Freedom's Fidelity

Friday, July 08, 2005

Weekend Reading

My thoughts and condolences are with you, Britain.

Lots of interesting London related stuff in the blogosphere today. Here's some stuff that I read:

One of the most valuable post 9/11 thinkers out there, Lee Harris, has some somewhat chilling thoughts on how this conflict should be characterized. Here he makes the case that we are in a blood feud.

Christopher Hitchens, our favorite lefty cantankerous contrarian is always worth the read.

The Moderate Voice looks at some war criticisms, where you'll also find this link, Defective Flypaper?

Harry's Place posts a reply letter he wrote to a friend in London, it is a MUST READ.

And of course, OF COURSE, Wretchard at the Belmont Club is an everyday required reading. Start with this one then just keep scrolling.

And I'll end with this from Jeff Goldstein:

update 19 Atrios, Pandagon, Kos, and - more disturbingly, if it proves predictive of how the Democratic leadership will respond - at least one Democratic congresswoman I'm aware of, are all suggesting that today's London bombings prove that the "flypaper theory" is demonstrably false, this despite the documented fact of thousands upon thousands of jihadis pouring into Iraq each month, where many of them will be killed.

Which, for a group of people who claim to be so nuanced, things really are quite black and white in the reality-based community: if we can't take down every dictator simultaneously, we shouldn't take down even one; if a terror attack happens outside of Iraq, the thousands of terrorists we're killing inside Iraq are no longer part of the equation.

It is infantile to expect every terror attack outside of Iraq can be stopped; and it is ridiculous to extrapolate from a single terror attack the lesson that somehow our entire longterm strategy for defeating Islamic terrorism is faulty. Doing so just serves the terrorist's interests by showing them that such tactics could well weaken our commitment to an overall war strategy of spreading the seeds of democracy throughout the mideast. (Thanks to Allah for the heads up).

posted by Paul  permalink | |