It need hardly be stated that what happened in Nice was
horrible. Beyond that, it feels like part of a game-changer. I don't know how the
game will change, and am not even sure how it should. But it already has, what
with Gingrich's fascistic — yes, utterly fascistic — call to test Muslims to
see if they believe in Sharia law.
Should they hesitate, submit them to lie defectors. If they
fail to pass, waterboard them until they confess. Rebuild Abu Ghraib right
here, on American soil. (Disregard the fact that many of us will refer to it as
Mordor.)
Maybe Muslims should all wear the yellow star. Great idea!
Wrong ethnic group.
So that's not the way the game should change. What's the
right way? Going in with force to rout ISIS from its strongholds and decisively
defeat it? The appeal of the boots on the ground response is hard to discount at
this point. And it's within the scope of American and allied arms. I can
actually hear myself considering it, until I remember how badly all our
interventions in the area go, how ignorant, how self-defeating, we turn out to
be.
Jack Beatty, on OnPoint today, put it well, when he pointed
to the downside of American military interventions, starting with arming the
resistance to the Soviets in Afghanistan. That, on the face of it, unimpeachably
decent thing to do, spawned al Qaeda. Otoh, it has been cited as the single
greatest reason for the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the fall of
Communism, which, despite the advent of Putin, remains an upside. (Jack, in the
interests of historical complexity, you might have alluded to that particular upside.)
There was no such upside to our invasion of Iraq, which Beatty
did not shy away from decrying as having created exactly the Petri dish required
for the growth of ISIS.
Suppose Nice was not in the south of France. We sympathize with
the French, and the victims of that attack, but the Atlantic Ocean provides a
certain welcome distance. What would happen if the next Nice, and there will be
one, was in the United States?
Let's start from basic principles: deport New Gingrich,
delete fascistic responses.
That done, what next?
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