in the big boat.

Second, the presence of religion in this debate makes governments and individuals nervous. We are unsure how to engage; we hesitate to offend. Yet all major faiths — including Christianity, Islam and Judaism — teach that life is precious. We cannot allow what is essentially a death cult to get away with murder in the name of religion.

Once again, who is she speaking to? Herself? George Bush? Iraqi civilians? Red state warmongers? The millions that have demanded that the govermnent be straight with us and stop burning bridges with allies and making enemies for no discernible reason?

And who again is she concerned is going to "get away with murder?" I must have missed something. No one is saying "leave them be, it's their religion." That's not what the protests against the war and the administration are. If she doesn't understand that, then holy fuck.

On she goes...oh, a constructive suggestion? Perhaps we could send around a petition to ask terrorists to stop?

It is in the best interest of all the civilized people that the terror stop. And we have a model. Slavery's path from international norm to pariah began with moral outrage. In 1833, one of every seven adults in Britain signed a petition against slavery. That was twice the number of people eligible to vote at the time and the largest public petitioning of Parliament to that date. The grassroots petition drive was born of the conviction that every person has value — a conviction that should guide us today.

Brilliant idea.

Almost half of America disagrees with how George W Bush is handling terrorism - not that it is an imporant issue.