Containing the Radicals

Via Andrew Sullivan, Andrew Bacevich has proposed a policy of containment toward radical Islam. It's a policy you might suspect that I would agree with. Why might you suspect this? Because I made a similar argument in an op-ed piece for History News Network. In January 2006.

Torture: Still Does Not Work

Let's repeat it again: Torture does not work. On a rare occasion, someone might extract something from an individual they have tortured, but as policy, it is terribly inefficient and does not work. Oh -- and it violates both the law and every sense of morality that the country is supposed to represent, not to mention that it undermines the argument that we are better than our enemies.

9/11

It was seven years ago today, nearly to the moment that I am writing this. I was living in Washington, DC, every bit as much a terrorist target as the Twin Towers were that day, and probably more likely to experience future attacks than any city or region in the United States. I spent most of the day at an ex-girlfriend's house, as her sister was in downtown Manhattan not far from the towers and naturally between that and the myriad rumors of what might be yet to come she was a bit overwhelmed.

Every so often you'll hear someone indignantly proclaim that we have all forgotten about 9/11 and what it meant. When someone blurts that empty declaration I simply wait for the other shoe to drop: What is about to follow is an ideological assertion about what must or must not be done, and those who refuse to follow the prescription thus become implicitly attached to coddlers and appeasers.

In the weeks after 9/11 a false harmony prevailed as the result of the attacks and gaudy flag stickers and t-shirt slogans took the place of both dialogue and debate. And before long some politicians were using 9/11 as a cudgel, dishonoring the memories of those who perished on that day, of those who lost loved ones, and questioning the patriotism of all who ventured to question policies stemming from what had become an earnest but poorly conceived "War on Terror." The inane color-coded terrorism warning spectrum miraculously ratcheted up a notch in 2004 whenever it was electorally convenient, Fargo suddenly in as dire danger as Washington, Texarkana as likely to face imminent destruction as New York. Soon they took our water bottles on the way into sweltering stadia, though they'd happily sell us terror-proof Ozarka for just $4 once we got inside.

I'm sure we'll hear a fresh round of hand-wringing "why have we forgotten 9/11?" assertions as we commemorate what went down on that horrible day seven years ago. But we have not forgotten. Our lives have gone on, just as lives go on after any catastrophe. 9/11 may be frozen in amber in the mind's eye, but it is not frozen in the way that the commemoration fetishists would like for us to believe so that we follow their agendas. Moving on is part of the process of healing, and, paradoxically, of remembering. We are allowed to do that and we must be able to do so without fear of recrimination from the self-righteous.

Grading US Performance in the Struggle Against Global Extremism

At The National Interest Lee H. Hamilton, Bruce Hoffman, Brian Michael Jenkins, Paul R. Pillar, Xavier Raufer, Walter Reich and Fernando Reinares give out grades for American performance in combating global extremism. We do not do well, but it is hard to quibble with the grades either specifically or in toto.

The Cold War and the Terrorist Threat: Self-Indulgence Alert

So it appears that the government is beginning to look to the Cold War to provide a model for how to combat terrorism. That seems like a sound idea. You know when it also seemed like a sound idea? In January 2006 when I proposed just such an idea in an op-ed distributed by History News Service.

The Skirmish on Sanity

TNR online has republished Michelle's Cottle's (typically witty) 2004 Column on the silly excesses of both the "War on Christmas" types and the "no public display of anything even potentially religious" types. I am a pox on all of their houses type, myself. I'm uncomfortable with public (that is, by the state) displays of overt religiousity, but could not imagine, say, a high school choral concert without some sacred music -- from whatever tradition.

One of the aspects of this debate that mosts vexes me is the very term "War on Christmas." Conservatives, who love to play the whole more patriotic than thou card, are the ones proferring this nonsense, and I'm surprised that more people have not raised a simple point: In a time when we are actually at war, it is profoundly offensive to those under fire to have some ninny at Fox News claiming that saying "Happy Holidays" is somehow tantamount to war.

My view has always been that you need to know your audience. Or you need to know what you do not know about your audience. Almost every email I send out these days will have some sort of holiday greeting, even if it is professional. But when I am corresponding with an editor, or a professor, or a student, and if I do not know their religious beliefs and spiritual background, why on earth would I simply assume that they are Christians? Why would I run the risk of receiving a potentially awkward email saying "thanks, but I am actually Jewish"? And to pre-empt that most shopworn of accusations, there is nothing "politically correct" about this approach. The conscious decision not to be a solipsistic asshole is not a manifestation of pc -- it is a manifestation of common civility.

So Happy Holidays. Season's Greetings. Or, as Randy put it on My Name is Earl last week, Feliz Naviblah!